Using Brand New R5 with Old Lenses and AF Works Occasionally

[johndd]

Bought a Canon R5 thru their upgrade program when my 5D Mark III was unrepairable. Now in New Zealand and experiencing AF failure a lot on both Canon "legacy" 70-200 2.8 and Tamron "legacy" 28-75 2.8.

Comments? I want Canon to know this in case it's an issue that requires camera to be replaced/repaired when I return in June. 

[Tronhard]

I would not expect any Canon representative to give any assurance for the performance of a 3rd party component.  Canon have always had a policy of use at your own risk for lenses they don't make.  That said, for the two Sigma lenses I use: the 150-600c and 60-600s units: so far, they have worked fine.

[Tronhard]

To try to emulate your issue, I took my R5 out with the last legacy lenses I have - the EF70-300L (rel. early 2010) and the EF 100-400 MkII on the R6 - which has the same focusing system.  I have made a post in the section on sharing images, and enclose a link to that here for your consideration.
Legacy Lenses with the Canon EOS R5 - 1: EF 70-300... - Canon Community

[johnrmoyer]

I hope some of this might be helpful.

It seemed to me when I changed from EOS 80D to EOS R5 that I needed to use different settings. I could not get single point to work to my satisfaction. I changed from single point to a small initial area and that seemed to work for me.

Another quirk is that if it is far out of focus, then it helps to point the camera at a large contrasty object at about the same distance, e.g. a tree trunk at about the same distance as the bird, and then focus on the object of interest.

All of my EF and EF-S lenses work better on my EOS R5 than they did on my EOS 80D, but I have to do things differently.

[Tronhard]

Hi John:
Thank you for clarifying your situation and efforts.  I have had quite a few legacy lenses of different focal lengths, and had no issue personally, but we can meet up when you get here and see what we can do!  I look forward to catching up in June.

[shadowsports]

@Trevor this is very kind.  Plus you'll get to meet a fellow Canon enthusiast.

@johdd, I'm pretty confident your issues are related to the age of you lenses.  Both were designed for body's from another era of photography. I don't know if your Tamron lens has updates available, or if it even supports the tap-in console (due to age), but I'd check if the lens means that much to you.  I do not think you are going to find firmware for the first gen 70-200 either, but if it were available, I might try it too.

Upgrading the camera's FW to v1.8.1 is recommended, especially if you are on a version prior to v1.70 as significant performance improvements were made. The performance inconsistencies you are describing all sound like age related compatibility.  If possible, I'd test with a lens of more recent manufacture. I don't think there is anything wrong with your body and the moment you put a RF or newer EF lens on it you likely see that.  I did this too.  Purchased the R5 C and control ring thinking RF's one by one.   

Case in point. You will not fully realize the potential or performance capability of your new camera until you use it with native glass.  Performance could be hit and miss, with your lenses working acceptably in some but not all situations. I don't expect that you said to the Canon team, by the way, my lenses are first gen 70-200, and pre 2009 28-75. This is now hindsight. Given the number of releases each of your lenses has, I don't think either you or Canon thought to mention this specifically. The reps wouldn't intentionally deceive you so you'd buy a new camera. This is not how Canon operates. I hope the camera's latest FW and lens updates (if avaialble) might help improve your situation. I would transition to RF budget permitting. The R5 has been Canon's most popular, best selling / highest performing camera since its release. It offers so much and is continuing to improve. More firmware is coming in June/July timeframe.

**EDIT.  In case you have not already done so, please reset the camera main and custom settings to defaults and retest.  While you may not be new to photography, you are new to mirrorless and these body's are very different than DSLR's

[Tronhard]

@Shadowsports:  Rick, thanks for your gracious and helpful comments here.  I agree with you and will add that I have observed that issues sometimes arise with how the camera is set up.  For example, I think people have more issues when using some manual settings.

The R5 is a far more sophisticated and complex beast than the DSLRs it has superseded.  How autofocus is set up by the user is quite significant and could add another layer of risk on top of the age of the lenses.   I have just got the R6MkII and it has another layer of complexity on top of the R5 and R6MkI units I have used to date.

I have a suspicion that this new generation works best when one lets the system work, at least partly in auto mode.
I shoot almost exclusively in Av mode (I have done so for over 40 years), I set up the focusing system to work with eye autofocus, set to C1 for Animal, and C2 for Humans.  I use single point spot focus and single point metering, coupled with the back buttons for each.  So far that has worked well for me.  Some associates who work in manual seem to struggle with focus in particular.

@John:  It might be worth saving your current configuration to one of the C modes and then configuring the camera to let it do its thing, and see if that makes a difference.  If it does then you can decide how to proceed from there, if it doesn't you can restore your current settings very quickly.   I realize you are in NZ now, and I hate the thought that you will miss out on some images because the system is not working for you, so I am hoping that this experiment may be of assistance for you and let you enjoy your trip as much as possible.

[JessSterkPhoto]

I am struggling with this too! Having bought a brand new R5 + Canon adapter and I keep getting error messages when using older Canon lenses like the Canon 24-70mm Mk II f/2.8. I especially get this error message when I'm using the lens at it's widest, and I'm super frustrated with this camera body. 

Canon lenses should be compatible with Canon mirrorless bodies, at least they're marketed that way with the RF Adapter. 

[shadowsports]

If you wouldn't mind posting the error in your existing thread, that would be helpful.

Assume Err 70

[Tronhard]

Jess, as Rick said, please do post your issues in your own thread.  There are several reasons for this>
1. Your exact situation may be different from the one being dealt with in this thread, so what is discussed here may not help you, but...
2.  There will be major confusion between your issues and those of the original poster, which is very frustrating for all concerned.

[johndd]

Update: Today, I was 30% successful getting Canon 70-200 to AF. The other 70% it partially focused but not accurately. I could refocus on something close and get sharpness and then focus on original subject and it might give me sharpness. Other times, AF did nothing. Alternatively, the Tamron performed close to 100%! Historically, the Tamron has been more reliable than the Canon 70-200.