First real test

I've been roaming around town with my new Canon R5 Mark II to get some turkey and deer shots, but the first real test was Sunday with the Ski Jorning National Finals at the nearby fairgrounds. Simply put, ski joring is crazy people on skis getting pulled by horses. The most difficult thing to do was figure out which autofocus settings to use, particularly with skiiers going over the last jump. I wasn't able to see them until they got near the jump so couldn't just follow them with Servo. I eventually turned off eye recognition and just went with a simple center focus point.

When the R5 snaps into focus, which it does a high percentage of time, the detail in the images is incredible. The fairgrounds is right next to the airport, and I snapped this image of one of the local planes taking off. The tight crop is unresized 1800x1200 pixels, which is less than 5% of the 45Mp image. Very sharp. The image of the skiier is full frame, resized. Also very sharp. At this point I'm very happy with the R5. My only worries are disk space and battery power. The sequence of the skier coming over the jump and wiping out was more than 60 images, each taking up more than 50Mb. No buffering. I cannibalized the 6D for its battery and didn't have to use it, but it was close. With great power comes great responsibility.

This final image is one of the drones that was used to chase the competitors as they raced around the track. Very nimble. I'm not sure which model this is but it bears a family resemblance to our DJI Mavic 3 Pro. I have never tried the follow function, but on this drone it had no trouble keeping up with the racers.

We have a problem

As mentioned in the previous post, the power converter that works with the 6D does not work with the R5, despite the same form factor. The aurora was forecast last night, so I put out the R5 with its battery to see how long it might last. The answer was two hours and 20 minutes, 272 thirty-second exposures with one second in between. The last image was taken at 11:17. I went out at midnight to reset the intervalometer and the camera had a light on it, so I thought it was still working. I even re-aimed the camera further west at what looked like a streak of light in the sky. But I got no images of that. In retrospect, I think it was a red light indicating the battery was depleted. Also in retrospect, I should have swapped in the 6D battery at midnight. I know it isn't powerful enough to shoot video in the R5, but it can take stills.

The forecast for tonight isn't as good for the aurora, so I may not bother, but my only choice in the short run is to use the 6D and the manual-focus 14mm rather than my sparkly new R5 and 14-35mm. And, as mentioned yesterday, the only long-range solution seems to be the $150 device from Canon. Since I didn't get the aurora, here are 2 hours and 20 minutes of star trails. This is just a quick processing with StarStaX. I could probably do better if I spent a couple hours fiddling with the images in Lightroom and Photoshop, but I've got longer, better star trail efforts so why bother? I also think the images are underexposed. I forgot to take into account that the new lens, as fabulous as it is, is only f/4, a fuill stop slower than the more primitive f/2.8 lens. Below the star trails is a single Photoshop-processed image from 10:30. Meh.

Now I've got to hit the streets to find one more turkey or deer to pose for Photo of the Day. Today is the last hole in my calendar.

A few hours later: The DJI Mavic 3 Pro drone comes with a fast USB-C charger rated at 65 watts. From what I can tell (it is not easy to find), the $150 Canon device is rated at 65 watts through a USB-C plug. I plugged the camera into the DJI charger and it shows a "charging" icon, which it doesn't do with your normal USB chargers. I did an Amazon search and found several 65W chargers with USB-C plugs described as laptop replacement power sources, prices as low as $9.99, although if I went that route I would probably get the $16.99 one that has better reviews. We may have a workaround, and/or I may have voided the warranty. (Later on, I also noticed that the "charging" icon shows up when plugged by USB-C into my computer.)

And I got a deer to complete my POD calendar.

Final word: A month later and I have an Anker wall plug that will power the camera, about $30. I tried an off-brand plug for a few dollars less, but it seemed quirky.

Obsolescence

Canon is moving on from the EF-mount lenses and SLR cameras which (including film) I have been using since 1999. All the new stuff is RF mount for their mirrorless cameras. I took the plunge recently with the R5 Mark II camera and two RF lenses, the 100mm macro zoom and 14-35mm wide angle zoom. Since I still have the EF-mount 6D Mark II as a backup, the plan is to keep the four EF lenses I still have (24-105, 70-200, 100-400, 500) and use the EF-RF adapter when necessary.

The R5 and 6D take the same battery.* That is a big asterisk. The batteries have the same form factor and use the same charger, but are NOT the same. The battery from the 6D will power the R5 to take still images, but the faster burst speeds and higher video resolutions are not available. Oh well, I don't shoot much video anyway. But there is a possibility of Aurora Borealis tonight, so I plugged in the AC adapter that I was using with the 6D and the dearly departed 5D Mark III. It doesn't work with the R5.

Canon's official solution is an adapter that plugs into the camera's USB-C port. The Canon USA site does not say whether the device will power the camera, or just charge the battery. I don't need a $150 battery charger, I need a power adapter. I tried watching a You-Tube video that supposedly demonstrated the device, but the guy was so disorganized that I gave up on it. Just a suggestion for You-Tubers, minimize your fumbling around by taking a minute to jot down a script outline, and learn how to use the basic functions of DaVinci Resolve to do some simple edits of your video before you waste everyone's time with a disorganized mess. Additional searching found the Q&A on the B&H site, which is probably as authoritative as I will find given Canon's negligence, and it seems the device will power the camera.

On a more positive note, R5 has the same remote trigger plug as the 6D (and 5D). So, if I wanted to, I could use either the motion trigger or the remote trigger. The upside of using the R5 instead of the 6D is I might be able to get away without prefocusing, and instead let the new camera's eye recognition set the focus. It supposedly works with animals. I tried a few autofocus sessions at the birdbath last summer, and the success rate was very low.

Anyway, one of my new lenses is a 14-35mm wide angle zoom, and I want to use it tonight in case the predicted Aurora is visible. I will use the built-in intervalometer set on unlimited, start it at about 9:00, and see how long it lasts before the battery dies. Here's a stitched panaroma of Red Lodge, MT that I shot just after I took delivery today. Below that is a followup to the previous post, another shot of a turkey with the 100-400mm zoom with the RF-EF adapter on the R5.

Snow

I haven't posted images from my trailcams because they are snowed in. I won't be able to get to the National Forest trailcams for a few weeks at the soonest, and even the two in my back yard and hard to get to. I dug a trench to reach the one in the middle of the yard, and found that the batteries were still good even though it was totally buried for a few weeks. It got a few images of a jackrabbit and a fox. I also got an image of two shiny eyeballs peering through the fence, which I'm guessing wais the fox. To reach my other camera, which is the on the back fence pointed toward the shed, I have to dig another trench.

Bunny rabbit

Fox

Mystery Guest

The astounding new R5

I went for a drive today just to get a few initial images with the Canon R5 Mark II. My initial impression is it seems like a quantum leap from the 6D II and 5D III. (Good thing, because I shipped the 5D off to an eBay buyer today.) Since the viewfinder view is electronic, there is so much more they can do to show focusing points.

But is the 45mp resolution so much better than the 6D's 26.2? I can't say yet. Here are two crops of a turkey image I took today. The tight crop is the actual pixels, 1800x1200. The other one obviously is not as tight. Good, yes. Does it blow me away? Not yet. Stand by.

And I always come back to this. My most commercially-successful image was shot with a 4mp sensor in 2004. What I'm hoping for from the R5 is not millions of pixels to put on a billboard, but world-class autofocus to get more keeper images for my web site.

Little Brothers, 2004

Coons

With the astounding new Canon R5 Mark II sitting on my desk and not much opportunity to use it yet, I'm finally getting around to taking the final step in archiving old images, burning them to 22Gb BD-R discs. These are supposedly the longest-lasting medium, outlasting hard drives, solid states and USB devices by decades. Supposedly. Anyway, I am backing up originals of everything on my web site, and relegating unpublished images to less secure storage. I ran across this one from 2005, a family of raccoons that had just crossed the road in Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge, which now goes by the more politically-correct name of Loess Bluffs.

I usually shoot RAW, and the Canon G6 I used for this image is capable of that. But I remember on this extended trip I was often short of space on my memory cards, so this original is JPG. It's also cropped as much as I dared. I don't have other images like this, so it gets upgraded from the "unused" folder. I was on a multi-week work assignment in Kansas City and did not have my big camera (1D II a the time), so all I had was the G6 on side trips to the KC Zoo, Squaw Creek, the Kansas Cosmosphere, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Colorado. I had just gotten the G6 the month before, and it got quite a workout that summer. For the time, it was an impressive camera with 7Mp sensor and 35-140mm zoom (equivalent), but it didn't have quite the reach I would want for these raccoons. As with the 1D II, I still have the G6 and I know it works, but unlike the DSLR I have no reason to use it.

I've mentioned this before, but it is astounding that you can now buy a 256Gb card for less than $20, and back in 2005 when I needed more space it was $70 for a card with 1/250th the capacity. That is enough to hold about 150 RAW G6 images, so when I ran short I switched to JPG which takes up one-third the space. And, at the time I'm sure I thought that was a great price compared to a few years before. Eggs are now unaffordable, but memory is cheap.

The second image here also has been promoted from the 2005 "unused" folder. On my side trip to Colorado, I snapped these geese at dusk using the G6 flash, and got reflections from all of their eyes.

Finally, one of my favorites that did not need to be promoted is this bee that I snapped in Kansas City. Once again, the original is JPG. With good lighting and color balance, RAW isn't as important, but now that I always have enough storage I never shoot JPG if I have a choice.

Bringing it back to the theme of this site, remote cameras, why is it that the G6 introduced in August 2004 has better specs than any current trailcam of which I am aware? If I could slap a motion sensor on the G6 and leave it outside for three months, I would do it. 7Mp and a good lens, sign me up.

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.