50-frame focus bracketing speed for EOS R5 or EOS R5 Mark II

[jabo]

I am looking for a camera system for outdoor macro photography and I think focus stacking (not too interested in-camera but using Zerene or Helicon) is essential nowadays. For a high success rate  especially handheld  but also on tripod a high frame rate is essential as it reduces the chance of movement (including wind). The best system in this respect is the OM-1 with its 90mm macro with almost 30 fps in bracketing mode but I don't like the colors and DR of the m4/3 cameras. All the FF cameras I tried were around 5fps so too slow for larger stacks. So I am looking for info about the bracketing speed (for instance how long for 50 frames in the bracketing mode). That will be likely also dependent on the lens used. I guess the main choice would be the RF100mm/2.8 except I am not excited about its weight and bulk.

[JeffXB]

Let me preclude this by saying I don’t own an R5 or R5 M2. The specs for them say they’ll shoot at 20 and 30fps respectively in high speed electronic shutter mode. So doing the math means at 30fps it would take 1.66 seconds to shoot 50 frames. 

I have the R6 M2 which will shoot at 40fps in electronic shutter mode, so that translates to 1.25 seconds for 50 frames. I also have the RF 100mm f2.8 L Macro IS USM lens. I actually find the little bit of extra weight and bulk a good thing. For me I find it’s easier to hold it still as opposed to a lighter set up, such when I shoot with my Laowa 90mm f2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO (almost a pound lighter). As that’s a full manual lens you can either rock forward or rack the focus ring as you depress the shutter. This also works quite well for the RF 100mm in manual mode when using a 3rd party flash (I have the Godox V100 and the Godox MF-R76 Macro Ring Flash, at lower power settings they can easily keep up with the high frame rate of my camera). 

Keep in mind that in camera focus bracketing only works with a select few canon flashes (the most expensive ones). Otherwise you will have to either use a continuous light source (LED panel or cube light) or shoot in manual where any good quality flash will work. Of course in camera focus bracketing also works if you have enough natural light and/or are a bit away from the subject, such as when shooting flowers. 

[jabo]

it is not too difficult to find the specs for high frame rate but that does not necessarily translate to the speed of focus bracketing as it also requires for the lens to change focus each step. So most of the time the fps for focus bracketing are slower than the burst rate (120 vs 30 fps for the OM1). So I am asking what would be that frame rate with the lens stepping (likely lens and camera dependent).

[johnrmoyer]

https://cam.start.canon/en/H001/supplement_0010.html 

Lenses and Flash Units Compatible with Focus Bracketing

The following lenses and flash units can be used when shooting with focus bracketing (as of March 2025).

[jabo]

That is not explaining my question: speed of focus bracketing as that is essential for outdoor handheld or even on tripod.

[johnrmoyer]

---

@jabo wrote:

That is not explaining my question: speed of focus bracketing as that is essential for outdoor handheld or even on tripod.

---

It is likely that I do not know the answers to your questions.

So far as I can guess, the reason those lenses are mentioned as good for baking a depth composite is that they focus in small steps and focus quickly. I had hoped it might answer the lens part of the question. I have used in camera depth composition with two of the EF lenses in the list using a tripod. If not using a tripod, I use hugin instead of DPP to combine the images. Hugin calls it focus stacking and is good at aligning images. DPP can stack the out of camera raw files if a tripod was used and the images are already aligned. 16 bit TIFFs saved from DPP are a good input for hugin. 

I have only been able to make focus stacks in bright sunlight on one of the rare days here without wind. 

[JeffXB · Accepted solution]

Hopefully this will get you closer to the answer you seek. It is by no means a "scientific answer," but rather a quick test I did. I used my R6 M2, RF 100mm 2.8 Macro lens, tripod and a stop watch. I set in camera focus bracketing for 120fps and took 5 sets of shots of some unripened Pindo Palm fruit (aka Jelly Palm).

Distance from front focal point (first berry) until the last one was 7.75 inches. Natural light, 2 second delay, ISO 200, shutter speed varied a bit (1/250 to 1/500s) as the light was changing (cloudy to bright), but I kept the aperture set at f/2.8 for all 5 sets. The results: 120fps @ 40fps setting = average of 3.12 seconds; factoring in perception / reaction time I'd say it was likely closer to 3 seconds.

I reviewed each of the 120 photos per set and at no time did the lens miss a shot, the shots progressed thru the entire sequence with each one moving the focal plane back in precise increments (a tribute to both he camera and the lens).

The enclosed photos are unprocessed and straight out of the camera (I shoot in RAW, the R6 M2 merges the stack in the camera and saves it in jpeg format)

[jabo]

Thanks Jeff for that info. 120frames in around 3 sec is much faster than any FF camera of other brands can do with in camera focus bracketing. I assume that was with electronic shutter.  So the R6m2 is likely better for that purpose than the R5M2. I am curious what the specs will be of the R6M3 which likely have a small increase to 30Mpx which would allow a little more cropping.

Looking at the in camera stacks I see some Halo artifacts (quite similar to the OM-1 II) but using Zerene or Helicon that will likely not be an issue.

With 40fps a quality LED light will be better than searching for flashes which can keep up

[johnrmoyer]

If the camera saved all of the raw files as well as the composite, exiftool may be used to list the time for each photo including subsecond time.

exiftool -h -datetimeoriginal -SubSecTimeOriginal  ../2024Jun02/IMG_00[01][0-9].CR3

File Name	IMG_0011.CR3
Date/Time Original	2024:05:27 09:55:34
Sub Sec Time Original	40
File Name	IMG_0012.CR3
Date/Time Original	2024:05:27 09:55:34
Sub Sec Time Original	55
File Name	IMG_0013.CR3
Date/Time Original	2024:05:27 09:55:34
Sub Sec Time Original	70
File Name	IMG_0014.CR3
Date/Time Original	2024:05:27 09:55:34
Sub Sec Time Original	85
File Name	IMG_0015.CR3
Date/Time Original	2024:05:27 09:55:34
Sub Sec Time Original	99
File Name	IMG_0016.CR3
Date/Time Original	2024:05:27 09:55:35
Sub Sec Time Original	14

While I am not especially skilled at this and some of these flowers moved, here is an example: 

https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/2024Jun02_birds_and_cats/2024may27_wildflower_IMG_0009-0016c.html 

Gaillardia pulchella wildflowers (depth composite of 8 images) in Norman, Oklahoma, United States on May 27, 2024

[jabo]

That is quite difficult to have so many flowers behaving. If that sub sec means millisecond, 15 sec for each frame would be very impressive!