Canon EOS R5 User review and commentary

 

Art gallery of NSW new North building R5 with RF 16mm f2.8.
A versatile compact kit for big interior spaces.

Why I think the R5 is the best all purpose Canon MILC and also the best value.  

Canon entered the full frame mirrorless interchangeable lens camera (MILC) market in 2018 having inexplicably given Sony a 5 year head start.  By the time Canon released its first MILC Sony had produced the third generation of its A7 and A7R series and added a sports oriented A9 to an already successful product catalogue.

The first three Canon full frame MILCs could hardly be described as ground breaking products.

The original EOS R re-used the EOS 5D.4 sensor in a somewhat underwhelming package with ergonomic and performance issues.

The RP re-used the under-performing EOS 6D.2 sensor in a nice but low priced and low performing body.

The R6 re-used the 20 Mpx sensor from the EOS 1DX.3 in a more convincing but still not top tier body.

The history of the camera market tells us that if a camera maker is to survive and prosper they must attract and hold a loyal cohort of professional and serious enthusiast users.

Witness the case of Asahi Pentax which in the middle of the 20^th Century made excellent cameras which were as good as anything else out there. But professionals used their Nikons and Canons.  In 1980 Pentax tried to change the game with their LX SLR built to the highest standards with a host of innovative features plus a huge catalogue of accessories. It was arguably a better camera than the Nikon F3 and Canon F-1 models with which it was designed to compete.

But it came too late and over its 20 year product life lured very few professionals to the Pentax brand. The next problem for Pentax was their tardy introduction of autofocus which ensured the brand’s terminal decline.

The twin messages from the Pentax experience are

1.  Establish a convincing presence in the professional and advanced enthusiast sector early in your corporate life.

2. Keep up with and preferably get ahead of your competitors with new technology.

By mid 2020 Sony had released a second generation A9, a video specialist A7S and  the fourth generation of the high resolution A7R series. Nikon released the second generation of its Z6 and Z7 series then added a Z5 and Z50 to their catalogue.

Canon desperately needed a market booster product. With so much catching up to do, this new model needed to do more than match the competition. It had to leapfrog over existing Sony and Nikon models to establish a new performance and capability standard for both stills and video.

And so, better late than never we finally had the R5, after more than a year of rumors and repeated pre-announcements. After some initial setbacks with overheating in video and a series of corrective and upgrading firmware updates the R5 does in fact fulfil its brief in convincing fashion.

The R5 is the first Canon full frame MILC to offer an all-new and very good high pixel count sensor, dual pixel AF combined with a fast processor, damped shutter, excellent EVF and fully articulated touch screen monitor and highly capable stills and video performance in an ergonomically well executed compact package which is a pleasure to use.

I think that if Canon had not been able to produce the R5 it would not now be top camera maker but would be languishing around where Nikon sits in the market standings with Sony leading  by a large margin.

My own experience with Canon full frame MILCs started with an EOS R then an RP. I later took a side trip down the crop sensor path with the R7 and R10 but that did not last very long.   I eventually sold all these cameras in favour of the R5.

The R5 with one of the RF mount compact lenses is barely larger than the Leica Q2 compact but much nicer to hold and operate and much more versatile.
Original photos courtesy of camerasize.com

Why is the R5 so special ?

Consider Sony’s many offerings in the full frame MILC space. You can have the A7.4 which is a good mid range general purpose all-rounder or the A7R.5 if you want high resolution or the A7S.3 for best video capability or the A9.2 for sport and action. But if you want all of these capabilities in one package you will be looking at the A1.

Camera prices in Australia are all over the place these days but just looking at today’s price from one online vendor the Sony A1 is listed at AU$8599 including GST.

What about Nikon ? The offerings here are more limited but much the same story applies. If you want a high capability do-everything model look at the Z9 currently priced at AU$8899.

The Canon EOS R5 is also a very competent high capability, do-everything stills and video model which even now two and a half years after release can fulfil the most demanding professional and advanced enthusiast requirements. Current price is around AU$5,500.

And the package is just right. The A1 is arguably too small for average adult hands without the accessory battery grip or one of the smaller grip extenders available. The Z9 is huge by mirrorless standards and the vertical grip is integrated so it cannot be removed.

The handle  on the R5 is just tall enough for a comfortable five finger grip by most adults and there is an accessory battery grip available if required.

When a new camera model is introduced to the market there is usually a burst of comparisons between the new model and existing ones from the same and other makers. So we see long lists of comparisons of sensor pixel count, EVF and monitor pixel count, burst rate, battery life and on and on with stuff mostly just lifted from the specifications provided by the maker.

Then the measurebators weigh in with comparisons of dynamic range, high ISO noise and similar technical stuff.  Some reviewers like to underexpose and overexpose test shots by five EV steps then try to bring back the resulting file to normal lightness in Photoshop. No doubt this is of interest to those who like to study sensor characteristics but the relevance to photography is a bit unclear. Surely if I have under or overexposed a shot by 5 EV steps that is a mistake by any standard and not representative of normal expectations of the product.

These things tell us hardly anything about what the camera is like to use over a long period and whether it might make a worthwhile purchase.

So what does matter ?

Quality   Whether it be image quality or build quality there is not much use investing in a camera system unless the quality is high.  The R5 delivers quality in abundance. This translates to a satisfying user experience and good resale value when the time comes to move on to the next model update.

Reliability   Nobody wants a camera all or part which stops working at the critical moment. Canon cameras including the R5 have a good reputation for reliability even in difficult conditions. All  R5 functions are reliable including exposure, focussing and color rendition.

Practicality  The R5 is a workhorse device not a show pony.  

Nobody says
“oh….innit  loverley…”  Reviewers and some others do say this about some camera models, for instance the Nikon Zfc. This, I kid you not, is available in 13 colors. Here they are: beige, black, brown, chalk blue, crimson red, green, grey, midnight grey, mustard yellow, olive green, pink, walnut brown and white.  Some years ago Pentax tried this many colors gambit with their ill fated Pentax Q mini mirrorless interchangeable lens models which vanished from sight about a month after they were announced. I can’t help wondering if Nikon might get more market share  by expending their energies on developing better cameras as Canon and Sony have been doing in recent times.

 The R5  is useful for getting any kind of imaging job done.  The R5 shutter automatically closes when the camera is powered off. This together with the ultrasonic dust removal system keeps the sensor clean even when changing lenses. My camera has not required a wet sensor clean in over two years. Weather resistance keeps the camera working even in poor conditions.

Canon MILCs use handlebar type strap lugs. These are much easier to use than the other, protruding type and they never dig into the user's hands. 

Most EOS MILCs including the R5 have a fully articulating touch screen monitor. This is very handy. I use all the available movements frequently.

Versatility  The R5 is small enough to be used as a compact camera with the right lens and capable enough to work perfectly with the largest and longest lenses in the catalogue. It has enough pixels for high resolution poster prints, enough speed for sport, action and birds in flight and enough dynamic range for difficult lighting situations.

Support  Canon has long established systems in place in many countries for delivering levels of support to owners. In addition in some regions Canon offers extended warranty support. Canon has an active ongoing programme to deliver functionality upgrades to bodies and lenses via firmware revisions.

System   It is early days in the life of the RF mount system but Canon has grown the catalogue to include 9 camera bodies and 29 lenses with the number growing all the time.

Usability  The R5 is a pleasure to use. It is largely free from idiosyncrasies, faults and foibles. It achieves the best ergonomic score of any camera which I have tested over the last ten years. The size and shape of the body, handle and thumb support are as good as any I have encountered. All the controls are well positioned and incorporate good haptics.  The shutter is quiet and  does not produce shutter shock (if EFCS is used).

Complaints  I have just two complaints about the R5, the least of any camera which I have ever owned.

The first is about a specific autofocus case. I photograph wildflowers in the Sydney region. Many of these are very small. Quite often the camera will lock focus on the background instead of looking for the flower which is much closer.  I have developed workarounds for this such as placing my hand adjacent to the flower and forcing focus on that to get the AF system  looking in the right place. But I would prefer to have the option of giving the camera an instruction such as “seek and focus on nearest object in frame” or similar.

The second is that the R5 can sometimes impart a magenta color cast on photos. This is not common in my experience but can require corrective intervention when it does happen. I have seen it when a lot of green in the subject can trick the auto white balance algorithms into an incorrect color balance in the output file.

The EOS R5 as best value RF mount camera     Given that the R5 costs more than 4x as much as the entry level R10  I guess many readers might have difficulty with the notion that the R5 might represent best value in the RF mount system.  However I will try to make the case.

It goes like this:

Let us say we are not quite sure what to think about these new RF mount mirrorless cameras but we would like to find out. So we get an R10 with a kit lens. All good. That is a nice camera which is quite capable in its own right and enjoyable to use. But then we see that every other model in the catalogue offers something more by way of sensor size or image quality or specifications or features or capabilities or ergonomics or all of those things.  So we might trade up to a full frame model, maybe an R or RP. All good, but now we need to spend up for at least one, maybe two full frame lenses. After a while we think……my camera is pretty good but I could get an even better one…….

And eventually we come to the point of deciding the R5 is the one.

So we make the commitment and take proud possession of an R5. And yes, it is indeed better than any of our previous cameras. Which is fine but had we gone directly to the R5 we would have spent  a lot less money and had the use of the best model all along.

Of course if we are perfectly happy with an entry or mid level model in perpetuity then my argument is moot.  However once set on a path it can be difficult for us to ignore the promised destination and resist the pull of GAS (gear acquisition syndrome).

Summary    The EOS R5 is the best all purpose interchangeable lens camera that I have owned in my 56 years of using cameras with interchangeable lenses. The only problem I have now is a lack of interest in rumors and announcements about new models unless it is about an R5 mark 2.