Today we're discussing the Canon R5 C,
a camera that I've really enjoyed using
and that I was pleasantly surprised by.
But first off, for disclosure,
I borrowed this unit from Camera Canada,
so I want to give a big thank you to them
for always coming through for these reviews.
They also lent me this lens, the 24-70 2.8.
So obviously, Canon didn't sponsor this video
or have any input on its production.
But this video does have a sponsor though,
and that's Storyblocks.
And speaking of this lens, this is actually the first time
that I've really had an opportunity to use it
and I have to say, I really like it.
It's a bit chunky, but the image is stellar,
the build quality is excellent, it focuses smoothly,
and there's almost zero focus breathing.
It's a terrific zoom lens.
And when combined with the R5 C it balances well
and pairs up for a nice overall aesthetic.
Although, to be honest, I find myself oscillating
between appreciating Canon's new designs
for their modern look with unique textures,
and sometimes conversely feeling
that they seem a bit toyish at times.
I haven't fully committed to an opinion on that yet.
So, I'll err on the side of positive
and say that I like Canon's new looks.
But I do think the grip should be a tad longer
as big hands like mine don't quite have enough space
to firmly rest the pinky finger.
And I'm still annoyed
that I can't customize this back thumb wheel.
I also find the buttons to be quite small.
Now there's a lot of them, which is nice,
but to fit them all on this body,
they feel a little shrunken
and might prove challenging with gloves on.
However, if you're familiar with the R5,
this is pretty much the same
and you'll feel very much at home here.
Other than the fact
that it's bulkier to accommodate this fan,
but the weight and balancing still feel very good.
And yes, that fan does a terrific job
of completely solving the overheating issues of the R5.
Every mode I tried ran indefinitely without overheating.
So rest easy on that front.
However, in order to get the camera to run indefinitely,
you need to power it with USB-C.
Do not expect much runtime out of this battery.
The R5 C's biggest weakness
is that the old LP-E6 battery system
is just completely outpaced by this camera.
You'll be getting less than an hour of runtime
in most recording modes,
and in the really taxing codec combinations,
less than 30 minutes of record time is common.
Now, I have mixed feelings on this.
My initial thought was, "The battery sucks, Canon's bad."
And while I still think there's some strong arguments
to that effect, I also think sharing the same battery system
with the other cameras
that you might be likely to pair with this body seems smart.
You might not want your R5 C to have different batteries
to your R5 or R6.
And then I also think of the Blackmagic pocket cameras
that also had this problem and basically requires you
to either keep a pocket full of batteries
or to rig for external power.
We got used to that, I think we'll get used to this too.
But then again,
I'm not trying to be an apologist for a weak battery.
You literally can't use the camera fully in 8K60
without limitations, without providing additional power.
That's a problem.
I guess I just don't know what the solution is.
Go back in time and change the battery system
on the R5 and R6?
Maybe that's when they should have switched battery types.
What I can say at least is that I'm a big fan
of USB power delivery and it works perfectly on this camera
and solves the 8K60 issues, so that's good.
Because without that,
I'd be much more critical about this problem.
My second issue with this camera
is the one that everyone's already complained about,
the micro HDMI port.
I don't have much to say other than this is bad,
a completely needless weak point.
Bad, bad, bad.
And my final complaint about this camera is a minor one
and it's this photo/video switch.
I find, when trying to switch it to off,
which is in the middle,
I almost always overshoot
and turn it back on to the other mode.
I find it surprisingly difficult
to land perfectly in the middle
unless I do it extremely slowly and carefully.
It's a minor complaint,
but I just wanted to warn you to double check that switch
before putting the camera in your bag.
I would have preferred a sliding toggle,
or at least a wider selection spread
with more resistance between modes.
But the best thing about the R5 C
is that I get to make little complaints
about the mode selector,
because this camera is otherwise phenomenal.
Starting with that very selector.
I love that I can switch over to video
and have the entire interface change
to match that of the cinema line.
This brings several key advantages.
First, you get much better monitoring tools
like waveforms and false color,
but you also have much more granular control
over how everything is displayed on your screen.
You get shutter angle, base ISO selection, anamorphic modes,
and videocentric custom function buttons.
It also unlocks the face-only autofocus mode
which is great for talking head shots
where the focus won't change when talent leaves the frame
and waits for them to come back.
I love this feature on Canon's cine line.
And when you switch back to photo mode,
you basically get a full Canon R5
and it looks and feels like it should over there
with the classic menus.
And the R5 is a terrific photo camera so this is a big win.
Now the autofocus works a bit better in the photo mode
because it has proper subject detection
and tracking for more than just human face and eyes.
The face and eye detection
works quite well in the video mode
and is the best I've seen on a Canon cinema camera,
but if you're trying to track other objects,
it's not as reliable as the photo mode,
because it only uses the basic
and mostly indiscriminate box tracking method.
What's good about this method
is that you can activate it easily
by just tapping on the screen,
but it can be a bit fussy sometimes
on what it's willing to track,
and it's not nearly as sticky or reliable as Sony's system.
But you can't record video when in the photo mode,
so you're stuck with this slightly inferior
autofocus engine.
However, I have noticed a couple quirks
that can make it better.
First, if you're using the touch tracking,
you don't want to use the default settings
of 0 speed and 0 responsiveness.
You want to max those out.
I was quite disappointed
with my first bit of testing using the tracking
and noticed it wasn't keeping up with moving subjects,
until I tested maxing out those settings
and then the performance was a lot better.
Now doing this will make any focus racks a lot more jarring,
because it'll snap instantly.
So I'd only use this for active tracking
and not autofocus pulls.
But don't forget, you can manually override for focus pulls.
Now when it comes to face and eye tracking,
the opposite is true.
You don't need to max out the settings,
in fact, it doesn't really matter what your settings are
once it's locked on to an eye.
All the settings seem to do is control how quickly
or slowly it first detects and racks to your eye,
but once it's locked
the speed settings don't seem to matter.
So in summary, the video autofocusing on this camera
is great for people or talking head,
but isn't as good as the R5 for other subjects,
but you can make it work if you max out the settings
for short bursts of tracking.
But even with those quirks,
it's still probably the best autofocusing camera
in Canon's cine line,
because it gives that extra bit of performance
when you do max out the settings.
It also has the Digital IS mode
that we've seen on their other cinema cameras,
because this camera, like them, doesn't have IBIS.
I've always thought Canon's electronic stabilization
was quite good on their cine cameras though,
and I maintain that opinion here on the R5 C.
But also, jumping back to this lens for a minute,
the stabilization on this 24-70 is excellent
and I've been very impressed by it,
maybe the best I've seen for this type of zoom lens.
So, I'm gonna say it again, I really like this lens.
You also get the full audio functionality in the menu
when in video mode too, which is appreciated.
There is a built-in attenuator and manual gain control,
but there's no switch for accepting a line level input
via the 3.5 mm jack,
which would have been nice to see
since without an extra hot shoe accessory,
you're limited for audio inputs.
But let's go ahead and do a test of the audio quality
while I tell you about today's sponsor, Storyblocks.
But to do this,
I'm going to have to use an attenuating cable
from my Zoom F6 because otherwise that line-level signal
is just way too hot,
even if you turn everything down in camera.
That being said,
on-camera microphones and other mic-level sources
shouldn't present an issue.
(clicks fingers, claps)
So sometimes you don't have the shot you need
and there's no way you're going to be able to go out
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And if you wanna hear what the fan sounds like...
That's another sort of cosmetic complaint.
I don't like flaps, I prefer doors.
I find these hard to open and a pain in the butt to close.
Anyway, fan noise.
This is while it's still recording,
you can hear that it's mostly silent.
And then when we stop recording and go into standby mode.
The fan becomes a little bit more audible, but...
I don't imagine you'll be able to hear that very well
through the microphone, so noise is not an issue at all.
A couple other notable inclusions in the video mode,
you've got time code with a dedicated port,
focus ring customization to make it linear
and allow for manual override, a tally light,
and finally, the inclusion of an electronic level
on a Canon cinema camera.
Something that has been frustratingly absent
on their previous cine models.
This is the first time with Canon
that I don't feel like anything was held back.
This camera is fully loaded,
and that includes customization options for codec and color.
You've got two additional crop modes: super 35 and super 16.
The choice between NTSC, PAL, and DCI frequencies.
Codecs for H.264, H.265, internal and external raw,
and the much-appreciated addition of XF-AVC
in both Intraframe and Long GOP.
And even though it uses mixed media
with one CFexpress card and one SD,
redundant backup recording is available for the codecs
that the SD card is fast enough for.
And for the codecs that the SD card can't support
you can instead use it as a proxy drive,
which is handy for the raw files.
Although, to be fair, I didn't find the raw files
to be as taxing to edit.
This is likely due to the difference between the Canon Raw
and the refined Cinema Raw on this camera.
I found I was able to work with the files
straight out of camera without proxies
when it came to simpler edits.
But of course, this will vary
depending on your editing hardware.
In the frame rate selection,
you can choose from 24p up to 60p
and all of those are oversampled from the 8K,
including the 60p, which is terrific.
And if you want 120p,
you can access that from the slow & fast motion mode,
which does allow you to optionally record
an audio track as well,
so it's not as hindered when compared to the R5,
but you will still see a slight reduction in video quality
compared to the 60p and lower.
And then just like you'd expect from a Canon cinema camera,
you have control over your picture profiles
with options for 709, Log, HDR, EOS Standard and Neutral,
and empty slots for you to customize.
But you also get fine control
over things like noise reduction, which is awesome
because it even has the ability to completely turn it off.
Which is a perfect time to talk about dynamic range.
When the R5 came out,
the biggest talking point was the overheating,
and I did my share of testing
and discussing about that as well,
but after firmware updates came out
and people developed workarounds for the overheating,
many of my viewers wondered why I still didn't love the R5,
and the answer, as I even explained in my original video,
was dynamic range.
I complained that even if Canon fixed
the overheating completely, it wouldn't change the fact
that the dynamic range in video on that camera
was worse than the competition.
And I was quite apprehensive
that the R5 C would have the same issue
since I was told initially it was the same sensor.
Well, I'm happy to report that the dynamic range of the R5 C
is much better than the R5.
Not only is it easily visible
when just shooting a simple outdoor scene.
Bright skies seem impervious to clipping
while maintaining shadows that are rich and full of detail.
But synthetically,
I frequently scored over a stop and a half
better than the R5 using the Xyla 21 and Imatest.
Here, let me show you my results.
Okay, so starting here, this is CLog3 in XF-AVC ISO 800.
So, this is sort of your baseline dynamic range with Xyla 21
if you just wanna shoot 4K right out of the camera.
This is oversampled from the 8K
so you're gonna get good results.
And we detected 13.4 stops with 12.2 of those stops
having a signal-to-noise ratio of two.
So that's good, clean 12.2 stops.
So about 13 total,
but those 13 might be a little bit noisier.
This is a great result
and this is much higher than I got on the R5.
The R5, the best I usually got was about 11 stops.
And then if we jump over here, we got the H.265,
this was just to see if there was a noise reduction
between the 265 and the XF-AVC, and they're about the same.
12.3 versus 12.2.
Often, H.265 scores just a little bit better.
Now we've got the ST Raw,
which you can decode in DaVinci Resolve
in two different methods, you can CLog3 or CLog2.
In CLog2, it's very noisy.
And with the signal-to-noise ratio of 2, I only have 10.8,
but you can see there's 16 stops showing up.
So, this makes you think
that maybe with some noise reduction
you can actually extract more than what you get
with the other modes, and we'll get to that in a second.
Now we have CLog3 developed from Raw in post,
but these on a 4K timeline, both of these.
So if you put it on 8K timeline,
the results would be different
because you're not getting that oversampling in post.
And I think I have one of those to show you as well.
But anyway, 11.5 stops from the Raw
with no noise reduction, that's a really good result
for not having any noise reduction applied,
but if you look with CLog3,
the total stops it sees is only 13.6,
versus the 16.1 that is sees with CLog2.
So there's gonna be a greater ceiling for CLog2
if you wanna do noise reduction.
Then this is the example here.
This ST Raw with the noise reduction
that I did in post to the Raw.
And again, this is on a 4K timeline.
And I was able to take that 16 stops and get 13 clean stops.
And this wasn't hyper-aggressive noise reduction either.
The detail was still there.
So that's an excellent result.
And then we have the same thing with CLog3, 12.6 stops.
So both improved, but the CLog2 improved a lot more
because there was more to work with in the shadows
if you clean them up.
But both of these results are great.
And then this is if you take the 8K on an 8K timeline
and you don't oversample it.
You get 11 stops instead of the 11.5.
So you get about half a stop
when you oversample from 8K down to 4K.
And then over here is custom noise reduction.
So this refers to in camera
if you have noise reduction control.
Now if you have the noise reduction of default,
you can see I got 12.1 this time,
but if you put noise reduction on in the camera,
and I think I set mine to about medium settings,
then it goes to 12.8.
And the noise reduction is really good in camera,
so I found it difficult to even tell that it was on.
And I got a better result than if I processed the 8K Raw
and added noise reduction myself,
which obviously is taxing in post.
The reason why I love the noise reduction control
on this camera, if you really wanted low noise
you could turn it on to medium settings and score 12.8
with the oversampled 4K in XF-AVC,
which means your editing experience
is gonna be completely smooth
and you're already gonna have the noise reduction applied.
So I was really happy with these results.
As you can see, I'm averaging anywhere from low 12 to 13
depending on how aggressive you get
with the noise reduction.
And when shooting log,
you've got dual native ISOs of 800 and 3200,
with excellent noise performance in between
and even up past 12,800.
And even when comparing ISO 800 and 25,600
there is very little color shifting in the image.
And that color is terrific
and the workflow is as easy as it gets.
You can monitor in camera with the Canon 709 LUT,
which doesn't mess up your zebras or waveforms
like the displays on some Canon cameras have in the past.
By the way, setting your zebras to 95%
should perfectly match the clipping point on your waveform
and is maintained in post as well.
So exposure is easy and consistent.
But then in post you can just drop on
that same provided Canon LUT.
And as I've said before with Canon cine cameras
they have the best wow factor
when it comes to a one-step adjustment.
Just throwing that LUT on your footage
makes it seem almost complete.
So if you hate color grading,
you'll be quite pleased with this workflow.
And the colors come out with a nice balance
between pleasing and accurate.
As far as I can tell though,
you can't upload your own custom LUTs into the camera,
you can only use the default Canon ones.
And I also found that when reviewing clips in the camera
I wasn't able to use the LUT preview function for that,
so they just looked like log.
I also wasn't able to use the magnify button
during playback, which is a useful option while shooting.
I sometimes like to check focus on playback
by punching in and making sure the shot I just got
was tack sharp.
I can't really do that here.
Overall, I'd say the playback engine on this camera
could use some sprucing up
to make it as good as the shooting experience.
However, one thing I really like about the playback
is that if you kill power to the camera mid recording
and corrupt your file, you can recover it quickly and easily
right in the camera from the playback screen.
So that's nice to see.
White balancing uses their cinema-style-technique,
which is that one-touch scene evaluation method.
Canon has one of the best in the business
when it comes to this appraoch.
I prefer the controllable target box
of the recent Sony cameras,
but if you're gonna use a camera
that has a single press evaluation white balance mode,
you want it to be a Canon camera.
And this is of course much better
than most of Canon's photo cameras
that use an archaic photo-recall method
of custom white balancing.
And finally rolling shutter is solid for an 8K sensor.
To me it seems about the same as the original R5.
So not the fastest when it comes to 4K only,
but quite good if you consider the 8K oversample,
and better than most of the other oversampling competition.
So to wrap up, when it comes to the image processing
of this camera, it's incredible.
It's damn near perfect when it comes to a hybrid camera.
And this a true hybrid camera.
As a photo camera, the Canon R5 was excellent,
it just suffered a bit in the video mode.
Well Canon has taken that same excellent photo camera
and integrated a video mode with a full cine interface,
4K60 oversampling with no overheating,
excellent dynamic range, useful raw recording options,
proper codecs, autofocus improvements,
and a no-holds-barred approach to menu customization.
Now, all this came at the cost
of obliterating the battery system, which is a shame,
and it's comical that they didn't add a full-size HDMI port,
but no camera is perfect.
That being said, the R5 C, in my opinion,
is the closest Canon has come
to creating a perfect camera.
Not only is it easily one of the best hybrid options
available on the market,
but it's one of the best cameras I've ever used.
Alright... I'm done.