Legacy Lenses with the Canon EOS R5 - 1: EF 70-300L

[Tronhard]

Since this seems to have become a thing that some folks believe that legacy Canon native EF lenses are not working with the Canon EOS R5, I thought I would go and shoot with a couple of my own to deal with the issue that this might be systemic, rather that specific to the users or their gear. The complaints I have encountered so far seem to suggest that these lenses would not focus with the R5.

For this exercise I went to the local zoo on an overcast, occasionally showery day. I took my EOS R5 with the EF 70-300L f/4.5-6L lens, released in 2010. I deliberately tried to find images that would challenge the focusing system, so I chose a range of conditions including moving animals, very small subjects in very dim conditions, some at minimum focusing distance and others using maximum magnification with the 1.6 crop factor enabled. So, these are not necessarily works of art, but they do challenge the focusing system.

Overall, I had very few that were not keepers: of the 96 that I shot, 8 were not good - 2 were me shooting the ground as I handled the camera awkwardly, and one was absolutely massively out of focus - user error. The other 5 were very slow shutter speed resulting in movement by the subject or me being knocked by the many visitors.

All shots were taken hand-held, in available light, shot in both RAW and JPG.  Since the files are enormous relative to the maximum allowed here, I have downsized them in Photoshop and allowed some basic exposure and colour correction, none of which should impact on whether the focus was correct. 

So here goes:

1A: 300mm, f/7.4, 1/320sec, ISO-6400             1B: 100% crop of 1A

Looking at the front eye and the area around it, it looks like focus was bang on to me

2A: 155mm, f/160sec, ISO-2500    2B: 100% crop of 2A    3A: 229mm, f/8, 1/320sec, ISO-2500

This series was shot through a fairly grubby thick glass window. I was particularly interested to see if the camera would latch onto the bright plant, but no...

4A: 214mm f/6.3, 1/320sec, ISO-640

This baby orang was right by an extremely grubby window, at minimum focusing distance and very low light, and I was in a bit of a melee to get a photo as it was very cute and attracted a lot of attention.

5A: 188mm, f/5, 1/250sec, ISO-3200    6A: 300mm, f/13, 1/500sec, ISO-3200

These two were taken of an Auckland Green (AKA Elegant) Gecko, in EXTREMELY dim overhead light, at min focusing distance, also through glass.  This animal is barely 125mm (5" long) from nose to end of tail.  Initially I had to use manual focus to gauge the minimum focus distance (since there was a pane of glass in the way), but once I went back enough, despite the extremely dim conditions, the focus locked on the eyes.

7A: 300mm, f/8, 1/400sec, ISO-1600

This leopard was shot through thick glass.

Please click on the files to view in them in full size, as uploaded.

I would welcome your conclusions at to the effectiveness of this lens with the R5 body.

[shadowsports]

@Trevor,

As always.  Your posts are some of the most helpful and informative out there.  

Thank you 

[Tronhard]

@Rick:
As always you are both gracious and generous with your praise.  I see you in much the same light and it always a pleasure to exchange information and views with you.

[Tronhard]

@domzduzt

If you are thinking of every model of EF lens Canon have made, I also doubt they have physically tested every one.  However, they don't really need to.  The EF and EF-S lenses are controlled by firmware that will have been developed at the time of their design and manufacture and they will work with that firmware.  So, all Canon has to do is test that a selection of lens models using the firmware and the rest, logically, should work.  I am sure that those tested would include their most expensive L lenses and their most popular selling ones, like the 18-55, 18-135 and 70-300 units. 
Given that there are obviously people with issues using their legacy lenses, I am more inclined to think that the issue is not a generally systemic one, but more likely due to:

*  The age and condition of the individual lenses like all devices, lenses suffer wear and tear.  I just had that experience with the venerable Canon EF 28-300L lens, vintage 2004. While it has been minimally used by me, and carefully tended, it has developed a fault and that needs to be fixed.
*  How they are attached to the R-series bodies - the adapter.  The lens might be fine, but the adapter adds a couple of new electro-mechanical interfaces and that adds both risk and complication.  Further, some people use non-Canon adapters, but they do so at their own risk.
*  How the camera is configured to use the lens.  As I have already alluded to, one only has to look at the increased options and complexity of the Canon menu system to see that there are a lot more features and options available, especially for focus.  One has to spend time experimenting to see how those options may, or may not, impact the operation of a lens for the purposes of the operator.  People use the gear in different ways, so while there are a host of possibilities, a user has to refine the basic system to optimize it for their style of photography.
*  Individual camera faults.   When a maker produces literally millions of cameras, despite their best efforts, some units will inevitably have faults.  That is not systemic, i.e. requiring some global solution like a firmware update or model recall, but a statistical reality or all man-made devices.  In that case, if the fault is discovered under warranty, Canon will fix or replace it for free.
* User technique/setup/error.  As I said, it takes time and some study of the Camera operations manual to fully understand the features of these cameras - the manuals are hundreds of pages long, and while much of that may be familiar, I would recommend users of new camera models read the manuals for very new features (like autofocus, for example) to make sure they know and understand how the camera is going to behave.  I suspect this is particularly true of people using a new generation camera in a very traditional way, especially manually.  There are a lot of algorithms built-in to the cameras, and even more in the newer lenses - a trend that will continue as cameras catch up with cell phones by using AI to reach ever more ambitious levels of performance.  One trend I have noticed among complaints is that many are using the camera in some kind of manual mode, which they should be able to do, but perhaps do they need to be aware of interference from those algorithms? This is purely speculation on my part, so it is more a question than a statement.