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POWERING THE EOS R5
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SD Cards Compared for R5 Performance
Camnostic has been testing most popular SD card brands (and some pretty obscure ones) in a few R5 cameras to see which ones perform best in various ways. This is similar to the review published last month of the R5 CFexpress card performance review.
[UPDATE: This data is used in a new article that also includes data from the R6 and RP cameras, found here…]
While the review is still under way at the moment, we do have a great deal of raw data to share. The chart below shows the critical variable: the number of shots a card can hold in a 30-second burst in mechanical first curtain shutter mode. The upshot: The Delkin cards win, with the ProGrade card essentially equivalent.
Canon R5 SD Cards Performance
| wdt_ID | Card | UHS | Shots/:30 | $/GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gigastone | I | 51,00 | 0,15 |
| 2 | Boymxu | I | 51,00 | 0,20 |
| 3 | Transcend | I | 60,00 | 0,16 |
| 4 | Lexar 1000x | I | 76,50 | 0,42 |
| 5 | SanDisk 170MB/s 1TB | I | 78,00 | 0,31 |
| 6 | SanDisk 170 MB/s 256 GB | I | 79,00 | 0,31 |
| 7 | PNY 512 | I | 78,00 | 0,16 |
| 8 | Delkin Advantage | I | 78,00 | 0,17 |
| 9 | PNY | I | 79,00 | 0,16 |
| 10 | PNY Elite 128 GB | I | 79,00 | 0,16 |
| 11 | Delkin Black UHS-I | I | 80,00 | 0,74 |
| 12 | SanDisk 64 UHS I | I | 83,50 | 0,31 |
| 13 | Lexar 1667x | II | 94,50 | 0,35 |
| 14 | Angelbird | II | 95,00 | 1,56 |
| 15 | Toshiba | II | 140,50 | 2,11 |
| 16 | Sony | II | 152,00 | 1,66 |
| 17 | Lexar 2000x | II | 153,00 | 1,16 |
| 18 | SanDisk 64 | II | 148,00 | 1,49 |
| 19 | ProGrade | II | 159,30 | 1,02 |
| 20 | Delkin Black | II | 160,00 | 1,60 |
| 21 | Delkin Power | II | 160,00 | 1,08 |
| Card | UHS | Shots/:30 | $/GB |
One of the Delkin cards – the “Power” one – is quite reasonably priced (the other is the “Black” line of cards that are toughened in various ways), and the ProGrade card is even cheaper at the time of publishing than the Delkin Power, although it doesn’t perform quite as well as the Delkin in the as-yet unpublished electronic shutter version of this test.
Camnostic is trying out an interactive table plugin, which some may see above. Others with certain browser configurations have reported that this isn’t displaying correctly, so we provide the data in a non-interactive table below while we troubleshoot:
| Card | UHS | Shots/:30 | $/GB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delkin Black | II | 160,00 | 1,60 |
| Delkin Power | II | 160,00 | 1,08 |
| ProGrade | II | 159,30 | 1,02 |
| Lexar 2000x | II | 153,00 | 1,16 |
| Sony | II | 152,00 | 1,66 |
| SanDisk 64 | II | 148,00 | 1,49 |
| Toshiba | II | 140,50 | 2,11 |
| Angelbird | II | 95,00 | 1,56 |
| Lexar 1667x | II | 94,50 | 0,35 |
| SanDisk 64 UHS I | I | 83,50 | 0,31 |
| Delkin Black UHS-I | I | 80,00 | 0,74 |
| SanDisk 170 MB/s 256 GB | I | 79,00 | 0,31 |
| PNY | I | 79,00 | 0,16 |
| PNY Elite 128 GB | I | 79,00 | 0,16 |
| SanDisk 170MB/s 1TB | I | 78,00 | 0,31 |
| PNY 512 | I | 78,00 | 0,16 |
| Delkin Advantage | I | 78,00 | 0,17 |
| Lexar 1000x | I | 76,50 | 0,42 |
| Transcend | I | 60,00 | 0,16 |
| Gigastone | I | 51,00 | 0,15 |
| Boymxu | I | 51,00 | 0,20 |
Hardware Hacker: R5 + Heat pads = Unlimited 8K
Petapixel covered Yifan Gu’s geeky blog post providing a how-to on how to thermally modify your Canon R5 to shoot 8K without the normal time limits. Yes, you’ll nuke your warranty, but you’ll do so gloriously – not like all those lame people who merely let condensation collect in their camera bags.
You’ll need some tools, and probably about 40 steps not mentioned in the “step-by-step” blog post comprised of just a few pages. At least that’s what Roger Cicala made it seem like when he and a colleague opened up one of theirs over at Lensrentals [Ed.: Maybe they’re just whiners].
In any case, when shooting the modified R5, with heat pads essentially providing a thermal conduit from the hot bits to the back of the camera case, Gu was able to get unlimited recording in cool temperatures, and longer time at room temperature. The warmer performance was also made essentially unlimited with the adding of a fan on the back. This is interesting because Cicala’s supposition was that the heat problem was most likely due to there not being any obvious way for the heat to move out of the camera guts – the very problem Gu may have solved.
The heat transfer starts
Canon Drops R6 Firmware Update, Also Update to R5 Update
Newsshooter points out that a new firmware release has dropped for both the R5 and R6. The firmware is currently only on the Canon Japan site. Traditionally, these roll out over the timezones over the course of a day. We expect the Canon USA R5 and R6 pages to have the update later this morning or early afternoon.
The same firmware update put out last week for the R5 is now available for the R6 in a slightly-improved form, the one change being that it also addresses a lately-noticed issue of the RF 100-500 zoom lens losing some image stabilization performance in continuous autofocus. Both firmware updates are called the 1.1.1 version. Previously, the R6 launched with the 1.0 version, and the R5 had been revved to version 1.1.
Camnostic has been running two R5 cameras, one with the 1.0 firmware and the other with the 1.1 firmware to assess differences (finding not much to date). This morning, a 100-500 zoom was mounted to both units, and neither appeared to reproduce an image stabilization fault in continuous autofocus, indicating the problem may be under obscure use case conditions.
An RF Heir to Canon 7D Mark II Rumored
Over at Canon Rumors, there is a hot discussion about how likely it is that a – reportedly reliably sourced – rumor about a new RF-mount APS-C sensor camera coming out in a year or so might hold some truth. Of course, being an internet forum, the conversation quickly morphed to the implications of whether or not Canon will keep the forever neglected M mount – the current crop offering.
CR was told that the camera would be a “higher margin” offering focusing on speed and have a smaller form factor than the R5.
Such an offering would be unexpected, given that Canon is showing the ability to make very small cameras (like the RP) in full frame sensor size and at crop sensor prices. Manufacturing efficiencies mean that a crop sensor is no longer as cheap relative to a full frame sensor, so there is less price benefit as well. But far be it from Camnostic to come between bird-in-flight action photographers and an opportunity to spend another four figures on a new set of bodies and lenses, if true.
R5 Shot in Rain; Didn’t Melt
Canon’s older 5D series of mirror slapping cameras is known to take abuse pretty well. Shooting an R5 over a marsh in the rain this morning showed that at least one of the new mirrorless version of the 5 series, the R5, appears to perform similarly.
Weather sealing isn’t really a yes or no feature. It is something that happens by degrees, and camera manufacturers are careful to be cagey about it, lest they inherit specific liability for cameras that suffer any leaks.
The original EOS R was billed by a few Canon USA executives as a 5-series equivalent after it inherited the sensor from the 5D Mark IV (albeit 4 years after that sensor was introduced), but users of both cameras quickly came to understand the R had more limitations. In the weather sealing area, an obvious one was the fact that the grip was only partially sealed. Oddly, the R’s BG-E22 grip was sealed around the data port between grip and camera, but not sealed at all where the insert fed into the battery cavity. One would have thought they’d seal either both or neither. The R5’s grip (tested the WFT R10A version) is sealed in both places.
Camera Tinkerers & Tweakers Poke at R5, Mull Meaning
We are, so far, aware of three different types of camera experimentation going on with Canon R5 units around the world in attempts to figure out why it is that the camera shuts down video in some formats after relatively short sessions. We have a portal built to monitor this and other R5 issues here. Before moving on to the different types, it should be noted that there is a reliable solution to the problem already established: take the memory cards out of the camera, and record video in the high bitrate modes to an external video recorder, like the Atomos Ninja V. But for those wanting to dig into the particulars of exactly why the camera acts the way it does, here are the three lines of hand-wringing inquiry:
Some folks in China opened up the camera and monitored temperatures while running it. Numerous YouTubers ran multiple tests to try to determine causal links. Others are trying out hacks that might trick the camera into thinking it doesn’t have a problem.
One such hack, shown below, involves tricking the camera into believing it is operational, when the battery is actually popped out (by using tape to trick the battery door sensor), allowing for a glitch in recording the most recent heat warning – or perhaps vacating some actual sensor data. It’s clear from the video that the fellow doing the experiment doesn’t know what is happening, but is happily reporting on the results.
All of this experimentation is rapidly filling in knowledge, but hardened opinions about what it means are likely premature. It isn’t clear that a conclusion can be drawn that Canon is just nerfing the camera to protect a more expensive video line that is coming out versus just taking some shortcuts in using runtime lengths as a proxy for likely heat build-up. If it’s the first, then these sorts of hacks should be harmless to the camera, and potentially useful. If it’s the latter, then there could be real damage to a component.
The cheap solution to this is purchasing an external recorder, which has a great number of other benefits for video shooters.