Canon R5 Mark II - Firmware Problems

[herein2020]

The Canon R5 Mark II FW 1.0.0 definitely has bugs.  It keeps not saving my settings. I know, this is the early adopter penalty, and typically I wait at least 6 months and a few FW updates before buying a camera body, but I have so many jobs coming up that I decided to buy it now. Not quite regretting it yet, still setting it up, but very annoying that the settings keep reverting back to something other than what I set.

On my first test photoshoot it saved JPG and RAW although I told it RAW only, it also keeps reversing my VF and screen settings back to their defaults. The worst is when it changes your video resolution or LOG profile. I now have to closely check everything on the screen every time I turn the camera off and back on....very annoying. The video below discusses it in more depth. 

As a temporary workaround, I got everything set up in the camera the way I want it then exported the settings to the memory card, if it goes haywire and loses all of my settings then I can hopefully restore them from the memory card.

 

[eatstoomuchjam]

Early adopter penalty, sure, but I tend to think of that for things that wouldn't reasonably caught by a company doing basic QA on their products before shipping them.

Losing basic settings like video resolution and screen preferences is bonkers and should be a huge embarrassment for Canon.  For the price, the camera should be considered a professional tool and as such, the basic settings need to just work all the time.

[gt3rs]

Do you use old batteries? This is when it changes my video settings as they are not compatible with the old batteries. So far is the only issue (kind of logic but annoying) that I had.

 

[herein2020]

4 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

Early adopter penalty, sure, but I tend to think of that for things that wouldn't reasonably caught by a company doing basic QA on their products before shipping them.

Losing basic settings like video resolution and screen preferences is bonkers and should be a huge embarrassment for Canon.  For the price, the camera should be considered a professional tool and as such, the basic settings need to just work all the time.

I agree, I am used to FW problems with niche features that I never use, not something as important as keeping the basic settings. Apparently, the R5 had the same problems when it was first released.

2 hours ago, gt3rs said:

Do you use old batteries? This is when it changes my video settings as they are not compatible with the old batteries. So far is the only issue (kind of logic but annoying) that I had.

 

Did you watch the video? It has nothing to do with the batteries, I have 5 of the new batteries. You will mainly see it if you start customizing the way the camera operates.

[gt3rs]

1 hour ago, herein2020 said:

I agree, I am used to FW problems with niche features that I never use, not something as important as keeping the basic settings. Apparently, the R5 had the same problems when it was first released.

Did you watch the video? It has nothing to do with the batteries, I have 5 of the new batteries. You will mainly see it if you start customizing the way the camera operates.

I don’t watch OF videos he is such a click-bait…. he is true rat reusing work and info from others making up rumors etc…  Not saying the issues are not there but I will not watch this guy ever.

I have mine customized like my R5 plus some differences due to the new features, in a week of usage I did not have issues, I have a few with the Canon App that is unfortunately kind of standard with Japanese manufacturer having poor apps although thanks to USBC support is more usable than the R5.

Just out of curiosity where did you find 5 new lp-e6p battery? I can’t find any here Switzerland.

[herein2020]

3 hours ago, gt3rs said:

I don’t watch OF videos he is such a click-bait…. he is true rat reusing work and info from others making up rumors etc…  Not saying the issues are not there but I will not watch this guy ever.

I have mine customized like my R5 plus some differences due to the new features, in a week of usage I did not have issues, I have a few with the Canon App that is unfortunately kind of standard with Japanese manufacturer having poor apps although thanks to USBC support is more usable than the R5.

Just out of curiosity where did you find 5 new lp-e6p battery? I can’t find any here Switzerland.

I agree with you 100%, I usually won't watch anything he produces, but when I searched for Canon R5 mark ii not saving settings his video came up.

I don't use custom button presets, but it definitely did not save some changes that I made to the settings. I haven't had it long enough to know how bad the problem is. I am going to open a CPS case this week for the issue.

I got the camera and batteries from Paul's Photo, not sure if they will ship to you but it wouldn't hurt to try. I didn't pre-order or anything, I did not place my order until last week.

https://paulsphoto.com/

 

 

 

[herein2020]

I also do not see a way to enable 8K-D or 8K-U compressed in the menus. According to the documentation as long as you pick XF-HEVC S, disable HFR, and disable cropping then 8K compressed should be an option in the menu, but it is missing for me. Can you see if it is there in yours?

If I select RAW then 8K and 4K are options, but the 8K compressed option seems to be nowhere to be found. It is there in the R5.

 

[gt3rs]

Works for me:

 

Maybe do a factory reset and start over?

 

[Django]

Hey folks, bugs aside how are you finding the camera improvements over R5/R5C?

How is the overheat? Are you using the cooling grip?

Really good deals on R5C at the moment so I'm curious about your feedback, thanks!

[gt3rs]

32 minutes ago, Django said:

Hey folks, bugs aside how are you finding the camera improvements over R5/R5C?

How is the overheat? Are you using the cooling grip?

Really good deals on R5C at the moment so I'm curious about your feedback, thanks!

I got the Camera last week, I did use it mostly for photos and video only for test purpose, but in the next two weeks I have a couple of big events and will be mostly video, and I will let you know.

Two test frames, unfortunately 4k line skipped (10bit CLog2) because I run out of battery, I had to use an old one that disable most of the useful video features.... 

[Django]

@gt3rs Thanks for the info, so wait you need the new batteries for 4K fine and such? I thought it was mainly for 8K60p.

I'm kinda bummed out about the line-skipped 4K60p. I use that a lot. 

Do the new batteries give you much more run time than R5C in 4Kfine/8k modes?

[herein2020]

7 hours ago, gt3rs said:

Works for me:

 

Maybe do a factory reset and start over?

 

I figured it out, it is a bug. If Rec. to Multiple is enabled then 8K-U and 8K-D disappear however RAW is still available. This is not how the R5 behaves, in the R5 if Rec. to Multiple is enabled it still lets you record but it only writes to the CFE card. Also, the user manual does not state Rec. to Multiple has to be disabled, not to mention RAW is still available even though RAW cannot be written to the SD card.

Although I will never use 8K, this is still annoying, if you shoot a short 8K clip then switch back to 4K you now have to remember to set it back to rec. to multiple or for the rest of the shoot you will only be writing to the CFE card. I will open a CPS case today about the issue.

 

6 minutes ago, Django said:

@gt3rs Thanks for the info, so wait you need the new batteries for 4K fine and such? I thought it was mainly for 8K60p.

I'm kinda bummed out about the line-skipped 4K60p. I use that a lot. 

Do the new batteries give you much more run time than R5C in 4Kfine/8k modes?

 

You need the new batteries for a lot of the modes including SRAW, 4K Fine and others. I didn't feel like trying to remember what was what so I got 4 of the new batteries and will only use them in the camera. The new batteries don't give you more runtime, they are the same capacity, just higher output but some of the YT tests show it will record for about 2hrs on a single battery depending on your recording options which is pretty impressive, I don't know how long the R5C can record but I remember reading that it had poor battery life.

I also tested with an original 5D4 battery while I waited for the new batteries to charge and the camera felt completely different.....in addition to the documented stuff, it actually felt slower, the VF seemed slower, and of course the battery drained very quickly just going through the menu system, I think it died in around 30 min just navigating the menus.

Below is the full list of limitations when using older batteries, as you can see, you lose a lot more than just 8K.

2: Network connectivity (Wi-Fi/wired LAN) not available.

3: Reduces continuous shooting speed and prevents selection of 8K DCI/8K UHD/RAW/SRAW movie recording size, Fine image quality, and 239.76/200.00/119.88/100.00/59.94/50.00 fps frame rates.
HDMI RAW output, still photo shooting during movie recording, High Frame Rate movies, and pre-continuous shooting are not available.

I am a little bummed out over line skipped 4K60 as well, no idea why oversampling is not at least an option, however, if you do not mind massive file sizes (1860Mbps) you can shoot in 4K60 SRAW which I think is not line skipped. Line skipped is good enough for me, but I use 4K60FPS so often that no line skipping would also be a nice option.

1 hour ago, Django said:

Hey folks, bugs aside how are you finding the camera improvements over R5/R5C?

How is the overheat? Are you using the cooling grip?

Really good deals on R5C at the moment so I'm curious about your feedback, thanks!

I have never used the R5C so I can't really compare the two but there are some pretty nice touches throughout the menus and settings vs the R5. Things like it shows you the data rate right in the display when picking the resolution, framerate, and compression options, the dedicated photo/video switch, the nicer lock button, the new hotshoe with integrated audio, 4 channels of audio, CLOG2, 4KSRAW, supposedly it has increased DR, definitely has better AF/tracking options, etc. 

It looks like used R5C's are around $3000USD compared to the R5II's $4300USD. For me the R5II is going to be a replacement for the R7 for hybrid photo/video shooting so it was worth it to me. But if you shoot 100% video, the R5C might still be the better choice. No IBIS was always the deal breaker for me with the R5C since I shoot mostly handheld and the R5II has great IBIS.

The R5II has enough modes that I am confident that I will be able to use one of them without it overheating for long form content so it met that requirement for me as well, not to mention no more ridiculous 30min record limit.

[gt3rs]

8 minutes ago, Django said:

@gt3rs Thanks for the info, so wait you need the new batteries for 4K fine and such? I thought it was mainly for 8K60p.

I'm kinda bummed out about the line-skipped 4K60p. I use that a lot. 

Do the new batteries give you much more run time than R5C in 4Kfine/8k modes?

For video the old batteries are basically useless, no raw, no 120fps, no 4k oversampled, no SRAW... the good news is 8k 60 with full AF with the internal battery my biggest issue of the R5c.

Runtime it seems much better than the R5c (I would say similar to R5), it also does not burn batteries while not recording as the R5c does, but I need to do some proper work to really judge.

Herain2020 posted a video of guy that got 2h of continuous 4k SRAW with one battery....

One thing that I'm positively surprised is 2k 240fps, I thought it would be unusable, but for short section is not too bad. It has of course a lot of aliasing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMLsXrCZ0-w

[Django]

@herein2020 Thanks for the detailed feedback, always appreciated! Yeah I dunno why 4K60p is line skipped when the R5C and Z8/Z9 can do it downsampled with the same MP count. As for the DR tests have shown that it’s actually slightly lower than R5. That is of course expected from a stacked sensor. But the upside is CLOG2 is now available so you win in DR vs CLOg3. And of course the faster readout means less RS. 
 

There is definitely some great improvements (full HDMi finally!) but it somehow still feels incremental and catching up to Nikon Z8, which actually still has the edge in a few areas.

I guess what I’d really like is an R5C mk2. Give it the sensor and speed of R5II but put it in an R3 body with the big battery and lockable IBIS. Actually that might be an R3C. I really like the dual OS of R5C. Having all the cine options like shutter angle, LUT support, Q&S etc. 
 

Sorry I’m derailing this thread with wishful thinking. Back to R5 mk2.

Jave you guys tried the eye control AF? Some say it’s a total game changer others can’t get it to work correctly. Stills only I think but that’s definitely something unique to Canon. 

[eatstoomuchjam]

3 hours ago, Django said:

As for the DR tests have shown that it’s actually slightly lower than R5.

With mechanical shutter, yes.  With electronic shutter (and video), slightly better than the R5.  Though either is close enough that it's unlikely to matter in most practical situations.

As for me, if I had $4,000 in my pocket and I were considering R5/R5C/R5II, I'd...  go get another used C70.  8K is nice for reframing, but the C70 is IMO so much better in usability, etc (though autofocus is definitely a bit behind the newer bodies).  😅

[Django]

4 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

With mechanical shutter, yes.  With electronic shutter (and video), slightly better than the R5.  Though either is close enough that it's unlikely to matter in most practical situations.

As for me, if I had $4,000 in my pocket and I were considering R5/R5C/R5II, I'd...  go get another used C70.  8K is nice for reframing, but the C70 is IMO so much better in usability, etc (though autofocus is definitely a bit behind the newer bodies).  😅

If you're doing video only sure but most of us are hybrid shooters. FF is also important if you're using RF lenses and IBIS if you shoot handheld. The R5 series are great A/B cams to a C70 though. Its nice to have that ecosystem. Personally I'm still thinking of switching to Nikon Z9 (would have already purchased one this summer if it weren't for a major financial setback) but the Canon ecosystem still has my attention. And now with Clog2 on board the DR finally competes and IQ looks so much more natural. The compressed RAW is also interesting. WFM is maybe the biggest win, always hated the histogram that disappeared when you hit record.

[herein2020]

9 hours ago, Django said:

@herein2020 Thanks for the detailed feedback, always appreciated! Yeah I dunno why 4K60p is line skipped when the R5C and Z8/Z9 can do it downsampled with the same MP count. As for the DR tests have shown that it’s actually slightly lower than R5. That is of course expected from a stacked sensor. But the upside is CLOG2 is now available so you win in DR vs CLOg3. And of course the faster readout means less RS. 

I saw that too, but I have yet to see a good video DR test, we were always told CLOG2 wasn't included in the other camera bodies because they didn't have enough DR for it, then Canon says the R5II has 16 stops of DR and they included CLOG2. Of course it doesn't really have 16 stops of usable DR, but I have to believe that for video it has some sort of DR improvement or the reason CLOG2 was missing from the R5 and R5C was just a lie all along.

10 hours ago, Django said:

Jave you guys tried the eye control AF? Some say it’s a total game changer others can’t get it to work correctly. Stills only I think but that’s definitely something unique to Canon. 

I personally will never use that feature; I am used to assigning expand AF to the half press of the shutter button and eye AF to the back button and together that is all I ever use. When I want to target a single subject, I use expand AF to pick the subject then while half pressing the shutter I press the back button eye AF then release the half press of the shutter, the eye AF will track the chosen subject after that until I am ready to take the picture.

Eye control AF feels too much like AWB, Auto ISO, and other automatic features. Too much control is handed over to the camera nearly guaranteeing it will let you down at the worst possible moment. Also, I am pretty sure having that feature on will drain the batteries faster.

2 hours ago, Django said:

If you're doing video only sure but most of us are hybrid shooters. FF is also important if you're using RF lenses and IBIS if you shoot handheld. The R5 series are great A/B cams to a C70 though. Its nice to have that ecosystem. Personally I'm still thinking of switching to Nikon Z9 (would have already purchased one this summer if it weren't for a major financial setback) but the Canon ecosystem still has my attention. And now with Clog2 on board the DR finally competes and IQ looks so much more natural. The compressed RAW is also interesting. WFM is maybe the biggest win, always hated the histogram that disappeared when you hit record.

I still only own a single RF lens....the RF 70-200 F2.8 and the only reason I got it was for photography. This leads me to something which is one of the biggest selling points for me for the Canon ecosystem....the ability to put the vND filter behind the lens if you use EF glass. So not only are you saving immensely vs the RF lenses, you also get a fantastic vND for video. The vND never leaves the lens mount for me for hybrid shooting.

If you shoot a lot of handheld that is probably a dealbreaker for the R5C, it certainly was a dealbreaker for me. I shoot my first project with the R5II next week, so I will be able to get a good look at how CLOG2 looks compared to CLOG3 but the online video tests show highlight rolloff is much improved and the colors look more natural as you mentioned.

Another big plus for me vs the R7 is the dual native ISO, with the R5II it was moved to 4000ISO which is where the Panasonic S5 had its second native ISO.....IMO the most useful second native ISO location possible. 

[eatstoomuchjam]

3 hours ago, Django said:

FF is also important if you're using RF lenses

Not nearly as much as you'd think - or at the very least, it depends on which RF lenses and what the goal is.  If you're using Fujinon MK's, for instance, you'll be disappointed on FF.  

3 hours ago, Django said:

Personally I'm still thinking of switching to Nikon Z9 (would have already purchased one this summer if it weren't for a major financial setback) but the Canon ecosystem still has my attention.

You're describing one of the best reasons to avoid the use of native RF-mount lenses.  There are still excellent EF lenses and if you decide to change from Canon to Nikon, you only need to change out your EF adapter.

[Andrew Reid]

I recently took apart some RF lenses and an RF body, and they are shockingly cheap and poorly designed inside.

Canon have automated a lot of manufacturing and the mechanical side all looks like it was put together in CAD by a trainee.

This is a particular shame as Japan was known for having the best mechanical engineers in the world.

I guess this is what happens when you promote accountants to run the company over the heads of engineers.

So many problems on the EOS R5 II for such an expensive piece of kit.

They are like the boeing of Cameras.

I would never spend 4K on something with incomplete firmware. It's supposed to be a mature product, it's not like it's first gen. 

[herein2020]

36 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

I recently took apart some RF lenses and an RF body, and they are shockingly cheap and poorly designed inside.

Canon have automated a lot of manufacturing and the mechanical side all looks like it was put together in CAD by a trainee.

This is a particular shame as Japan was known for having the best mechanical engineers in the world.

I guess this is what happens when you promote accountants to run the company over the heads of engineers.

So many problems on the EOS R5 II for such an expensive piece of kit.

They are like the boeing of Cameras.

I would never spend 4K on something with incomplete firmware. It's supposed to be a mature product, it's not like it's first gen. 

The first clue that quality has decreased is when you hold any current R body; not even close to the quality of the DSLRs or even my Panasonic S5; so much plastic. The RF 70-200 F2.8 is nice in the way it is compact compared to the EF version, but feels so much more cheaply made due to all of the plastic.

I have to admit that RF 70-200 F2.8 lens is sharper than the EF version that I used to use, but for video sharper isn't necessarily better. So basically, you are paying exorbitant prices for lower quality lenses and losing the ability to use the vND adapter....no thanks, my current collection of EF glass is all I need.