Canon EOS R5 - More Megapixels + 6 Month Review

A few years ago - while in the Volcanic Tablelands outside of Bishop - I ran over my camera. I'd accidentally left it on the front bumper before racing down a bumpy gravel road in search of petroglyphs. It was a tragedy.

At the time, I wrestled between getting another Canon DSLR and "upgrading" to Canon's new mirrorless, full-frame RF line - at the time, composed of the 45-megapixel R5 and 20-megapixel R6 models.

Megapixel comparison of the various Canon cameras I was considering.

Ultimately, I decided to purchase the much less expensive R6, hoping that the slight decrease in megapixels - four fewer than the Canon 80D that I'd crushed to bits - wouldn't be a big deal. And, for all intents and purposes, it wasn't. The R6 and associated glass were a fantastic system, and I've been happy with the results I've gotten in a myriad of lighting conditions ever since (2-year review). But I've always wondered what it would be like to have more megapixels to work with when it came to cropping.

I don't crop much. In fact, I try to crop as infrequently as possible, usually only to change the aspect ratio of an image for layout in a story. But there are times when my longest lens - at 240mm - just isn't long enough to fill the frame with my subject. And almost always, it seems like that subject is some amazing jet streaking by in the distance.

So small when uncropped.

In the years since I purchased the R6, Canon has continued to fill out the RF lineup, adding the R1, R3, R8, R10, R50, and R100 to their arsenal. More importantly, they've update both the R5 and R6 with new "mark ii" versions, reducing the price of the "mark 1" models dramatically.

I'd originally been thinking that I might pick up an R5mkii when they were released, hoping that its updated feature set would offer improved autofocus, longer battery life - my only real complaint about the original R6 - and most importantly, a long-rumored 45-megapixel global shutter. However, this global shutter - which allows for simultaneous readout of the entire sensor, eliminating high-speed blur that can be present in sensors that scan line-by-line - turned out to be wishful thinking, and that in turn got me wondering if I really needed an R5mkii.

With the original R5 now nearly $2000 cheaper than it was at release - and more than $2000 less than the new R5mkii - it seemed like a smarter choice, and I always like smarter, even if I'm not always smarter myself.

Finally mine.

Besides upgrading my megapixels, the R5 also brings along a weatherproof body, a slightly better electronic viewfinder, storage via CFExpress in addition to SD, and a few other bits and bobs that I'll probably never really take advantage of. Otherwise, it's nearly identical - certainly in ergonomics - as the R6 that I am already used to, and for that I am glad.

Canon R6 body. (left) | Canon R5 body. (right)

Of course, this means that it shares many of the same pros and cons of the Canon R6, which I've outlined in a previous review. I'll include those aspects here again, and note new ones (in orange) that I've noticed in the last 6 months that I've been using the R5.

First though, the highlights of this camera for anyone not familiar:

A beast of a camera.

Pros:

• Ergonomics. I expected to like the ergonomics, since they are so similar to previous Canon DSLR bodies. While I had to learn a few different actions with various buttons/controls, it was incremental and now I like the new setup better.
• Autofocus. The autofocus system on the new Canon cameras is amazing. There are so many more focus points, they focus faster, and the resulting images just seem sharper.
• Focus point selection. On the 80D, when the screen on the rear was activated, I could tap in a location to focus there and take a photo. The R5 takes that a step further - when using the viewfinder, the back screen becomes a "focus trackpad," and is exactly where my thumb rests, so I can quickly move focus around in the frame and then let the amazing autofocus take over.
• Low light. The full-frame sensor is great in low light. Mornings and evenings, as well as night (star) shots are great. Two big differences over the 80D: shutter speed is faster, and noise in the resulting image is reduced. Night shots have become a pleasure, and low-light images in mine adits with colorful puck LEDs are a lot of fun.
• Exposure Preview. As a mirrorless camera, the R5 has an electronic viewfinder. That means that when you look through the viewfinder, you're actually looking at a screen instead of looking out the lens. One benefit of that is that any settings you change are immediately reflected in what you are looking at - the viewfinder shows you the exposure you'll get in the end result.
• Bluetooth and GPS. This has been a nice surprise. The 80D also had Bluetooth communication with a phone, but only for shutter release, and establishing/maintaining a connection was tedious and unreliable. The Bluetooth on the R5 is great. Pair it with a phone running Canon's app, and it will automatically (and quickly) re-pair any time the app is running. Then, the phone can be used for shutter control, settings control, and will send GPS coordinates to the camera for each photo. Now that's cool.
• Shutter speed of the RF 15-35 F2.8 L USM lens (esp. in low light). Wow. I was told prior to purchasing the 24-240mm F4-F6.3 lens that I should get something "faster," and I didn't really understand what that meant. Now, with the F2.8 L, I do. This lens is magical from a shutter speed perspective, allowing handheld shots in near dark conditions. It's amazing. I find myself wishing there was an F2.8 version of my 24-240mm lens now.
• More megapixels on the R5 gives me the ability to crop more than I was able in the past, with either the 80D or R6. I haven't been able to tell yet if I think this is better because I want it to be better or because it actually is better, but it does seem that I can zoom in on tiny planes a bit more than I could in the past.

Cons:

• Power management. This really boils down to activation of the electronic viewfinder. With the 80D, I rarely turned the camera off. When I wasn't depressing the shutter button, the system was essentially in some deep sleep mode, using almost no power. With the R5 (and other R-series bodies), the only way to "see" anything is to illuminate the back screen or electronic viewfinder, so the camera has to be "on" much more of the time. In fact, a sensor below the viewfinder turns the viewfinder on any time something comes near it (presumably your eye, but in practice, anything). Because of the way I hold the camera when I'm hiking, my hand is constantly passing over the sensor, so the viewfinder turns on. I didn't realize this on the first day I was using the camera, and the battery died after two hours - just before I reached the destination of my hike! The solution is to turn the camera off between shots (when I'm walking around), which is just a new workflow I'll have to get used to. Frankly, I'm already starting to get used to it.
• Battery life. (Closely related to Power Management.) When I first got the R6, my first battery died after only half a day. I wasn't sure I was going to keep the camera - it was that bad. With the 80D, I could go 3-4 days and maybe 1200 photos on a single battery charge; with the R6 (and now R5), I have averaged about 1.5-2 days and 400-600 photos. In the end, now that my batteries easily last through a day of shooting, this has become less of a big deal.
• RF mount lens caps. I don't know what Canon was thinking here, but the caps that cover the end of the lens that connects to the body can only engage the lens in a single orientation. With my EF-S caps, they engaged in maybe 4 positions, so I didn't have to get them lined up perfectly, which was great for sightless operation. With the RF covers, concentration is required.
• The size of the RF 15-35 F2.8 L USM lens. My old wide-angle lens was 2.4" wide x 2.8" long and weighed 8.5oz, easily fitting in my front pants pocket. The new wide angle is 3.5" wide x 5" long and weighs nearly 2lbs. Those sizes may not seem like much, but they are significant.
• More megapixels mean larger files. The files created by the 20-megapixel R6 were approximately 20MB each; those created by the 45-megapixel R5 are close to 45MB. This consumes more room on memory cards, more room on disk, and results in slower processing time in Lightroom. Luckily - at least for the time being - this wasn't a big deal on my 2-year-old desktop computer. Unluckily, I'd been using an 8-year-old laptop to do a bit of photo processing on trips, and it was not up to the task with the new, larger files. An 8-year-old laptop is getting a bit long in the tooth anyway, so I picked up an Asus ProArt PX13, which has more than enough oomph to handle the larger files.

So far, I'm really enjoying the R5, and I highly recommend it - or its little brother R6 - to anyone looking for a new camera body. Now, if only I could convince myself to buy the Canon RF 100-500mm f4.5-7.1 L IS USM lens I've had my eye on for a while.

 

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