EOS R5 Mark II upgrade or not?

[shawnphoto]

I have the original R5, and have had it for 4 years next month. It's a fine camera that does the work. It seems to be very accurate for photography. Colors are fantastic, but not 100% accurate. The new one is supposed to be lower quality for photography, but is it more accurate with what it does have? Because I would personally take the slightly improved colors over a small increase in dynamic range. I haven't found anyone who has actually A-B tested the R5 and R5 mk II with a detailed color analysis. Honestly, if we exclude video from the equation, should I upgrade to the R5 mk II?

[Tronhard]

I feel it too... It's a combination of being on the dead end of a fairly long logistics run, and the fact that the market here is not too competitive.  It would be significantly cheaper to fly to Oz and get it, but the government would still charge me 15% GST at the airport.

[FloridaDrafter]

Hello, shawnphoto!

I understand your critique, but please take into account that these are test images (almost straight out of the box) and reduced in size for posting and not meant for printing, so your holistic assessment is flawed, IMO. I assume you zoomed way in and did a bit of pixel peeping? I'll also add some info that I probably should have added with my camera settings, the White Peacock butterfly is less than two inches from wing tip to wing tip and was shot from 15 feet. This is a common butterfly in my yard, and I've photographed it many times with many cameras. When compared side by side with the R5, the mark II has an edge SOOC. I consider this an advantage as I will spend less time in PP. The mockingbird OTOH, was a three-inch target taken from 60 feet. The R5 would have locked onto the Cardinal in this situation and taken more shenanigans to switch to my desired subject. Once again, this was a test posted to show the advanced AF of the mark II.

Take away what you will from my post. As my esteemed colleague Trevor said, it just boils down to whether the features are worth it to you. They are to me as a nature photographer, and I am very happy with my purchase, and I haven't even dug that deep into its capabilities 🙂

Newton

[shawnphoto]

I never had a problem getting shots in focus with the R5... LOL. I guess I'm just better at using cameras than most people. I must be a camera genius because I also never use tracking AF and I still have loads of photos of animals and people moving that are perfectly sharp. I didn't realize how smart I was I guess. I guess if you're not smart like me then the R5 mark II is a great camera because it can use AI to figure out how to focus on something. Cuz thats soooo hard to do. 

[FloridaDrafter]

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@shawnphoto wrote:

BTW, you must have a really fast computer (or a lot of patience) because DPP is absurdly slow with my R5 files, so I never use it. 

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I have neither a really fast computer nor a lot of patience. I am running Windows 11 (upgraded from 10) on a Dell XPS 17 with a 6 core i7 CPU and a measly 16GB of RAM. I do however have a 2TB NVMe drive which is quite fast. I also have an external 27" HDR monitor (USB C or HDMI) that I drive with an NVIDIA GeForce card (not on MB) which allows me to view/edit HDR-PQ Raw files and converted HEIF (HIF) within DPP. This laptop was sold as a "desktop replacement" system, and it lives up to that claim.

I've heard the complaints, but DPP runs fine for me, albeit a little slow for some processes, but I prefer its handling of Canon Raw to any other graphics program I run. I have been running DPP since 2014, from Windows XP through all of the Window's versions since with no problems. I even work off of a USB C 4TB external NVMe drive and networked drives at times. I mention the latter because I hear that complaint a lot.

Since I am a graphic artist at heart and retired land survey draftsman (FloridaDrafter, LOL), my systems are tuned for graphics, period. Other than a web browser, it's all graphics. In my drafting work, I used a lot of 0.5-meter pixel high-res satellite imagery in both Autodesk Land Desktop and ESRI Arc Map, a GIS mapping program. These were GPU/CPU intensive programs, yet since I worked from home, I learned to "tune" my systems (primarily 17" laptops for portability) to be efficient. Time is money 🙂

Newton

[ctitanic]

If you upgrade now you will be part of the early adopters group. You will suffering of all the minors issues that other users are reporting in this forum and other forums such as the R5 freezing, settings being lost after configuring them, disconnections from Camera Connect, and other issues. 

I'm not saying do not upgrade, I'm saying that you should wait until these issues are confirmed and fixed. Just few days ago Canon released the first Firmware update for this camera.

[shawnphoto]

The thing keeping me from upgrading is that Canon does not seem to have committed to how it wants this camera to perform for stills. It seems that nobody has done the obvious and compared it shot for shot against the old camera. When is someone gonna do the obvious and show us what this camera can really do or not do?? We want to see shot for shot at the same ISO and same lens. Barring that, I'll NEVER buy this camera.

[ctitanic]

Look around YouTube and you will find a lot of videos compering both cameras. 

[Tronhard]

I find it difficult to understand your conclusion about Canon's commitment to photography, considering you have not (as far as I can ascertain) got your hands on the R5II - if you have, then share your experience.  Speaking for myself, I have shot with every FF DSLR (since 2010)  and every FF MILC released so far, and several of the APS-C models in both DSLR and MILC series.  That does not mean I am going to buy them all, but I can say I have first-hand personal experience that satisfies my own needs to gauge their performance and express a personal opinion.

There is a simple solution to this. Instead of waiting for someone to spoon feed you the specific results you want, go and rent an R5II and do the comparisons you want for yourself, then you can proudly exhibit your results to us.  That way you have total control of the scientific process I am sure you want to follow.

[shawnphoto]

Canon is saying that this camera can do this that and the other for video. 8k 60, check, built in fan, check, less overheating, check, faster read out, check. All great for VIDEO shooters. They do say 14 bits for stills... OK. Is that more or less than the original R5? With video its clear how the R5 mk II is better, Canon is saying how it is better. But for stills it seems like radio silence is the order of the day. Again, if that is the case, great, I can move on and simply wait for the next "stills camera", whatever they decide to call it. 

[Tronhard]

We come back to the principle that is universal to the camera buyer, to what degree one values a specific set of characteristics, either existing or anticipated in a camera system. As I said in my first post, we each have to assess our purchases in relation to our perceived needs.
Product or service providers sell items with a set of characteristics (FEATURES) that they believe will be attractive to a market space: that is, a bunch of people to whom they wish to sell their wares.  As such they have no direct connection to any individual.
What is specific to the individual is the perception that they value a set of BENEITS they seek to either improve their performance or to remove a constraint to them. 
VALUE only exists when one can map BENEFITS to FEATURES within a reasonable budget.
As I understand it you are in that situation right now.  That is a decision only you can make, but to come back to your original request, if you cannot get the hard comparison data you need, then you can either hold back or make your own investigations. 
All that said, from a personal point of view, I have never felt constrained by the gear I have, I don't rely on a new piece of technology for my photography, I just use what I have and try to make the most of it.   I have already said that I am not inclined to upgrade to the R5II because for me the features don't map to benefits for me, so the value isn't there.  That is not to say that the it is not a great camera, it's just now something that will make that much difference to my own genre of photography.

Each of us has to make our own call on that.