So I Haven’t Cancelled My R5 Mark II Pre-Order

Last week I wrote about having pre-ordered the Canon R5 Mark II…but that I was reasonably sure I would cancel the pre-order as there were VERY limited benefits for me to upgrade. Most of the upgraded capability is aimed at sports/action shooters (which I do very little of) and video (yes, I have a YouTube channel but I only post videos maybe once a month). Before the released specs of the R5M2, I had sort of charted out my upgrade path, and what it would cost me. My plan was to keep my R5, and trade in or sell my R6. So here’s what I was roughly figuring on:

Sale of R6: ~$800-1000.00
Cost of R5M2:~$4600.00 (tax included).
Upgrade Cost: ~$3800.00

Having decided to not get the R5, I then decided to get the R6 Mark II, having recently borrowed it from Canon Professional Services. It gives me a few more megapixels to play with over the R6 and provides much of the sensor speed and autofocus capabilities of the R3 and some enhanced video specs too. Here’s how that math worked:

Trade in of R6 From Adorama: $900.00.
Cost of R6M2: $2000.00.
Cost of Upgrade: ~$1200.00 (tax included).

That’s a pretty cheap upgrade for me, considering what I was looking at originally for the R5M2. It’s not a ton of needed or useful capability enhancement, but I felt like the R6 was getting a little long in the tooth (my first mirrorless camera body). Adorama gave me a decent trade in on my R6, and you get a nice tax savings out of the transaction (paying tax on only the delta of what you bought minus what you trade in). So I felt like I was being a really good financial steward by going in this direction. Then, I did a bad thing. I started thinking… What if I traded in or sold my R5 on the R5 Mark II?

Sale of R5: ~$1800 -$2000.00
Cost of R5M2:~$4600.00 (tax included).
Cost of Upgrade: ~2800.00.

Hmmm….if you add my cost of upgrading the R6 to the R6M2 to the cost of upgrading my R5 to the R5M2, ($1200 + $2800) I’m at $4000.00. That’s only $200.00 more that I was originally planning on spending. Of course, my original hesitation for upgrading was the fact that I was spending a lot of money and not getting much additional capability. The counter argument is, the R5 will continue to drop in price. There’s value in staying current. And…and…new shiny camera. Then another variable occurred to me. At the beginning of the year, I had planned on selling my RF 24-105 F4 (which I really haven’t used since getting the RF 24-70 F2.8) when Canon released their then rumored new RF 35mm F1.2. That lens never came…instead they gave us the RF 35mm F1.4 VCM…which as I’ve previously written about, did not tickly my fancy. I still had the RF 24-105 F4. A quick call to a buddy who I knew was looking for, and I got $600.00 out of the lens. That brought my upgrade out of pocket cost down to ~$3400.00. Or at the very least, $600.00 for the R6 Mark II.

I still have about a month to decide. And there’s no guarantee that I’ll get the first batch of R5MII cameras in August since I woke up about 15 minutes late on the 17th. But right now, I’m in the grips of upgradeitis. I’m weak…Look for my review of the Canon R6 Mark II coming soon.

More to come!