Canon R5 Mark ii Review // real-world use after 17k images made

[@ZDShah]

So appreciate your reviews. Especially love the fact you lay it out there..the good the bad. You have saved me lots of time in terms of trying it out. Always learn something new from your videos.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

glad to read that! i always hope there are interesting things for everyone - even people that have no interest in the specific camera or lens i’m reviewing

[@iabdulhaseeb]

​@@iamsamhurdphotographyQUICK QUESTION!! ⁉️ I'm confused basically I have a plan of getting R6 mark 2 just 4 months used with RF 24-105 4L and RF 100 2.8 + 256 GB card 300MB/s. In 3465 USD On the other hand R5mark2 is 4265 USD. I also don't have any lenses. My total budget is 4500USD!! My 13 months savings! There are 2 options first is buy the 2 lens with R62 or 2nd option is R52 with Rf50 1.8... later on I'll upgrade my lens 24-105.. is it worth to sacrifice more money. I want 4,5 years future safe. If you're in my place what you'll do?? Is it good offer or suggest me any other option!!

[@StuartJamesMedia]

Hi Sam, had mine now for a couple of weeks and shot two weddings so far and have been absolutely delighted with the camera. I have come from an R5 and R6 and now the R6 has been replaced with the R5 II. I would say that the camera is a nice step up. I never shoot at high ISO ever, max is 2000 but rarely over 1000 so it's not a factor for me I just add light. I shoot primes and when I want to crop the extra MP's is really helpful in my workflow. The R1 is not really designed for wedding photographers in mind and has tech that is never used. I agree on the eye autofocus, I have tried it and although it is good I am not sure it has a use case for me as focus & re-compose is quicker for picking individuals out of a crowd.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

glad you’re enjoying it! i’m very excited to try the r1, as i always want the absolute best auto focus a brand can offer, but we’ll see if that’s reason enough to upgrade!

[@DansHotShots]

an r5 ii review focused on photography... imagine that

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

[@alphaandomega2709]

Let me guess Nikon shooter? 😂

[@DansHotShots]

@@alphaandomega2709 r52 my dude ✌🏽

[@frandlyarchille2452]

If you’re a photographer how you can talk about videography??

[@adude394]

Great stuff here, man! I finally added an R6 Mk II to my gear a few months back, and I liked it so much I sold my trusty 7D Mk II and Sigma 150-600 Sport. I'm putting that money towards an R5 Mk II, which I hope to get within the next couple of weeks. Very much looking forward to this, and to trying my 100-500 and 200-800 out on the new body. Thanks for posting!

[@pardhusarathi3248]

That's why I love Sam Hurd🥰

[@nicolaschallenor1120]

Great video, I believe many people will be surprised at the amount of bugs on launch.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

the frequency that canon is starting to fall short on the software side of things is... notable.

[@eschrad]

Thank you so much for this review! I am still shooting with an EOS R and have been wanting to upgrade for a variety of reasons. The R has been great, but there are times when the AF is not as cooperative as I would like and I miss shots in fast-paced shooting situations. (I shoot corporate events, some sports, the occasional wedding, and portrait sessions.) I really appreciate the focus on reviewing the camera exclusively for still photography as I also don't really shoot video... I'm kind of an "auto" video shooter when I just have to capture video for some reason. The issues you identify such as image inconsistency despite the settings being the same and some Lightroom bugginess are enough to make me hold off for now... those are things that I can't deal with as a high-volume shooter. I was also really interested in the R5MkII because it did have the eye-controlled AF... something I absolutely loved in my Canon EOS 3 film camera... but maybe with other AF innovations today it's not as useful as it was 25 years ago.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

i will say - i still miss the colors of the R sometimes. i don't have a body to do any direct comparisons anymore, but i can see the difference when looking back at my work. i'm sure many of the issues will be updated over time, but even with those solved i still think the R3 is a better camera for still shooters that don't need a super compact body.

[@whiterock1865]

Absolutely, these are tools that we have to spend a lot of our time using, and depending on for our livelihood so whether it’s the sound of the shutter the feel of the grip, the dynamic range, the noise whatever matters to you matters to you and are valid criticisms from your standpoint to run your business. For me I’m a videographer and a photographer so I really really loved the upgrades for video. Though I am still waiting on my cooling grip. I also really like the ability to use 100% electronic shutter. I haven’t used it with a flash yet which I think is limited to 1/160 in electronic mode. But yeah, hopefully the rapidly approaching firmware update will fix a lot of the issues. I haven’t personally experienced any issues with it, but I also may not be pushing it as hard as others are.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

well said! i appreciate your perspective

[@stewartmunrovideo]

Great video Sam !

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@laurormrz]

I agree on your commentary around the colors from the EOS R, they just had something special about them. When I switched to the R6, I really missed the colors from the R, but enjoyed the overall snappiness of the R6. Now I’ve moved onto the R6ii and it’s sort of a happy medium, color wise-much better than the R6 colors, but still not quite the original R colors. Overall, I think the R6ii at its current discount is a phenomenal deal.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

Well said!

[@ryanbrown1789]

man, Adobe REALLY needs to get their crap together.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

spoiler alert: they won’t.

[@FranciscoAlvarezTV]

Love the shutter sound on my R6 Mark II specially when I hear it through the Insta360 recording BTS. It’s yummy. Haha. Great video Sam!

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@iabdulhaseeb]

QUICK QUESTION!! ⁉️ I'm confused basically I have a plan of getting R6 mark 2 just 4 months used with RF 24-105 4L and RF 100 2.8 + 256 GB card 300MB/s. In 3465 USD On the other hand R5mark2 is 4265 USD. I also don't have any lenses. My total budget is 4500USD!! My 13 months savings! There are 2 options first is buy the 2 lens with R62 or 2nd option is R52 with Rf50 1.8... later on I'll upgrade my lens 24-105.. is it worth to sacrifice more money. I want 4,5 years future safe. If you're in my place what you'll do?? Is it good offer or suggest me any other option!!

[@novacalibur3520]

@@iabdulhaseeb Assuming you haven't made the decision by the time you see this: it depends on what you're trying to do. R5ii has a stacked sensor, C-RAW, and a full-sized HDMI port. It only makes sense, with your budget, if you're photographing fast-moving subjects or recording video where you need a lot of wiggle room in post. If you're an aspiring cinematographer, get the R5ii. If you're primarily a photographer, I say get the R6ii.

[@iabdulhaseeb]

@@novacalibur3520 I bought the R5mark2 with RF 35 1.8..

[@WillMruzek]

It’s totally valid to judge a camera by the shutter sound

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

thaaaaank you. feel like i'm taking crazy pills whenever people push back on this!

[@MiBSuM]

The throwing intro was stunning. Nice!

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

Thanks!

[@mikes1984]

Thanks for the review, i found it very helpful for my style of photography. agree with the shutter sound comparison here too! curious for general personal travel photography if you still prefer R3 or a smaller body like R5/R6?

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

for general purpose & travel i highly recommend the nikon zf. i shoot many of my ef canon, and leica m lenses adapted with near perfect af performance on that body. either that or the 907x50c from hasselblad, but that’s a very different and constrained shooting experience.

[@timmuza]

Thanks Sam : )

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

[@eightfoldstories-weddingfi8022]

Great review Sam. I am with you on the shutter sound. I am not too fond of the shutter sound on even the recent Sony bodies such as the a7iv. Too loud for my taste. Went with 2 x r6iis. The shutter sound on the Nikon zf is just pure love, it just wasn't a comfortable experience shooting a long 3 days Indian wedding with the grip options out there.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

glad i'm not alone with this opinion!

[@babyboy1971]

I’ve been shooting Fuji since 2018 but I’m sick of having such auto focus problems and I’m having a hell of a time deciding whether I’m going to go Nikon or Canon (Or Sony?) and I really don’t want to go to either because I love Fuji so much. Do you have any thoughts on this?

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

if i were coming from fuji then id definitely look at the nikon zf.

[@stubones]

I know there is little to no image quality difference between the R5 and R5 ii, but as someone who shoots a lot of action the stacked sensor is what counts. The only issue I have with my R6 ii is the lack of a stacked sensor.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

I really didn’t notice that making much of a difference tbh

[@richardreynolds8326]

Nice video, I have an R3 and love it….was thinking of buying a R5 mark ii or another R3….what do you think…..

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

would definitely go dual r3. other than the colors… i won’t miss the r5ii. curious about the r1 tho!

[@richardreynolds8326]

@@iamsamhurdphotography thank you, I figured as much….the R1 should be better, but better really is all in the person operating the camera…..The R3 to me is the best camera next to the 5d mark iv. Thanks agsin

[@m43rocks43]

If buying now would you choose the canon r3 over the r5 mark ii for portrait photography given that prices are almost the same? Isn't the r3 a better deal at todays prices? However, I am also wavering because Jeff Cable said that the r3 is stale and why you would you get an r3 instead of an r5 mark ii given its features.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

they're actually very similar cameras in a lot of ways, but the R3 is more versatile if you think you'll shoot anything outside of just portraits.

[@m43rocks43]

@@iamsamhurdphotography Thanks! I also shoot martial arts competitions and pole dancing. The main reason why I am leaning towards the r3 is that I also shoot vertically for studio portraits thus the integrated grip and it being lighter than camera with grip. Mainly I tried holding both of them and the r3 felt better in my hand than the R5 mark ii. I am just worried about the autofocus compared to the R5 mark ii as Jeff Cable talked about in his experience during the Olympics shooting with the R5 mark ii.

[@NoSuRReNDeR001]

having to press mode then info to get to video drives me nuts that alone makes me want upgrade... I do both equal photo and video

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

certainly fair to consider the r5ii then - definitely improved on the video side of things

[@howardholtzman1331]

Thank you for the video. When you attach a flash to the hot shoe and turn it on, does the light meter change? On my R5 the meter increases by 1 stop? I find that very annoying.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

typically, canon changes your display to show an automatic meter of your scene, regardless of what your camera settings are. This is so you can still see what you’re doing in the case of your flash lighting the majority of your scene. pretty sure you could turn this off in your menus.

[@kennethlui2268]

This camera is for bird/sports/wildlife/actions photography.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

it's better suited for portraits

[@kennethlui2268]

@@iamsamhurdphotography R5 II is better suited for portraits? You are the first one who said that that I know of.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

well, the sensor certainly is. portraits for anything editorial and the more MP the better - art directors love to crop. off camera flash and you can shoot at very low iso, which this camera performs at, wonderfully. the color rendering and skin tones hit a nice sweet spot etc

[@myrnamalkin8236]

Better suited for portraits than the R5i? It seems to me that the new features such as pre-capture/burst and eye focus are enhancements that benefit wildlife and sports photographers​@@iamsamhurdphotography

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

@@myrnamalkin8236 the huge sensor size is enough of a reason to not want to use this for sports - absolutely massive amount of data to deal with. pre-capture/burst is useful for all kinds of photography. and as you said - eye focus is a big deal, and one i'd primarily want for portraiture

[@yosefco]

hi thanks for review. want to ask waht do you mean by sayin' youd "probably wont deliver to a client a big file like that". why not? if its part of your album? im always delivering the best quality possible.. what am i missing?

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

because my contract states i deliver a minimum of 20 megapixel files, which is enough to print: 1. At 300 DPI (high-quality print): 5000 pixels ÷ 300 DPI = 16.67 inches wide 2. At 240 DPI (good quality print): 5000 pixels ÷ 240 DPI = 20.83 inches wide 3. At 150 DPI (acceptable for large prints viewed from a distance): 5000 pixels ÷ 150 DPI = 33.33 inches wide this covers me if i deliver some random older iphone images, or images from older camera bodies, or if i crop into an image a lot. i don’t need to over deliver THAT much with 45mp files

[@SudarsanaChatterjee]

Good!

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

Thanks!

[@Hellseeker1]

My preset is Vivid that's built into the camera lol. It looks great out of the box, you can tweak it in Lightroom or just remove it entirely. It's not hard to move a slider or make your own presets. I just don't understand how people can buy presets for like $100. Like what are you doing man?

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

people buy a preset for a lot of money when they really like the look of said preset, haha. my preset has a custom lut embedded into the camera profile that i created in an app outside of lightroom so without that - you can’t get the same color shifts that i get.

[@robbie154]

That dynamic range color shift definitely has to be a profile issue. Can’t think of a logical reason it’s the sensor.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

i also can't seem to recreate it using other raw interpreters

[@Xynerity]

6:46 I've had that happen on the 1st gen r5. For me it happens when I try to review the image too fast and it's still writing onto the card. I have to wait a bit before I can review the image, not sure if that's normal or not.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

maybe for larger sensors that are in th r5 and r5ii, but definitely unique to canon in my experience. even my 8 year off 45mp d850 never had this issue

[@Xynerity]

@iamsamhurdphotography you're right it's a weird issue. After I commented that I searched it up and my issue was the lens optimizer option was turned on. On red menu page 3 bottom option its in the sub menu. making it save slow. It seems to be turned on by default.

[@adamfalgout6601]

Funny, I shoot about 50 weddings a year, LOVED the R5... and even the R5 Mark II for weddings even more... so weird that other wedding guys wouldn't like it. Blows my mind.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

have you tried the r3?

[@adamfalgout6601]

@@iamsamhurdphotography No need to, the R5 1 and 2 work amazingly well, can't imagine lowering the size of the files to half the megapixels.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

@@adamfalgout6601 but why? are you cropping more than 50% of the pixel count, or printing 60 inch prints? personally, i prefer the tradeoff of fewer MP to cleaner high ISO

[@adamfalgout6601]

@@iamsamhurdphotography Just so much more detail. If I export a 45 MP image down to a 20-23 MP image it's arguably just as clean if not cleaner with more detail

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

@@adamfalgout6601 but the processing power/time to do that is just not very practical for high volume/fast FPS shooting like in sports/weddings/probably wildlife, and the detail is going to be lost on 95% of viewing sizes most people will actually experience

[@radugirbea915]

1/2500 1/3200 1/1250 Why do you use such shutter speed for static human portraits? KZbin is fully full of specialists!

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

was probably shooting in aperture priority + auto iso and trending toward underexposing to retain dynamic range, would have to go back and check - this video is not about exposure settings lol

[@typorosz]

NO FRAME SYNC OPTION AND NO SSD RECORDING OPTION!!! NO IBIS HIGH RES SHOT (400 MP OPTION). NO OLDER BATTERIES ACCEPTENCE! sRAW INTERLACING AND MOIRE!

[@fostervf16]

As soon as you said you don't use a viewfinder I was out. As a photographer that's ridiculous. I hate to say it but you are just another person with a camera. It's a shame.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

except that i make my living making photographs

[@janmittvora4235]

I immediately stopped watching as soon as i heard he doesnt use the viewfinder lmao

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

and yet i make my living making photographs. crazy how that works!

[@thecsciworker291]

17k images and a "a 'million' images on R3"?? Lol. I don't think holding down the shutter and taking 100 shots of the same moment count towards experience....but I get your point.

[@eschrad]

@@thecsciworker291 I just shot 3000 images over 2 days at a convention between event coverage and a headshot booth. When I shoot weddings, it’s easy to shoot 1500-2000 images in a day. 17K isn’t hard.

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

i work constantly

[@Hellseeker1]

I really don't care about high ISO, like why even talk about it? You always want to shoot in the lowest ISO possible, it's a waste of time to even test it, beside it being annoying to look at.

[@CaseySykes-by7vy]

Because there are other people who do care and do use high ISO. I'm a sports photographer and often shoot indoors - when I need to freeze action at 1/1000, I'm not at ISO 100 or even 400 because it's not possible. Depending on the location I could be at ISO 640 at the lowest possible end (wide open on an f/1.2 lens) or as high as ISO 8000, which is the highest I'm comfortable shooting with my R5s. I very much appreciated his high ISO test because I will always - for as long as I'm a photographer - be interested in getting better looking images from dark lighting situations. Why wouldn't I be?

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

but, i like to actually push the limits of the environments i can shoot in so i have more options available to me to create in.

[@myrnamalkin8236]

I have photographed dance or live theater where I have been at ISO 10,000-20,000. So, low noise/high ISO performance matters to me.

[@DansHotShots]

im a real weirdo about color and feel like my R5II is much closer to the look my Canon DSLR's had, esp the 5D3 (r5/6 were a massive departure imho)

[@iamsamhurdphotography]

wouldn't surprise me. i never shot all that much with canon during the DSLR days so it's hard to say, but it's definitely a different color pipeline than other mirrorless