- There have been so many incredible
new cameras released lately.
And if you're a Canon user,
that conversation has been largely dominated
by the EOS R5 and R6.
But when I never hear anybody talking about is the R2,
that is, having two of the original EOS Rs.
The R2.
(upbeat music)
As you might know, my main camera
for the past year and a half or so
has been this one right here, the Canon EOS R,
and I really, really like this camera.
So much so, in fact
that I found myself needing a second camera.
And originally, I ordered the Canon R5
because I figured why not have the newest fanciest camera
as my main camera and the R as my second camera.
But instead, what I actually ended up doing
(air whooshes)
was getting a second EOS R.
And if you're wondering, yes,
I did have to rent a third EOS R
so that I could film this video with one
while having two on screen, and that is R-diculous.
So I really wanted to explain to you why I chose
to buy a three-year-old not top-of-the-line camera.
This is all just my personal experience,
my personal opinions,
so take that for what it's worth.
But I think that it's an important voice
and an important perspective to have out there
because it's so easy to get caught up in hype sometimes,
and it's so easy to think
that you have to have the latest and greatest.
But the biggest thing to remember
is that whatever something does when you get it,
when it's released, whatever results it's giving you,
that's not gonna change
just because something new comes out.
And just because there's new options out there,
it doesn't mean that I'm gonna get anything less
out of these cameras now.
And if you've really been around my channel for a while,
you might know that prior to the EOS R,
the 6D Mark II was my camera of choice.
And this is a really great camera.
These usually sell for about 12 or $1,300 right now,
which is a pretty darn good deal.
But when it comes to video,
I noticed I wasn't getting quite the quality I wanted,
especially because I normally film in 1080
and then upscale it to 4K.
If you're doing 1080 to 1080,
the 6D Mark II can really deliver some great results.
But if you're scaling it up,
which is what I started doing when I got my EOS R,
this footage doesn't stack up quite as well,
especially if you're then gonna crop in
on the scaled up footage.
For whatever reason,
this footage just doesn't really hold up to that as well.
And the main use that I have for this camera
a lot of the times is as an overhead cam,
which means I am cropping in a lot.
Like if I'm doing a video about the RODECaster Pro,
and I have it overhead,
I need to crop in to show the display,
the setting that I'm changing.
It really doesn't look great
when I'm cutting that then with the EOS R footage,
and so being able to have a camera like the R,
which has 1080 that scales up beautifully.
And it does have 4K, although it's cropped,
which I don't personally care about that much.
I'm fine with the crops
since I mostly film with prime lenses,
the crop just lets me kind of get a little closer
and I've found that to be very, very helpful.
My solution to that was, well,
why not put the R overhead
and then film with the 6D Mark II?
And these are all very first world problems,
but when I had to fill my talking head parts
with the 6D Mark II.
Here, I'll put on the same lens
that I'm using with the EOS R,
the Sigma 24 millimeter 1.4.
And now I've got the 6D Mark II and the EOS R side-by-side
trying to have as comparable of a shot as possible
using the same lens and the same camera settings,
and the image quality should be relatively similar.
However, what you're watching is 1080 footage
that has been scaled up to 4K.
And you should be able to see that the EOS R
is a little bit clear and has a little more detail,
especially on my facial hair right here.
This was one thing I was noticing with the 6D Mark II,
which I think is actually a result of the IPB compression,
maybe the codec or the bit rate,
something about the way that it records its footage.
Little details like this
or things out in nature, out in the world,
just small textures tend to get a little bit garbled up.
Whereas on the EOS R,
they're usually really clear, clean, and crisp.
The level of detail,
even in the regular 1080 footage is just far superior.
Now, one of the other strengths of the EOS R
is its autofocus.
If I take my second EOS R and try to show you this,
on the footage from the R,
you can see it's a locking right onto my eye
because the R has eye autofocus.
On the 6D Mark II, it's focused on my face
because that camera only has faced detect,
which it does a pretty decent job.
However, what you might be able to see is that
when I move around,
especially with a wide open aperture like 1.4,
which is what I'm using right now,
if I get closer to the camera
and further away from the camera and move a little bit,
you might see the camera struggling to keep focus
as well as the EOS R,
where I can move around once it locks on my eye,
it really doesn't let go.
The R also has this kind of a more natural pull
to its focus, it's a little bit smoother.
As I get a little bit closer or a little bit further away,
it just sort of looks a little more natural,
how it's changing focus.
The 6D tends to be a little more mechanical,
maybe a little more sharp.
And I noticed even if you're not able
to see it super clearly right now,
over months or years of using this camera originally,
the background would kind of do this pulsing thing a lot
as it was sort of hunting for focus
or trying to get focused as I'm moving.
I know I'm moving like a crazy person right now,
but it's specifically just to try
to test out the autofocus here.
So the R on the other hand just sort of locks on
and it just has terrific autofocus.
I know that the new cameras, R5, R6,
especially the Sony a7S III have incredible autofocus.
The Sony really like,
it looks like there's a person controlling the focus
and keeping it perfect.
All of those cameras have better autofocus than the EOS R,
but the EOS R still has really good autofocus.
So just because there's something better out there
doesn't mean that this is not good anymore.
And it's worked great for me, especially as someone
who films pretty much everything by myself,
I know that I need to be able to rely on my camera
to keep focus and to work really well,
and the R just doesn't let me down.
And that is another benefit to the EOS R is its reliability.
It will never overheat on you.
It has great battery life.
It works in all weather conditions.
You might know I live in the desert.
In the summer it can get 120 degrees outside.
I've used this camera outside,
never had any problems whatsoever.
The R is also a terrific hybrid camera for me
'cause I love doing photos and videos,
especially just taking one camera
and traveling somewhere and having my one camera.
I love that it can do both...
Got like a 30-megapixel sensor,
which delivers incredible photos,
then you just flip a couple of buttons
and now you have incredible video as well.
It's actually got the same full frame sensor
as the Canon 5D Mark IV.
In fact, did you know how this camera was able
to tell there was a ghost in the room?
Well, it couldn't see her, but it could sense-or.
So as I was in the market for a second high quality camera,
which I know sounds insane,
but if you make a lot of videos
or you rely heavily on your video equipment,
having two cameras is actually a very reasonable
and practical thing as necessary as it can kind of seem,
especially if you're someone who's just trying to save up
and get their one camera.
And since I've had both of my Canon EOS Rs,
I've used them both on all the videos I've made since then,
which has been like the last 10 videos,
and it really just makes the workflow so much better.
Because I can have one camera set up filming,
and if I need to grab a B-roll clip or something,
I can do that.
If I need to take a thumbnail photo,
I can do that really easily.
Since I talk a lot about camera tech,
I need to oftentimes find myself filming a camera,
so being able to show a camera with a camera,
it just really makes things easy.
And working with the footage from the EOS R
is a huge reason why I wanted a second one.
That's really the main reason
why I canceled my R5 pre-order.
Even though there's all the debate
and all the talk about overheating with those cameras,
that definitely did concern me,
but it was actually the media management
that caused me to cancel my order.
And I did even consider like what about getting the Sony?
It seems like an amazing camera.
The footage it delivers are great,
but it has the same issue, which is one,
all of these cameras take some version of a CFexpress card.
Whereas the EOS R just takes a regular SD card.
Memory card prices will go down as time goes on
but right now a CFexpress card costs something
like $1.30 cents per gigabyte.
And since the files
that you're recording are going to be really large,
you need a big card.
I wouldn't get less than 256 gigs.
512 would be great,
but that's gonna cost you somewhere between 350 and $600.
And then you have to figure out what you're gonna do
with hundreds of gigabytes of footage,
which means your media management and your storage
after you film needs to be totally revamped.
You probably need a lot of hard drives,
possibly even a server.
The files themselves are extremely large.
When the EOS R first came out, one of its strong points,
even though the 4K is cropped,
is that it had 480 megabits per second on that codec.
So it had this really rich 4K footage,
and that was kind of insane at the time.
That is the very low end of what the new cameras can do.
Even great computers like my 2019 MacBook Pro,
which is upgraded and very, very powerful,
aren't going to easily be able to edit that footage,
so you're gonna have to do a lot of processing
and converting and working with proxies.
You might have to change your workflow.
With the EOS R, I can take the memory card,
load the footage into the computer,
and then literally just drag it into Final Cut Pro,
and it starts editing totally smoothly.
If I have a really long 4K clip
or I add a bunch of color grading to something,
I might have to wait a few minutes
for it to render it out in Final Cut and then I'm fine.
But that's just a few minutes.
So for me, the cost of money for that workflow
and the cost in time just weren't worth it.
There are people who are set up to handle that workflow,
there are people who need that quality,
I'm just not one of them.
And the SD cards that these cameras take,
they cost like 30 cents per gigabyte.
They're much more affordable because as you know,
if you do anything with video or photo,
you can't just have one memory card, you need to have a few.
And speaking of price, that's a huge part of it too.
When you buy one of those cameras,
plus the memory card that's close to or over $4,000.
I bought both of my EOS RS from Canon Price Watch,
which this is not sponsored,
but I did an entire video about Canon Price Watch
and how that is a great place to use
to get low prices on brand new Canon gear
from legit resellers.
If you're looking for a new camera lens,
you should probably check them out first.
That's what I have done.
And what that helped me do was get my second EOS R
for literally a little more than 1/3 the price
of what I was gonna spend on the R5 plus a memory card.
It's actually about 36%,
the final cost of the R5 and memory card I had ordered,
got me an entire EOS R.
So it was about $1,600.
I think that's...
I have an English degree, but the math seems to line up.
In general, even at full price
without using a website like Canon Price Watch,
you can get an EOS R for less than half the price of the R5.
And that's still like a lot of money.
16, $1,700, and that's less than half the price
of those other cameras.
So you also wanna think how comfortable are you
carrying around and using,
and putting wear and tear on something
that costs that much money.
I'm not that comfortable with it.
I am much more comfortable using something like this.
And like I said, the 6D Mark II had been my favorite camera
for a long time, and it's still a great camera
that you can get for about $1,300,
considering though that you can get the EOS R for $1,600.
Sometimes Canon even has refurbished ones
for under 14 or $1,500.
I have a hard time recommending the 6D over the R.
I think the R is the best camera value
you can get at this point.
But while having two cameras can help your workflow,
having two have the same camera
is a luxury I've never experienced before.
And it is so nice because I'm so familiar with the R
that I can even be in front of it
and just sort of reach behind and operate the menu buttons
and know what I'm doing because I've used it so much.
And so having another one
that is exactly the same makes that super easy.
Even going between the R and the 6D,
a lot of the buttons are in the wrong place,
not the wrong place, just different places:
the record button, the settings buttons.
And so every time you go from one to the other,
there's like a few seconds where like,
"Uh, oh yeah, record, okay."
And then if you're trying to change something,
there's this dial and that knob,
having everything be exactly the same
just reduces some friction
and makes things easier to use in the end.
Plus, if you keep the settings exactly the same
between these two cameras, the footage matches perfectly.
There's nothing I have to do.
Trying to match the R and the 6D was always pretty tough,
especially when I scale it up to 4K.
Even though the settings were the same,
I could always see a difference.
I don't know if anyone else can notice it,
but it was driving me crazy.
Keeping the settings the same between these two cameras
makes it so easy to match it up.
It looks like I'm just using the exact same camera,
and again, reduces friction, reduces headaches,
makes everything just so much easier.
So even though I love the EOS R,
this is just what works for me specifically,
my workflow and my needs.
I think it's really important
that you find what works best for you.
If you're in the market for a camera or a second camera,
you should really check out everything that's out there
and then get whatever it is that best suits your needs.
If you want my recommendation,
I love the EOS R because the price,
performance, the whole thing,
I just don't think that can be beat right now.
But it doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna be
the perfect camera for you.
If you do wanna know more about the EOS R,
I've made quite a few videos about it.
So I'll put an entire playlist of EOS R-related videos
and you can go check those out.
I couldn't think of a pun with R in it.
Sorry. Sorry.
(upbeat music)