Canon EOS R5
Canon's mirrorless lagship makes 8 a reality
Launched in India along with the EOS R6 in early July 2020, the EOS R5 is probably the most technically advanced mirrorless digital interchangeable lens camera offered by Canon. Let’s see how it fares in our review…
Design & Build Quality
The EOS R5 is a top-of-the-line interchangeable lens mirrorless camera from Canon. It uses a magnesium alloy body for enhanced strength while still being comparatively lightweight. The camera body weighs approx. 738 g with battery and memory card and measures 138 (W) x 98 (D) x 88 mm (H). The camera is made in Japan.
Key Features
The Canon EOS R5 sits at the top of Canon mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras and is chock-o-block with features. It incorporates a newly designed 45 megapixel full frame CMOS imaging sensor. The R5 is compatible with all Canon RF lenses and along with an EF-EOS R adapter, can use the EF and EF-S lenses. Like its younger sibling, the R6, the R5 also provides IBIS (in-body image stabilisation), which, when used with lenses having their own optical image stabilisation, can provide up to a whopping 8-stop advantage in shutter speeds. During movie recordings, the R5 offers in-body + in-lens optical + Digital Image Stabilisation. The camera offers 12 stops of dynamic range in movie footage when used with Canon Log. During video shooting, a zebra-display draws your attention to over-exposed highlights, thus allowing you to take immediate corrective action. Movies can be shot in 8K Raw/DCI resolution without any crop being applied. This provides four times more pixels than 4K videos. You can also extract 8K still frames to create approximately 35.4 megapixel still images from 8K DCI movies recorded at 30p or create slow motion with 120p/100p in 4K DCI/UHD resolution.
Autofocus on the R5 uses a new Dual Pixel CMOS AF II sensor. AF coverage is 100% of the image area. 5940 manually selectable AF positions are available. In Auto-area AF mode, the R5 uses 1053 AF frame segments. The camera can detect an eye, face and head, even when the subject is far away or facing away from the camera. Its Animal Detect AF can detect and track eyes, faces and bodies of cats, dogs and birds. Autofocus works in light as low as -6 EV!
ISO sensitivity on the R5 ranges between ISO 100-51,200, but can be expanded to ISO 50 equivalent on the lower end, and to ISO 102,400 equivalent at the upper end. Metering modes available are Evaluative, Partial, Spot and Centre-weighted average. Exposure modes are Scene Intelligent Auto, Flexible- priority AE (Fv),
Program (P), Shutter priority (Tv), Aperture priority (Av), Manual, Bulb, Custom shooting C1, C2, and C3.
The electronically controlled focal plane shutter on the R5 offers electronic 1st curtain shutter, mechanical shutter and a fully operational electronic shutter. The shutter is tested for 500,000 activations (that would be equal to approx. 13,889 36-exposure ilm rolls!). The maximum range of shutter speeds varies between 30 seconds to 1/8000sec, plus ‘B’ (Bulb).
There is no direct button to switch ‘on’ the video. To go to the video mode, you have to press the Mode button and then press the INFO button. A page will open which will allow you to select a video mode – Scene Intelligent Auto, Program AE, Shutter priority AE, Aperture priority AE, Manual exposure, Program AE (C1, C2, C3).
Ergonomics
We received the EOS R5 body along with a RF 50 mm f/1.2L USM lens. The combo was fairly heavy due to the RF 50 mm f/1.2L USM lens (950 g) but was easy to use for ‘stills’ photography. The user interface for video seemed complicated to me.
Performance
Sharpness: I was amazed at the level of sharpness provided by the R5 body and the RF 50 mm f/1.2 USM lens. Please check out the review of the RF 50 mm f/1.2L USM elsewhere in this issue of Smart Photography.
Darkening of corners:
For this test, all auto corrections within the camera body were enabled (why not use the good features when you have them?). On JPEG images, one could barely see any darkening of corners since the corrections are applied to the JPEG iles but on the Raw iles, some minor darkening was noticed since the auto corrections do not apply to the Raw iles.
Noise Control:
In one word, “Superb”. The native image size from the 45 megapixel Canon EOS R5 is 27.307 x 18.213 inches at 300 ppi. Images for the noise test were shot at the best JPEG resolution level with the High ISO Noise Reduction and Auto
Lighting Optimiser set to Standard. The images were checked on a high resolution 27-inch screen.
At 16.7-percent screen size, images were almost noise free up to ISO 1600 very little noise could be seen in the rest of the ISO range, but I would happily use the entire ISO range from ISO 10051,200. At 25-percent screen size, some noise could be observed from ISO 1600 onwards, but in my opinion, pictures
could easily be made up to ISO 25, 600 without any worries. I would use ISO 51,200 in a pinch.
At 50-percent screen size, though some noise could be seen (as with 16.7-percent and 25-percent screen size), I would use up to ISO 12,800. Beyond that, I would use ISO 25,600 only in an emergency and
ISO 51,200 with optional noise reduction software.
At 100-percent screen size, some noise could be observed at ISO 400 and onwards, but I would use up to ISO 3200. I would use ISO 6400 at 100-percent screen size only in an emergency. I would not use ISO 12,800 to 51,200 at 100-percent screen size.
Metering:
All metering modes – Evaluative, Partial, Spot and Centreweighted average – worked to my entire satisfaction.
Auto White Balance:
AWB worked very well in almost all lighting conditions except in luorescent light and incandescent light. In all fairness, unless all the tube lights in a room are
of the same colour balance and identical age, one should not blame the camera. The same goes for the household yellow incandescent bulbs – to do an accurate test, all the bulbs should be of identical wattage as well as age.
Video: As far as video capability of R5 is concerned, this requires a separate review by itself as there are just so many features. Let us start with the headline grabbing feature, that is the 8K video, the very irst in consumer grade cameras. There are few display devices available to support the 8K resolution, but Canon claims that this allows oversampling of 4K and thus, improve the quality of the footage. The R5, more importantly, offers 4K at 60 fps and even 120 fps for a short duration. In practise, these are bound to be more useful.
Video of the R5 has been controversial due to reported heating issues. The camera monitors the heat build-up and when too much heat is detected, it halts the recording to prevent damage to the electronics. The duration of the cut-off point can vary as it depends on several factors. If you are planning to buy the R5
for those applications that are likely to cause overheating, then we advise you to do some practical tests depending on your intended usage. Keep in mind that you can use a suitable external recorder to overcome the heating issues.
Apart from that, we were generally very pleased with the video performance of the R5. It provides a plethora of options that cover every conceivable need. Several resolutions and frame rates are supported starting from 3840 x 2060 at 24p to 8192 x 4320 at 30p, the latter with a very impressive bit rate of 1300 mbps. Where applicable, both DCI and UHD are supported. Formats supported are MPEG-4, H.264 and H.265.
Those who want log output will be happy as the R5 offers Canon Log 10bit 4:2:2 in all video modes but raw capture (12 bit) is limited to the DCI 8K mode. Not only that, even the latter allows internal recording. Also, note that to use the top-end feature, that is 8K and 4K/120p, you need the very fast (and very expensive) CFexpress cards, though the rest of the 4K modes can be handled by the slower and cheaper SD UHS-II cards.
As needed for any serious work, provision for external recording is provided. Time codes can be added too. Rolling shutter was minimal and the AF was extremely good. As you would expect, there are many manual aids for MF and zebra patterns for exposure control.
Value for Money
The Canon EOS R5 body is available at an MRP of Rs. 339, 995/- In spite of its great overall performance, most potential users are likely to ind the R5 on the expensive side.