Canon R5 Mark II - User Experience

[herein2020]

3 hours ago, gt3rs said:

HW issue? It seems a typical buffer corruption issue... purely SW... but let see.... The picture that you posted is what happens to me, so far only in 200fps but I do shoot mostly in RAW.

AF never stopped in my case, and I shoot 3 TB of video so far, all using AF. Was it with the adapter or RF? If it is with the adapter, then it seems to have an issue with it as first the aperture and now the AF both that needs camera+adapter+lens communication. 

For me it happens just turning on the camera, before ever hitting record. Fortunately, it has never happened while recording. Canon CPS said based on the video it looks like a power distribution problem which would also affect lens communication as well and might explain the very rapid battery drain.

They also said they have no insight into pending FW updates so they can't tell me if the new FW will fix it; they said it is possible but of course they couldn't confirm or deny anything. If I can return it I will, if I can only exchange it then I will do that instead, I feel like I might have multiple issues going on; some HW and some FW.

[gt3rs]

Last week I shot two ice hockey matches and a horse endurance race. Shot mostly 8k 25 and 50 RAW and some 10bit 2k 200fps. I did not have any issue with black/green screen, but I never had it in RAW. 

As I film the hockey matches in the same arena so same lighting and similar situations, I can confirm that AF is better than R5 and R5c and the image quality too, it is less noisy, and I find it easier to expose. The AWB I feel the R5c is better but as I mostly shot RAW it does not really matter.

I'm exposing the highlight to just barely pass the last top row of the WFM and it seems to be working well in most of my scenarios. Now Canon please add a button to show and hide WFM!!

Battery life in 8k 25 is about the same as the R5 and much better than the R5c.
At 8k 50 I shoot around 30 min of footage with the camera on, continuously AF and IS  (no standby) for around 1.5h with 1 battery and still had juice left. 

In 8k 50 it will eventually overheat, for the endurance race (under the sun at 25c) I did longer takes like 5-10 min each and the overheating warning was at 2 out 10. Is the only occurrence so far that the warning came out but most of my takes are below 5 min.

I got scared because a couple of times the brightness of the EVF did change while shooting, the recorded video was normal with no brightness change, then I realized that I did disable auto brightness of the LCD but not for the EVF.... rookie mistake.

I did a quick test at 14mm and the IBIS wobbling is much improved over the R5, where it was not usable imo... I need to do some more tests as I did only by standing still and panning (fast and slow) but no walking/running yet.

I'm starting to consider replacing my beloved R5c with a second R5 II, for my usage the only two things that I would really miss from the R5c on the R5 II are: peaking during AF (less needed as the R5 II AF is better) and no overheating. 

The biggest improvement over the R5c is AF, battery life, DR (noise, highlights and easy to expose), 2k 240fps, c1-c3, IBIS (although I'm sure there will be occurrences that I wish it did have full locked system)

[herein2020]

Well, mine is in the mail going back to the retailer, they agreed to exchange it for me. I feel like even though others were experiencing the black screen, I was still having more issues than most which means it could be a HW problem as well. 

I shot a runway fashion show with it prior to sending it in, photography only, and it was flawless. The AF is truly impressive, definitely the stickiest I have ever seen. The playback issue where it skips the last image taken and shows some prior image also went away. Even the battery usage dropped to what appeared approximately on par with the R5 and maybe even the R7. I shot 800+ images with Servo AF eye tracking and fast FPS for the EVF and it barely dropped one bar at the end of the show.

The R5II was pared with the RF70-200 F2.8, so this also removed the adapter from the equation. As a photography camera it is definitely impressive, but I think if you are a stills only shooter nearly any modern camera would work just fine; even the 5DIV would be sufficient. But, the R5II definitely shows what can be achieved with subject tracking for modern photography cameras.

[herein2020]

It looks like Canon released the first FW update for the R5II. Download Link

Firmware Version 1.0.1 incorporates the following fixes:
1. Fixes an issue in which movies captured in RAW/SRAW format may not play back properly on applications due to the attached lens and camera not communicating. (This kind of sounds like what I experienced where AF stopped working)
2. Improves the stability of the touch operation control when the [Touch control] is set to [Sensitive].
3. Fixes an issue in which the camera's LCD display may become abnormal after the camera resumes operations from the [Viewfinder off] state. (I think this is the black/green screen problem)
4. Fixes an issue in which the camera may stop working properly when the shutter button is operated while the BUSY message is being displayed on the screen.
5. Fixes an issue in which Err70 may be displayed when the display mode is switched between the LCD screen and viewfinder while the BUSY message is being displayed on the screen. (I got the busy message a lot, but no Err70)
6. Fixes an issue, in which the camera's LCD display becomes abnormal after using EOS Utility to capture and import movies.
7. Fixes an issue, in which movies captured using EOS Utility may not be played back on the camera.
8. Optimizes the auto white balance for specific environments when the Custom Picture function is set to [On].

I took no chances and sent mine back, I should get the replacement next week and I will update the FW once I get it. Nothing about rapid battery drain, but who knows...maybe one of these fixes fixed that as well.

[gt3rs]

29 minutes ago, herein2020 said:

3. Fixes an issue in which the camera's LCD display may become abnormal after the camera resumes operations from the [Viewfinder off] state. (I think this is the black/green screen problem)

I took no chances and sent mine back, I should get the replacement next week and I will update the FW once I get it. Nothing about rapid battery drain, but who knows...maybe one of these fixes fixed that as well.

3. Could explain why it does not happen to me a lot, because I either use the EVF but then the LCD is off an mostly turned in or I use the LCD but I don't use the EVF. Thinking about I know why it happened only in 200fps because there I was continuously switching between EVF and LCD.... I hope it fixes it. 

For the battery drain die you had the setting with Standby: Low Res to On? This makes a big difference while not filming how much battery you drain. R5c does not have this feature, and it burns battery at the same rate if your record or not.

[herein2020]

3 hours ago, gt3rs said:

3. Could explain why it does not happen to me a lot, because I either use the EVF but then the LCD is off an mostly turned in or I use the LCD but I don't use the EVF. Thinking about I know why it happened only in 200fps because there I was continuously switching between EVF and LCD.... I hope it fixes it. 

For the battery drain die you had the setting with Standby: Low Res to On? This makes a big difference while not filming how much battery you drain. R5c does not have this feature, and it burns battery at the same rate if your record or not.

 

I rarely used the EVF because I was mostly shooting video, I did have a lot of the power saving features turned on, but it seemed like it did not just happen when waking up the camera from a standby mode; the times it happened I was in too much of a hurry to get it working again to figure out what happened leading up to the problem.

I don't know what the Standby: Low Res was set to; I don't remember seeing that setting. I pretty much left the power saving settings to their defaults, the main thing I changed was the EVF refresh rate to power saving vs smooth and I turned on Airplane Mode under Networking because WiFi and BT will kill the battery as well.

[ntblowz]

I can feel the weight difference of R5II after using R7 and R8 for a while.

If I still use the R5 then they are quite similar in weight.

[ntblowz]

So when I try LP-E6NH, I can only do 25P for 4K and 1080p.. that is a weird limitation, 4K25p I get it, but FHD only 25p doesnt make sense!

With my third party LP-E6 battery the R5II just wouldnt turn on at all, works on my R5/R7 though.

[herein2020]

1 hour ago, ntblowz said:

So when I try LP-E6NH, I can only do 25P for 4K and 1080p.. that is a weird limitation, 4K25p I get it, but FHD only 25p doesnt make sense!

With my third party LP-E6 battery the R5II just wouldnt turn on at all, works on my R5/R7 though.

It really is best to just give up on the older batteries, even the ones you bought for the R5, that's what I did. Too many limitations that you will have to workaround in the middle of a shoot. 4K Fine is also removed when using the older batteries. I got 4 new batteries plus the one that came with the camera so 5 total. 

Here is the full list from the manual: https://cam.start.canon/en/C017/manual/html/UG-00_Before_0080.html

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.

It has also been mentioned that the R5II will not work with any 3rd party batteries.

On 9/26/2024 at 7:01 AM, gt3rs said:

For the battery drain die you had the setting with Standby: Low Res to On? This makes a big difference while not filming how much battery you drain. R5c does not have this feature, and it burns battery at the same rate if your record or not.

 

I got my replacement body yesterday and updated it to the latest FW, it looks like that feature you mentioned is on by default so it was on with my last body that was draining the batteries so fast.

One thing I immediately noticed though and it's not documented anywhere in the release notes is a big improvement in IBIS, either something was wrong with IBIS in the other body, or the FW update made some IBIS changes because it is way smoother than before. 

It still has the annoying message "Mode movie still switching" when trying to playback images/video. I have shoots coming up for most of next week so I will see if any of the other problems are fixed as well.

Supposedly another FW release is coming this month so it really sounds like Canon rushed this one out the door with a plan to fix all of the problems later at the expense of their customers.

[gt3rs]

On 10/5/2024 at 3:09 PM, herein2020 said:

I got my replacement body yesterday and updated it to the latest FW, it looks like that feature you mentioned is on by default so it was on with my last body that was draining the batteries so fast.

One thing I immediately noticed though and it's not documented anywhere in the release notes is a big improvement in IBIS, either something was wrong with IBIS in the other body, or the FW update made some IBIS changes because it is way smoother than before. 

It still has the annoying message "Mode movie still switching" when trying to playback images/video. I have shoots coming up for most of next week so I will see if any of the other problems are fixed as well.

Supposedly another FW release is coming this month so it really sounds like Canon rushed this one out the door with a plan to fix all of the problems later at the expense of their customers.

It seems that your first one had some hw issue on top of the bugs.

I tested IBIS with the old FW at 14mm (IS lens) and 16mm (no IS lens) handheld fast panning, slow panning, tilting and twisting and I could not see the same wobble issue that the R5 had. If is still there very much improved. 

Since updating to the new FW I have shot 2 more hockey matches and 1 additional show jumping competition, and I did not encounter any issue. 

I will be selling my R5c for a second R5 II as soon as I find one in stock that here in Switzerland seems impossible to find.

I can confirm that the AF, battery life and the image quality vs R5c the R5 II is definitely better.
Just now I was editing a video that I shot with both R5 II and R5c both in RAW and the image of R5 II is just better and can take more beating in post. 

One thing that is not super is the auto WB, the R5c is more consistent. 

Frame grab 8k 50, ISO 4000, no noise reduction, shot through a Plexiglas...

 

[herein2020]

4 hours ago, gt3rs said:

It seems that your first one had some hw issue on top of the bugs.

I tested IBIS with the old FW at 14mm (IS lens) and 16mm (no IS lens) handheld fast panning, slow panning, tilting and twisting and I could not see the same wobble issue that the R5 had. If is still there very much improved. 

Since updating to the new FW I have shot 2 more hockey matches and 1 additional show jumping competition, and I did not encounter any issue. 

I will be selling my R5c for a second R5 II as soon as I find one in stock that here in Switzerland seems impossible to find.

I can confirm that the AF, battery life and the image quality vs R5c the R5 II is definitely better.
Just now I was editing a video that I shot with both R5 II and R5c both in RAW and the image of R5 II is just better and can take more beating in post. 

One thing that is not super is the auto WB, the R5c is more consistent. 

Frame grab 8k 50, ISO 4000, no noise reduction, shot through a Plexiglas...

 

 

Well all of my shoots got cancelled for this week due to the inbound hurricane, so hopefully some of that gets rescheduled and I can test out the new body and FW before my exchange window ends.

I suspect you are right and I think I had HW problems as well; I was getting pretty bad IBIS wobble at 24mm with the first body, the image would have been unusable at 14mm.  I don't know about auto WB performance, I've never used it for video and stopped using it for photos as well, when I don't have the C70 with me I use the expo disc, if I have the C70 with me I just use AWB to get a reading then hard code it into all of my cameras for that scene. It's annoying that the R5II won't show you the AWB values it has selected unlike the C70. It won't even show the WB values when playing back an image.

I do know that it has some options on how to control the auto WB behavior, maybe one of the settings will help its performance. 

BH supposedly has the R5II in stock again, they might ship to Switzerland.

[gt3rs]

6 hours ago, herein2020 said:

 

Well all of my shoots got cancelled for this week due to the inbound hurricane, so hopefully some of that gets rescheduled and I can test out the new body and FW before my exchange window ends.

I suspect you are right and I think I had HW problems as well; I was getting pretty bad IBIS wobble at 24mm with the first body, the image would have been unusable at 14mm.  I don't know about auto WB performance, I've never used it for video and stopped using it for photos as well, when I don't have the C70 with me I use the expo disc, if I have the C70 with me I just use AWB to get a reading then hard code it into all of my cameras for that scene. It's annoying that the R5II won't show you the AWB values it has selected unlike the C70. It won't even show the WB values when playing back an image.

I do know that it has some options on how to control the auto WB behavior, maybe one of the settings will help its performance. 

BH supposedly has the R5II in stock again, they might ship to Switzerland.

Hope the hurricane will not hit bad.

Ordering through BH is an option and the total cost is about the same as here but when I resell, not sure why people, want to see that it was brought in Switzerland even if is a 4 year old body with no warranty. 

Auto WB is not a major issue for me as I mostly shoot RAW, but I did notice that between "takes" especially on the ice arena is inconsistent something that the R5c is not. I will use the preset when using 10bit formats just to be on the safe side.

[Chrille]

On 10/5/2024 at 1:39 PM, ntblowz said:

I can feel the weight difference of R5II after using R7 and R8 for a while.

If I still use the R5 then they are quite similar in weight.

What's your opinion on the R?

[RCinNJ]

On 9/17/2024 at 3:20 PM, gt3rs said:

In my case when I press the record button the video feed goes black but all the info items on the screen are still visible. Is like filming with the lens cap on, so it seems different than your case.

I had to pull the battery but I was in an hurry. 

I’m submitting the case to CPS

 

I've been having multiple freezes. Your situation happened to me once, but I don't shoot that much video. I also experienced a freeze in still mode where the info was visible (as if the lens cap was on is a good description). I just sent mine in to Canon. I also encourage anyone experiencing this even once to report it to Canon. Sometimes it was happening every day and multiple times per day and then wouldn't happen for a few days. So hard to figure out a pattern.

[herein2020]

On 10/20/2024 at 8:19 AM, RCinNJ said:

I've been having multiple freezes. Your situation happened to me once, but I don't shoot that much video. I also experienced a freeze in still mode where the info was visible (as if the lens cap was on is a good description). I just sent mine in to Canon. I also encourage anyone experiencing this even once to report it to Canon. Sometimes it was happening every day and multiple times per day and then wouldn't happen for a few days. So hard to figure out a pattern.

 

Were you on the latest FW? I am about to shoot my biggest job to date after replacing the first R5II body and updating it to the latest FW. I will know after this weekend if my main problems (battery drain, green/black screen) are fixed.