Canon EOS R5 PHOTOGRAPHY review (Res, Noise, DR, AF, IBIS, LE, GPS)

hi i'm gordon from camera labs and in this video i'm going to review the photo quality and features of the canon eos r5 yep you heard me right a camera review on youtube which apart from a quick frame grabbing demo doesn't mention video at all all my test samples and results were also made with a boxed final production eos r5 camera and all my rf lenses were also updated to their latest firmware for the best stabilization don't forget to update your own rf lenses when using them on the r5 or r6 i know many of you are mostly or even only interested in cameras for their stills capabilities so this review is for you i'll be examining the resolution noise dynamic range focus stabilization and continuous shooting of the eos r5 along with making a bunch of comparisons to help you decide if the r5 or indeed another model is right for you since i've already covered the basics in my hands-on first looks review i'm going to jump right into the performance here but if you'd like to know more about the design controls ports or just a general overview of the r5 do check out that video and if you're interested in the video performance of the r5 check out my separate reviews of that side of the camera now this isn't a sponsored video and i try to minimize the ads on youtube so if you find any of my work useful please do support me with a like and a follow it only takes a moment to click those buttons but it really helps thanks and on with the review starting with the overall handling for stills the sr5 body felt solid comfortable and confident in my hands not dissimilar to shooting with the eos 5d mark iv with which it also shares roughly similar weather ceiling i already liked the top information screen inherited from the original esr but it's now complemented with more traditional controls including three dials and a joystick it's comfortable intuitive and very familiar to existing canon owners too allowing you to get started quickly i also liked how you can choose whether the shutter is closed or open when you remove lenses in terms of composition the viewfinder resolution size may have since been trumped by sony's a7s mark iii but the 5.76 million dot panel is nothing to be sniffed at providing a nice large image with plenty of detail and a fast refresh rate that allows you to easily follow fast action even when set to the slowest 60 hertz mode and while the flip screen may appeal more to video shooters at first glance i enjoyed using it to comfortably frame still photos in the portrait orientation at high or low angles moving straight on to photo quality the new 45 megapixel full frame sensor captures images with 8192 by 5464 pixels there's three smaller sizes available for compressed jpeg or hip files but raw files are all recorded at the full resolution and available in normal or compressed versions you can record images in the native three by two shape or in one to one four by three or sixteen by nine as well as in a 1.6 times crop mode where the resolution falls to about 17 megapixels and that's what you'll be getting if you fit efs lenses in the crop mode meanwhile if you enable hdrpq the r5 switches jpegs to the hif format with the same size and accompanying raw options now hif is a new format which means we can all argue over how we pronounce it i asked some engineers and they told me it rhymed with tiff hiff tiff that works for me but let me know what you think now software support for hip files remains in its infancy i had to rename the file extension to h-e-i-f just to get photoshop to even open them but with a 10-bit dynamic range on the r5 they do capture a greater tonal range than standard jpegs without the need to post-process raw to give you an idea of what's possible the r5 like the 1dx3 before it lets you convert hiff to jpeg in camera from the playback menus in this shot of brighton p you can see how the entire sky looks washed out and completely saturated on the hiff file but by automatically adjusting the levels and converting it to a jpeg in camera you can clearly see how bright highlight detail has been recovered it's an easy workflow that's worth experimenting with even if your photo editing program doesn't yet support hif moving on to resolving power i tested the r5 by photographing a standard test chart before zooming in for closer examination and comparison i'll show you how it compares side by side with three other esr cameras as well as the sony a7s mark iii and lumix s1r frustratingly i couldn't get hold of an a7r mark 4 for this particular review but i do plan to update my page at cameralabs.com later first up the eos r5 at the top and the eos r6 in the bottom where as you'd expect the r5 is comfortably out resolving its more affordable 20 megapixel sibling but for many the more important comparison will be against the original eos r now seen here in the bottom the eos r shares the same 30 megapixel sensor as the eos 5d mark iv and improves a little upon the r6 but perhaps not by as much as you'd expect from its extra 10 megapixels switching the eos r for the budget rp which recycles the 26 megapixel sensor from the 6d mark ii and you'll see a result that roughly matches the r6 despite its 6 extra megapixels so the r5 as you'd expect delivers the most detailed images in the eos r range but the surprise may be how close the r6 comes to the r and rp again i didn't have access to an a7r mark iv at the time of testing but i did compare it against the lumix s1r which at 47 megapixels shares a similar resolution to the r5 sharpening and optical differences aside they're actually fairly close here although i'd say the canon r5 still enjoys the edge at least in this mode now switch the s1r into its high resolution composite mode and it will take a slight lead and it's a shame that the r5 doesn't offer a pixel shift mode at least not yet and i'm still impressed by the crispness and resolution from the sensor straight out of camera and while it seems unfair to compare the 12 megapixel a7s mark iii against the 45 megapixel r5 here's how it looks just for fun where unsurprisingly it falls way behind on photo resolution that said under ideal conditions the a7r mark iv should slightly out resolve the r5 in terms of pure photo resolution and i do hope to add a direct comparison to my review at cameralabs.com in the future to compare noise levels i photograph this still life composition with all four esr cameras and the a7 s3 at each of their iso sensitivities before cropping into out of camera jpegs for closer examination all of the images were taken with identical exposures so any differences in brightness is down to their actual sensitivity variations i've cropped the same section of the flowers with final cut scaling them to the height of the frame so higher resolution body should reveal greater detail at lower isos but may suffer at higher sensitivities from greater noise i'd love to hear which camera you think is delivering the better results in this comparison let's start with the eos r5 on the left and the r6 on the right first at 100 iso then 200 iso 400 800 1600 3200 6400 800 25 600 and finally 51 200 iso which is the maximum for the r5 the r6 continues one stop alone further to 102 400 iso next up the r5 still on the left with the original eos r on the right which again also represents the 5d mark 4 dslr first at 100 iso then 200 iso 400 1600 3200 6400 12800 25600 iso and finally 51 200 iso for the r5 on the left and 40 000 iso for the r on the right which is its maximum sensitivity okay now for the r5 still on the left and the budget eos rp on the right hand side which also represents the eos 6d mark ii dslr first at 100 iso then 200 400 800 1600 3200 6400 12800 25600 and finally 51 200 iso for the r5 and again 40 000 iso for the rp which is its maximum sensitivity and finally there are five on the left against the sony a7s mark iii on the right first at 100 iso then 400 800 1600 3200 6400 12800 25600 and finally for the r5 51 200 iso the a7 s3 continues to 102 400 iso then to 204 800 iso before bravely offering 409 600 iso oh it doesn't look that great does it from these results i'd say the eos r5 actually does a great job of balancing resolution and noise but again i'd love to hear what you think moving on to dynamic range here's a photo i took under brighton pier with the r500 iso where all the shadow detail is hidden as well as most of the bright highlight tones in the sky particularly on the right hand side now i used an adobe beta to convert my r5 raw file into a dng which i could then process in adobe camera raw and when i reduce the exposure you can see some sky tones recovering on the right and when i lengthen the exposure the shadow detail returns quite effectively under the pier zooming in also reveals noises fairly well controlled and there's plenty of detail recovered here in an attempt to retrieve tones at both ends of the range though i'll first reduce the highlight slider to bring back some color to the sky before then greatly boosting the shadow slider it's just about getting there but needs to be brightened overall so boosting the exposure by about one stop on top of those previous adjustments maximizes the recovered areas zooming in also shows a pretty clean result and this is without tweaking the noise reduction at all now the final result may or may not be to your taste but it's a world apart from the original image when i reset the sliders moving on the r5 and r6 become canon's first eos cameras with built-in censorship stabilization which in theory should reduce shake on any lens you attach new and old to find out i tested it with three different lenses starting with the rf 24-105 f4 lis which you can see here with stabilization disabled and activating it after which the view for composition is so much steadier if you're using a lens with optical image stabilization it'll work alongside the sensor stabilization with the best results coming from rf lenses this is thanks to their improved communications with the body if you update the firmware on rf lenses with is you'll see a plus symbol next to the hand icon indicating enhanced stabilization now this plus symbol doesn't appear when using older ef lenses with is although the body will still work alongside the optical stabilization now canon quotes up to eight stops of compensation when using the rf 24-105 at 105 mil although in my tests i actually managed closer to five stops with this lens on the day next up an unstabilized rf lens the rf50 mil f 1.2 l first without stabilization enabled where the view is wobbly during composition before turning it on in the menus and returning to a much more desirable experience this is a huge benefit of ibis enjoying stable composition and longer handheld exposures on lenses without optical stabilization of their own and it absolutely transforms the usability of lenses like the 50mm 1.2 rf-85 1.2 and rf-2870 f2 note the hand icon no longer has that plus symbol as the lens doesn't include its own optical stabilization now canon quotes up to seven stops of compensation with the rf 50mm 1.2 l on the r5 although in my own tests i only managed around four stops now for an unstabilized ef lens the ef 85 millimeter f 1.8 adapted to the r5 body and showing a shaky image in the viewfinder with the ibis disabled after enabling ios in the menu the view during composition becomes much steadier and while it's not quite as effective as the rf 50mm in my previous example it still makes it a considerably more usable experience again note the hand icon missing the plus symbol here although this applies to all ef lenses whether they have is or not this time i managed to hand hold four stops slower than without ibis enabled i also tested the rf247tf 2.8 l another native lens with is that canon claims up to eight stops of compensation when fitted to the r5 in my own test i managed five stops versus the unstabilized version now everybody's experience differs with image stabilization but while my own results fell several stops below canon's ambitious quotes ibis on the r5 and the r6 was still extremely valuable giving me five stops of compensation with native ios lenses and four with everything else plus as you saw in my demos it's not just about hand holding longer exposures but also enjoying a much steadier view as you compose it's brilliant to finally have ibis on canon eos cameras moving on to focus starting with the single one-shot mode a single af area in the rf 2472.8 at 70mm 2.8 as you can see focusing with the native rf lens on the r5 can be really very swift with the camera locking onto the subject almost instantly i have no complaints focusing with the native rf lenses and have more examples in just a moment but first how about focusing with an adapted ef lens here's my ef 85 1.8 prime lens once again and while it's not as fast as the previous rf zoom it's still focusing as quickly as it would on a dslr the slower speed is actually down to this particular lens i feel canon's done a great job of focusing adapted ef lenses in live view starting with its dslrs and now maturing onto its full-frame ruler system canon's also improved its face and eye detection on the r5 and r6 and here you can see it in action on the r5 fitted with the rf's 24-70 2.8 at around 35 mil 2.8 previously the only other system which could lock onto an eye at this kind of distance was sony but now canon's effectively matched it while also tracking the subject's head when it turns away the speed response and stickiness of the r5's autofocus system represents a major upgrade over the eos r and rp and becomes one of the most effective on the market eye detection isn't just for human subjects though canon's added animal eye detection for dogs cats and even birds and here you can see the af box identify and follow the seagulls eyes i just my framing but wait it also works when the birds in flight here you can see the object recognition lock onto the entire bird while it's distant before switching to eye detection when it gets closer like sony for the best results you'll need to manually select human or animal from the face detection menu but in action it's still very impressive and while sony can also track birds in flight effectively it won't yet go as far as to offer eye detection for birds so a technology win for cannon over its rival here during my testing comet neowise was present in the night sky albeit barely visible to the naked eye from my own location but thanks to the gain applied by mirrorless cameras it became easily visible in the viewfinder of the r5 increasing the gain unsurprisingly raises the visible noise levels especially when zoomed in to confirm focus but the ability to simply see and focus on something that's essentially invisible to the naked eye not to mention a dslr viewfinder remains an absolute delight moving on to the drive modes the r5 has the choice of three shutters the default electronic first curtain which reduces noise and vibration by opening the shutter electronically but closing it mechanically to avoid artifacts or you can choose fully mechanical or fully electronic shutters the latter operating in complete silence but with the usual caveats here's a series of bursts taken with the electronic first curtain shutter and 12 frames per second drive mode while panning with the r5 at 100 mil and as you'd expect the tall tower and the buildings are all vertical next a series panning at the same speed but with the fully electronic shutter and 20 frames per second drive and this time notice how the tower and buildings are sloping to the side this skewing effect is down to the sensor readout speed and is typical for most electronic shutter modes although different cameras suffer to different degrees i found the r5 was actually pretty well behaved for rolling shutter and noticeably superior to the r6 in this regard also beware of using the electronic shutter under artificial lighting as you may experience banding effects due to flickering so as always electronic shutters can be great for achieving high burst speeds and shooting in silence but just be aware of their limitations the normal shutter itself is fairly quiet and used though and here's how the default electronic first curtain mode sounds and now for the fully mechanical shutter which is a little louder but far from obtrusive next let's have a burst with a mechanical shutter which canon quotes is running at a top speed of 12 frames per second 12 frames per second is a big step up from the previous esr cameras allowing you to easily capture quick bursts of action like this goose having a bath oh and i use the animal eye detection here too now during this sequence the subject remains a fairly static distance so what happens with subjects in greater motion so here's ben cycling towards me with the rs 70 to 200 mil f 2.8 l at 200 mil 2.8 using the face tracking with servo continuous autofocus and the electronic first curtain shutter running at the fastest drive speed in this sequence every single shot was in focus and checking the timestamp of each image also confirmed the r5 achieved and maintained a burst speed of 12 frames per second over a six second period and with servo autofocus 2. here's the same test but this time using the fully electronic shutter which claims a top speed at 20 frames per second again with the rf 7200 mil 2.8 l at 200 200mm 2.8 the r5 delivered a 100 hit rate in this test and again when checking the timestamps the camera maintained the quoted top speed of 20 frames per second over a seven second period impressive given the moving subject and servo af mode now in all of my af and burst tests i was using the default settings in case while ben cycled straight towards me there was little concern over skewing due to the rolling shutter but as he cycled past and i panned quickly to follow you'll notice some difference between the mechanical shutter on the left and the electronic shutter on the right with a little distortion on the latter again while the r5 readout is faster than many rivals do use the electronic shutter with caution you've already seen a preview of the eos r5 tracking seagulls with its new animal eye detection so here's a selection of images i took during that session all were taken with the rf70 to 200 mil 2.8 l mostly at 200 mil 2.8 and using the tracking auto focus mode all of these were taken with the electronic first curtain shutter and again when checking the timestamps the camera was achieving and maintaining its maximum burst speed with this shutter of 12 frames per second the r5 and rf 7200 2.8 proved to be a formidable combination for close range action and wildlife effortlessly tracking subjects and delivering very high or even perfect hit rates at speeds of 12 or 20 frames per second when using the electronic shutter it's particularly striking when compared to the original eos r and rp which really failed to impress for action and when compared side by side with the new models they feel positively sluggish indeed it's the speed and confidence of the r5 and r6 which will be most apparent to existing eos r owners and arguably one of the biggest reasons to upgrade oh and i never experienced any overheating on the r5 when shooting still photos even during long bursts on a hot day if 12 or 20 frames per second aren't fast enough to capture the moment you can alternatively film short video clips and grab jpeg stills from them albeit in the 16x9 shape here i'm playing an 8k clip i filmed on the r5 before shuttling to the moment i'd like and choosing frame grab in the case of 8k video the r5 can grab still jpg images measuring an impressive 35 megapixels and here's how this one looked again the 16x9 shape may be wider than standard stills but there's still plenty of detail for cropping and remembering you're capturing a moment at up to 30 frames per second here's another example this time grab from 4k 120p footage where the resolution is reduced to 8 megapixels but you are capturing 120 frames per second if you're filming with the intention of frame grabbing though be sure to choose photo friendly shutter speeds or you may see motion blur for example here i shot with a video friendly shutter speed of 250th percent for the 120p footage which looks great for video and playback but isn't fast enough to freeze the action on a still photo new to the r5 is portrait lighting allowing you to adjust the lighting on a face after the event to use it you'll need to shoot in raw and enable dual pixel raw for the menus then in playback you'll find dp raw processing which exploits the data gathered by dual pixel autofocus to perform portrait relighting or clarity adjustments the former lets you choose an existing portrait shot in dp raw of course although it needs a well-defined face to work with here's one and after pressing set you can use the touch interface to drag a simulated light source to any side of the face indicated by a dot inside that circle in the top left corner the effect can be subtle but you should see the light source effectively move around my face potentially reducing shadows here's another example where i'm strongly lit on one side but dp raw with portrait relighting is allowing me to brighten and balance the other side of my face i'm not sure how much i'd use this feature myself but it's a fun way to exploit the technology behind the sensor and image processor i also wanted to mention gps tagging as many comments were left on my first looks video lamenting the absence of a receiver built into the camera now like all recent canon cameras the r5 can effectively tag images with location via your smartphone that's linked by bluetooth and the canon app running in the background once set up the process happens seamlessly and without further interaction automatically embedding the location provided by your phone although the accuracy of course depends on the phone and its view of the sky i used it here to tag the location of brighton pier during a long exposure shoot and my phone was the samsung galaxy s20 speaking of long exposures when set to bulb mode the r5 unlocks its bulb timer allowing you to dial in whatever exposure length you desire here's an image i took with a two minute exposure and with long exposure noise reduction disabled look closely and there's a couple of hot pixels but in general this is a clean looking image i should also mention bluetooth again with the canon app allows you to trigger the camera with your phone very responsively with a low power bluetooth connection so it effectively eliminates the need for a cable release the r5 also includes a multiple exposure mode with up to nine frames in camera hdr with a variety of effects focus bracketing for up to 999 shots albeit without in-camera stacking you'll need to do that yourself with software later a built-in interval timer and a separate mode that can generate time-lapse movies and camera if you like okay now for a bunch of sample images i took with a final production eos r5 around brighton and london with a variety of lenses they're all jpegs out of camera and you can access the original files via my r5 review page at cameralabs.com now i've always personally liked canon's outer camera style and the r5 doesn't disappoint with images packed with detail low noise at high isos plenty of latitude for tonal adjustments and pleasing colours while 5gsr owners may feel they're not beaten on resolution they're certainly roughly matched here with the r5 comfortably out resolving all other models in the range crucially it not only delivers a step up in quality over existing eos r mirrorless cameras but a transformative upgrade in speed and overall handling over those models this is a camera that can pretty much do it all in terms of still photography and compared to the competition only really lacks a pixel shift mode to further boost detail of course sony's a7r4 and panasonic's s1r also share a similarly capable high resolution hybrid feature set but this is the first time canon's come close with its full-frame ruler system and it will prove very tempting for existing canon owners looking to upgrade the canon eos r5 may have had a bumpy start for video as expectations and reality took a rollercoaster ride but judged as a stills camera alone for traditional photography it's hard to find fault the body and controls feel great in your hands the 45 megapixel sensor captures detailed images with low noise its focus and drive modes allow it to confidently capture fast action or wildlife the ibis effectively irons out wobbles to transform unstabilized lenses both new and old and there's a wealth of features from an interval timer to focus bracketing 5d4 owners may lament the loss of a gps receiver but pairing with your phone over bluetooth can deliver a seamless experience and the upgraded wi-fi will also easily transfer images over ftp if you like and even if you have no interest in video the 8k mode allows you to effectively capture 35 megapixel images up to 30 times a second for short bursts what's not to like the battery life could be longer although in use i always got more than the quoted figures the ibis may not have delivered the claimed degree of compensation in my own tests but it still remained genuinely useful there's no pixel shift mode to further enhance detail no low resolution raw files and the high bit rates required for the flagship movie modes mean that one of those dual card slots has to accommodate cf express cards so if you need dual cards just for redundant backup or still photos one of them will need to be an unnecessarily expensive cf card that said investing in cf express will let you try out 8k video for 35 megapixel frame grabbing but do remember once you've recorded roughly 20 minutes worth of 8k even across multiple clips you will need to switch the camera off for cooling down but i don't want to dwell on video issues in this review as when used for traditional stills alone overheating was never a problem during my tests while the sony a7r iv and lumix s1 are the most obvious rivals for the eos r5 it's the r6 that many people will be wearing it up against the overall handling from ibis to focus to drive speed and even rear controls is actually essentially the same between the two models and while the top controls are different some may actually prefer the simple mode dial of the r6 the build isn't as tough on the r6 and the viewfinder resolution is lower but the biggest difference is the main sensor with the r6 resolution unsurprisingly falling way below the r5 although actually roughly matching what you can achieve with the existing r and rp which is reassuring for owners of those models who understandably don't want to downgrade in photo detail if they go for one of these new models so if you're happy with the resolution of the r6 and don't need 8k or 4k 120 then the r6 becomes a tempting alternative at a much more affordable price ultimately the eos r5 arguably becomes canon's best overall camera for stills photography outperforming and out featuring pretty much every model it's released to date pro sports and wildlife specialists may still find reasons to prefer the 1dx mark iii such as for its larger battery optical viewfinder being preferable in some situations and a bulletproof build but for everyone else the r5 is simply hard to beat crucially ill tempt owners of previous high-end dslrs from the 5d and 7d series while also delivering a big upgrade for early adopters of the esr system cannon may have fallen behind sony on features and performance in recent years but the r5 matches or even surpasses its arch rival in some respects now don't get me wrong the a7r iv not to mention the lumix s1 remain compelling rivals which you should compare closely if you're not brand loyal but for the canon faithful the r5 becomes the model to aspire to not to mention a worthy flagship in the legendary 5 series oh and it'll also film pretty respectable video but that's another story for a separate review right that's it for this particular video what did you think of splitting photo and video into two separate reviews i'll still combine them for most cameras but there was just so much to talk about on the r5 that i felt it deserved separate treatments either way if you found any of this useful you can tip me with a like and a follow it only takes a moment and really makes a difference and as always if i've saved you money or even just kept you entertained for a bit you can make my day with a coffee donation or how about treating yourself to my in-camera photography book or a camera labs t-shirt there's links for all of this along with price checking in the description and pin comment thanks for watching look out for my other r5 reviews and i'll see you next time bye

Channel: Gordon Laing

Views: 167,126

Rating: 4.9480309 out of 5

Keywords: Canon, EOS, R5, review, R5 vs R6, R5 vs R, R5 vs RP, R6 vs RP, R6 vs R, R5 vs A7S III

Id: YT5GeNH3Ip0

Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 03 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/csbphoto]

The animal af and eye af is really impressive!

[u/Sassywhat]

Maintaining a full 12/20FPS with servo AF at a ~100% hit rate was unexpected and impressive.

The electronic shutter readout speed being significantly better than the 1DXIII/R6 was also a surprise considering the higher resolution.

[u/photenth]

Waiting for mine to be delivered. Given the shortages that Canon encountered, I have no idea when that will be...

I really really wish the animal detection works as I've seen it in all these videos. I don't expect the AF to beat the 1DXII that I use for birding, but if it can lock on and keep everything cleanly in focus. I'll take the few lower FPS (with mechanical shutter) if my keeper rate improves. We'll see how well it will work with the super tele lenses and how annoying the slight "black out" with the EVF is.

[u/fieldOfThunder]

I almost never shoot video, so the overheating in video modes is a non-issue for me. Seems like an amazing stills camera!

[u/maybl8r99]

Gordon has coffee fingers for yonks so his 5-stops effective stabilisation should translate to really-really good stabilisation :D

[u/Dafrick]

That auto focus is impressive AF ;)

[u/stoplimitphoto]

FINALLY.. a YT review that doesn’t spend 80% of the review talking about video and overheating. Thank you.

[u/hermit-the-frog]

This guy is probably the best camera reviewer out there. He is so thorough, so specific with his words and really understands what matters. Definitely making a donation for his content.

[u/maverick777]

Competition is great. The AF looks stellar. Hopefully Nikon will step up soon.