Amazingly, I find that just over 13 years ago, I was writing about the virtues of my three month old Canon 5D Mark III, having upgraded from the 5D Mark II.  And in many ways, I see similarities between the 5D Mark III And the R5 Mark II – which I originally reviewed in August of last year.  In both cases, they didn’t seem like exciting upgrades on paper.  I actually really wrestled with upgrading from the R5 because I just didn’t see a lot of improvements in areas of photography that I typically do – like action or sports photography.  Where the old 5D Mark III benefited from the improved autofocus and capture speed of the Canon 7D (a very underrated camera in Canon history), the R5 Mark II similarly benefits from autofocus technology first seen in the Canon R3.  Like the 5D Mark II, the R5 was a fantastic studio/landscape/portrait camera, but would not be your first choice for fast action. That’s because the R5  uses a 45MP full-frame CMOS sensor with a DIGIC X processor, but it’s a conventional back-illuminated (BSI-style) design.  With the introduction of the R5 Mark II, we see the camera getting a full-frame back illuminated stacked CMOS sensor, wielding about 45 megapixels.  Because the sensor can be read much faster, the camera can push higher burst shooting speeds (e.g., 30 fps on the R5 II with electronic shutter) with reduced image distortion of fast moving objects caused by rolling shutter.  The stacked sensor image capture solution sits firmly between convention CMOS senor design and global shutter implementation (as seen in the Sony a9 III).  The increased speed of these technologies does come at a price – dynamic range.  There was some concern that due to loss of dynamic range that the image quality of the R5 might actually be better than the R5 Mark II.  However, despite the fact that there is a measurable reduction of dynamic range on images coming from the R5 Mark II vs. the R5, in my testing I found that the difference was negligible/unnoticeable.  Rolling shutter on the R5 Mark II is reduced by 40% as compared to the R5 thanks to the 9ms sensor read out speed (15ms on the R5).  So while it’s still possible to see some rolling shutter distortion on of images taken with the R5 Mark II (birds wings, baseballs and baseball bats during swing, etc.), it’s reduced considerably.

SWISS ARMY KNIFE OF PHOTOGRAPHY

So the R5 Mark II provides the incredible image quality of the original R5 and the improved auto focus and the 30 FPS  image capture speed of the R3 – it’s the ultimate do-it-all, Swiss Army Knife of the photography world.  Let that sink in for a moment – it’s a tremendous technological achievement.  Right now, the only cameras that can truly compete with the R5 Mark II are the Sony a1/a1 II.  The Nikon Z8/Z9 has a similar sized sensor but not the processing power to achieve 30fps for RAW files (it can only do 20 FPS RAW).  So the R5 Mark II is probably the best “one camera to rule them all” in Canon’s lineup and arguably the most capable camera body on the market today.

VIDEO PERFORMANCE

Last year when I bought the R5 Mark II, video specs weren’t a driving factor for me.  But this year I decided to make a push on the ThruMyLens YouTube channel, and became a YouTube Partner.  So video is much more important – I’ve been recording about a video a week this year.  And the single biggest upgrade for me on the video front has been being able to record in Canon LOG2 (CLOG2) which was previously available only on Canon Cinema cameras.  Compared to CLOG1 and CLOG3, CLOG2 is just so much easier to grade.  CLOG3 in particular requires specific ISO and exposure to get optimal dynamic range.  The new tally light showing when the camera is recording is a nice quality of life addition on the video front as well.  But my YouTube videos are markedly improved this year, and I credit the availability of CLOG2 on the R5 Mark II.

WHAT ABOUT THE R1?

Canon considers its flagship camera body to be the R1.  I’ll be spending some time testing the R1 in just a couple of weeks, but mainly three things separate the R1 from the R5 Mark II:  the image size the sensor produces (24.2mp vs. 45mp), image capture speed (40fps vs. 30fps), and the size/build quality of the camera body.  In short, I’ve never seen the R1 as an absolute better camera than the R5 Mark II.  Instead, I think of the R1 as much more of a specialty tool (sports and action) vs. the “all arounder” which is the R5 Mark II.

THIRD PARTY LENSES

When considering the R5 Mark II, many lament the fact that Canon hasn’t opened the RF platform very much, beyond some APS-C lenses.  But here’s the truth:  Canon glass is second to none.  Canon already has a fantastic lens catalog for the RF platform.  Why would you buy arguably the best camera on the market today, and cheap out on third party glass?  Yes, it’s expensive – that’s life.  Suck it up buttercup.  Photography is not for the faint of heart or light of wallet.  Can’t find what you want or at the price you want in native RF mount?  No problem.  Go with adapted EF mount Canon glass.  Or even adapted Canon FD mount lenses (big fun for the price).  And the Voigtlander RF 50mm f1.0 is one of my most often used lenses.  Fantastic third-party lens, albeit manual focus only.  Nikon isn’t much more open to third-party than Canon.  And Sony is of course more open, but still throttles the performance of their cameras when used with 3rd party lenses.

WHAT WOULD I CHANGE?

Now that I’ve had a year under my belt with the R5 Mark II, I can better speak  things that could be improved.

–Need better customizable controls – I’ve been shooting with my first Fujifilm camera over the past year or so  (X100VI) And it’s really opened my eyes to button customization.  You have so much freedom to assign nearly any camera function to any one of several physical different buttons on the X100VI.  For better or for worse Canon has never really given the end user a completely open sandbox when it comes to customizing physical camera buttons control.  That’s not to say that you can’t do some customization, but it’s quite limited in terms of the breath of functions that could be assigned to those buttons.  I would love to, for example, be able to assign one button to toggle pre-continuous on and off.  But until a firmware change comes the best I can do is assign it a convenient location in the quick menu.

–Need dual CF Express Type B slots – I had no idea how badly I missed the old Compact Flash (CF) cards from the DSLR era until I started using CF Express Type B cards.  SD Cards are tiny, easier to lose, and have obvious performance drawbacks as compared to the newer CF Express Type B storage medium.  The problem is, the R5 Mark II gives you one CF Express Type B slot, and one SD slot.  So you only can set up redundancy when you’re taking photos in a mode that doesn’t require CF Express Type B levels of performance.  If you’re shooting at the camera’s highest speed or using pre-continuous shooting, you’ll ONLY be able to use the CF Express Type B card, not an SD card.  That’s a significant limitation  for pro users…or anyone who wants the peace of mind to be able to write to two cards at once.  I have to believe the R5 Mark III will have duel CF Express Type B slots.

–Pixel Shift – On the original R5, we got Pixel Shift mode added via firmware…but only for .jpg file output, not RAW.  A novelty feature IMHO, but not nearly as useful as it could be.  On the R5 Mark II, we get “Pixel Shift Multi-Shot” – the camera makes 4 or 9 exposures, each shifted slightly by the IBIS system.  When it works (tripod, still subject), you can get ~179MP equivalent images (8192×5464 – ~16,384×10,928).  Fantastic for studio, product, or architecture photography, but much less practical for handheld, real-world use compared to Sony or Panasonic’s pixel shift modes.  Canon needs to do better here.

–4K60 fine recording, open-gate RAW, or APS-C 120fps RAW modes – These video modes have been highly sought after by R5 Mark II users and heavily rumored to be coming in upcoming firmware updates.  But so far the only requested feature that has been added in Firmware 1.1.1 is the ability to  customize pre-continuous shooting frame count.   I would tend to think we’ll get 4k60 fine sooner than later but I’m more skeptical about open gate or APS-C 120 FPS RAW.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Even with the albeit minor shortcomings I talked about above, I still see the R5 Mark II as the single best mirrorless camera body on the market today.  That’s a big statement, because at this stage of mirrorless camera technology, it’s hard to go wrong with any of the major players and their respective ecosystems.  Clearly Sony was out in front in the early days.  Canon caught up quickly and now can match and in many cases exceed Sony.  Only Nikon’s latest generation of camera bodies demonstrate true feature parity with Sony and Canon, but they’ve largely caught up for the most part as well.  But taking everything into account – features/specs, ergonomics, menu systems, lens choices…the Canon R5 Mark II remains the best choice in my honest opinion.  There is absolutely nothing that you need to do photographically that you cannot do with the R5 Mark II – you’re covered in every single photography genre and application.  And it’s hybrid video functionality makes it a valuable video production tool.

You have to wonder, “where do we go from here?”  Image quality has nearly hit the ceiling.  30 FPS is quite honestly overkill unless you’re photographing Olympic level sports like diving.  Otherwise storing and culling through all those images is painful.  So how can the camera industry improve?  Innovate?  I shot for nearly ten years with my old 5D Mark III.  Realistically, I could probably shoot ten years or more with the R5 Mark II.   I think we’re entering into an era of extremely incremental improvements in camera technology.  But for now, enjoy this Golden Age we find ourselves in photography.  Never has getting such exceptional results been so attainable with the tools we have at our disposal.