If the Canon R3 and R5 had a baby…

It’s a pretty classic Canon design, with a few notable evolutions. Of course, the thumb wheel (one of my personal reasons for preferring Canon to Nikon) is unchanged, and Canon is staying away from the few gimmicky things they’ve tried in the past (touch bar, touch sensitivite AF focus button, etc) with one exception – eye af.

Having shot with dual body R3’s the past few years I’m very familiar with Canon’s novel eye tracking focus point moving, which literally moves the focus point to where your actual eye’s iris is looking. My review of the R3 goes into more detail about exactly how that works.

The physical footprint of the viewfinder on the R5ii is notably smaller than the R3, the viewfinder sticks out a little bit too much for my liking on the R3. Actually, it’s so much so that I took the rubber guard off of mine entirely so it would be slightly more compact.

Along with the smaller EVF footprint on the R5ii, the performance is definitely more reliable than on the R3, so that’s all great. You still need to make a custom trained profile for glasses vs non glasses, and indoor vs outdoor, but the overall accuracy of tracking your eye is faster and overall, better.

Still, I almost never use the feature. It’s just not well suited for my style of shooting, which has a single focus point starting in the center upper third of the shot. I also find myself shooting by default with the flip out screen, and only using the EVF when it’s particularly bright out, or because I need a very steady camera while shooting a slower shutter speed.

Essentially, I still focus first, and then recompose my images while also leveraging 3d tracking. It’s a bit of an old school approach, but I find I’m much more compositionally considerate shooting this way.

The R3 has a completely different placement for the power button than other Canon bodies, but I’m guessing many previous R5 users will be annoyed by the placement of Still VS Photo switch now being where their power button used to be.

Zooming in a little bit closer, and I was pleasantly surprised to see more secondary functions of buttons for when you’re in image review vs active shooting. The blue color icons change to a totally different function:

This button actually allows from image transfer over FTP with one button click! That’s something that’s been customizable to the SET button, but very nice to have a secondary option (particularly because that’s how you send images to insight for pose ideas etc):

One sort-of odd aspect of the camera size is that if you shoot with the extra battery grip, which I do recommend buying if you decide to get this camera, is that the grip itself is a little wider than the camera battery:

I can’t actually recall if that was the case with previous gripped bodies I’ve owned like the Canon R and R6, but I was a little surprised. Functionally, it didn’t seem to affect anything at all. The flip out screen is rock solid, and very similar to every other canon mirrorless body, however when the grip was attached I found it difficult to get my thumb underneath to flip out. Maybe that’s something that would get better over time and the body is worn in, but I never had that issue with previous canon bodies.

Long-time owners of the Canon R6 will likely be familiar with the poor build quality of the hot-shoe component, but it does feel like canon improved this one. I never shot with the original R5 long enough to find out if it was an issue on those bodies as well, but the R6 would notoriously develop a loose hot-shoe while a flash was attached, stop working, and require a ~$400 repair in order to fix. Crazy.

Seems fine. Canon released a new iteration of their batteries, and two batteries were more than enough to keep up with what I’d need to cover 4-5000 images (so around 2500 images per battery).

Now, based on the critical comments I got over on my previous review of the Nikon Z8, saying how much I disliked the sound of that shutter… I might need you to stick with me for a moment.

I take an average of 6,000-7,000 images per wedding, and 1,200 per engagement session. That’s a LOT of clicks. The R5ii, does have a silent electronic shutter mode, but I really get a lot of feedback from the sound and feel of a mechanical shutter. To me, it’s a big deal if I don’t love the sound of a shutter, and I vastly prefer the sound and feel of the Canon R3 shutter, or my Nikon Zf (review here), to the Canon R5ii and Nikon Z8 mechanical shutter sounds.

This is entirely subjective, and maybe you’ll feel differently, but I find it distracting w/ every image that I make.

I was a bit surprised to see a notable shift in the reds and greens on this sensor vs other Canon sensors. I do all my editing in Lightroom classic, so it’s possible that lightroom made a camera calibration profile that’s inaccurate to what canon intends (they’ve defintiely done that before), but overall I’m not complaining at all. The reds are more RED and the greens are more GREEN in a way that’s difficult to articulate. Again, I’m usually not a shoot-at-a-wall, and compare one body to another kind of photographer, so you’ll just have to look at my work and take my word for it. You’ll likely have to make an offset preset to match this camera sensor to your other bodies if you don’t shoot with dual r5ii. Still, strictly based on color I prefer the look of r5ii files compared to my r3.

As someone that is always looking to get an edge in my work by shooting with the absolute best gear that’s the best fit for my shooting style… I’m sad to say I’ve decided to stick with my Canon R3 (I mean, it’s not a bad camera to have to “stick with” haha).

If you’re currently shooting with a Canon R5 (read my R5 review here – yes they’ve seemed to fix the overheating issue after I published my review), I’d honestly recommend sticking with it, and not upgrading. Though the R5ii does perform admirably, there just isn’t enough of a step-up in sensor quality or AF quality, and one too many small bugs (hopefully will be patched, but you never know when) to deal with the change. Another thing to note is that the R5 might be the last body Canon will ever release with in-camera double exposure with a RAW file end result. Ever since the R3 Canon only gives you the individual RAW files that you have to blend in post, which is a hugely annoying, and weird, decision on their part.

Keep in mind these are all just my opinions, and I don’t want you to feel bad if you bought this camera and are excited about it. We each have our own approaches and preference while we work, and for me… the R3, and often times the Nikon Zf, remain at the top of my list.

Reviews are difficult. They’re time consuming, and writing about equipment that I ultimately end up sending back is tedious. It’s just not as FUN to write about a piece of equipment that my heart isn’t into, but in that realization I’ve come to accept the reality that a critical opinions are important now more than ever. You can bet that very few reviewers that were seeded an R5ii early were ever going to dig into its flaws.

I’m excited to try out the Canon R1, but I’m already concerned about its large size, and weight, compared to the R3. Let’s hope it’s a significant step-up in terms of overall performance.

and now I’ll leave you with a bunch of eye-candy. Find a handful of RAW files attached for download directly in this post.