EOS R5 Lagging/Freezing in Viewfinder Under Club Lighting with EF 24-70mm f/2.8 and RF Adapter

[georgeradul]

Hello everyone!

I recently purchased a Canon R5 from a well known store and noticed a recurring issue when shooting in environments with colored lighting of varying intensities, like in a club or party setting. Whenever I try to focus on a moving subject, the viewfinder lags or sometimes even freezes, especially when the subject is hit by direct light from a PAR light or strobe. Initially, I was also getting an Error 70, but after switching SD cards (now using a SanDisk Extreme PRO) and enabling airplane mode, the error stopped appearing. However, the lagging or freezing persists in both Face+Tracking and Spot AF modes. For context, I'm using the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 EF lens with the Canon EF-RF adapter. Switching to manual focus seems to eliminate this issue.

Here’s what I’ve already tried to improve the performance:

• Adjusting the brightness of the viewfinder to “Auto,” which seems to help a bit but doesn't fully resolve the issue.
• Switching to a single AF point and trying different AF sensitivity settings.
• Using a different card and shooting only via the viewfinder (the display doesn’t seem to have this issue).
• Updating to the latest firmware available.

I’m hoping this isn’t a widespread problem with the R5, but I’d like to know if any other R5 users are experiencing this in similar lighting conditions or have found a workaround. Any insights or suggestions would be really appreciated before I consider returning it or sending it for repairs.

Thanks so much in advance!

[Waddizzle]

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your gear. All gear has limits. Expecting reliable and consistent Eye AF, or any of the intelligent AF features, under such extreme lighting conditions is asking for too much. 

I recommend that you disable all the advanced features. Dumb it down until the AF display is only small squares. 

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

To start, can you please provide the following information:

Was this body purchased new or used?

What is the brand of your lens adapter?

Confirm FW version is 2.1.0?

Err70 normally indicates a problem with storage media.  

I'm not sure what Airplane mode would do in this case since the issue does not appear to be related to bluetooth or wi-fi communication.  Then I found this in the release notes for v2.1.0 (very curious)

　3-1. Fixes an issue, in which when Wi-Fi is disconnected, Err 70 occurs.

We will await your reply.

[Waddizzle]

“ I’m hoping this isn’t a widespread problem with the R5, but I’d like to know if any other R5 users are experiencing this in similar lighting conditions or have found a workaround. “

While I can’t ever totally rule out a design flaw, the camera has more than been on the shelves long enough to shake out the majority of bugs.  We’re at the point where new firmware updates can fix existing issues while creating new ones.  I, too, recommend upgrading the firmware because I don’t think this is a hardware issue.  

I don’t ever use Airplane Mode, preferring to just simply disable wireless communications because I use it so seldomly.  

I would expect nearly everyone to have issues under similar conditions. 

[georgeradul]

Thank you for your reply.

The body was purchased 3 days ago brand new.

I use a Canon lens adapter, but the basic model.

Yes, FW version is 2.1.0

I thought that with wireless connections enabled, the camera might be using more processing resources, so I disabled them. Since then, the lag doesn’t occur as often with wireless connections turned off. I believe the error is gone because I changed the SD card. But the viewfinder's lag persists. Not as often as with the first card, but it's still there sometimes and it's frustrating. The first SD card was also a SanDisk Extreme PRO, but perhaps it had some issues on it.

[georgeradul · Accepted solution]

I’ve solved the issue! It was related to the viewfinder's frame rate. The frame rate was automatically dropping to low in variable lighting conditions. I had to check the "Suppress Lower Frame Rate" option in the SHOOT8 menu, under the "Disp. Performance" section, where I also selected the "Smooth" option. This has fixed the lag and freezing issue for me.