First Light

When I got the 6D Mark II a couple years ago, it was an improvement over the 5D Mark III I got back in 2012. But only an incremental improvement. The rotating display is probably the most significant difference. There is a slight increase in resolution, built-in GPS, and ... that's about all I can think of. I don't think the focusing is any better.

However, the R5 Mark II mirrorless camera is not incremental. It's a vast increase in resolution, and a supposed vast improvement in focusing speed and accuracy. I don't know, I haven't had a chance to mess with it yet. We were hit with a lot of snow the past few days, and there are no animals running around for me to chase. After a few days of thinking about it, I pulled the trigger on the R5 yesterday, and B&H rushed it through the snowstorm for me to get it today. The only RF-mount lens I decided to get at this time is the 100mm macro, replacing the EF version I've had forever. I've had the EF-RF converter for a while to use on my spouse's R10, a consumer-grade camera. Besides the solar eclipse last year, I haven't used it much. Supposedly there is no problem with using EF lenses except for a possible loss of burst speed. Supposedly, focusing speed and accuracy is better for an EF lens on an RF body versus an EF lens on an EF body, but not as good as an RF lens on an RF body. Confusing, not at all. Oh well, as long as I'm keeping the 6D as my backup, I'll be keeping mostly EF lenses.

I wanted to do something other than just shooting my bookshelf for first light, so I snapped a rose that was given to my spouse at the dinner we went to last Thursday. However, the camera was set to large JPG rather than RAW, so that took a wrong turn right away. Anyway. I use the Adobe RAW filter on JPG images all the time, and I did it on this one. What impressed me first was the red was not blown out. When I was processing the last batch of butterfly images from the 6D, there were some blown out reds.

So the 5D is headed to eBay, along with the 100mm macro lens and three other lenses. Most significant is my first "L" lens, the 300mm f/4. When I got my first 100-400 a few years later, the 300 fell out of favor. Also going on the block is the 50mm f/1.4 and the Tamron 28-300 zoom. All four lenses being auctioned are 20-25 years old. The focus on the 50mm broke when I was in Antarctica in 2003. I sent it to Canon to get fixed, and it broke again a few years later. At that point I decided not to bother with it any more. The Tamron was probably a pretty good consumer zoom lens at the time, but I just didn't use it much after I got the 300 and some other good Canon lenses. We'll see if anyone bites.

The R5 felt light, so I decided to weigh all the cameras. The R5 is lighter than the 5D by seven ounces, but only a fraction of an ounce lighter than the 6D. Here are the numbers:

R10	- 1 lb, 0.2 ounces
R5	- 1 lb, 11 ounces
6D	- 1 lb, 11.9 ounces
5D	- 2 lbs, 2.3 ounced
1D	- 3 lbs, 0.7 ounces

It should be noted that I weighed the 1D without its real battery, just the AC adapter which is much lighter. It is one heavy chunk of metal. I used to wave that thing around with the 300mm lens attached. That's why I had Popeye arms in the 2000s.

What's the point and how does this relate to this remote shooting blog? This acquisition also had me reflecting on the state of DSLRs in 2025 versus 2002 when I got my first one, the flawed 1D Mark I. Horrible banding in underexposed areas, only 4Mp, but still capable of fine images if the lighting was good and if you got close enough. The R5 has ten times the resolution and 20+ years of technological advancement built into it. And now to bring it back to remote shooting, why in the hell have trailcam manufacturers decided to lie about increased resolution rather than actually doing something about it? I wish trailcams had advanced as much since (just picking a date) 2017 as Canon's high-end cameras have. There has been a revolution in the transition from DSLR to mirrorless, and there has been no real innovation in the trailcam world during that time.