How powerful is Canon's new EOS R camera? The EOS R5 Mark II was a giant machine

Canon has released the EOS R5 Mark II, and it’s no exaggeration to call it the “new generation of the EOS R.” This is also new in many ways, and since it was announced at the same time as the EOS R1, it’s a giant machine.
There are so many new features that I don't know where to start, but they can be broadly divided into the newly developed backlit stacked CMOS sensor, and the fact that the internal processing is now super fast which I'd say is a plus.
●How powerful is 45 million pixels in the backlit laminated type?
As the successor to the EOS R5, it has a much larger pixel count of about 45 million pixels. However, the sensor is a newly developed stacked type. The laminate type has a faster readout speed than the traditional type, and can greatly reduce rolling shutter distortion when using an electronic shutter.

Although the EOS R5 Mark II has a mechanical shutter (there are situations where a mechanical shutter is useful other than distortion), the default setting is “electronic shutter”.
Check the degree of distortion.
For comparison purposes, I ranked the uncoated EOS R6 Mark II, the coated Nikon Z8, and the partially coated Nikon Z6II.
It looks like there's been a 40% reduction in distortion compared to the EOS R5. Looking at it that way, it's pretty good, somewhere between the Z8 and Z6 II.
This doesn't bother me at all during normal shooting, so this time I mainly used the electronic shutter for shooting.
If high-speed reading becomes possible, continuous shooting will also be faster, and sequential pre-shooting will become common.
Just having a faster sensor isn’t enough; you need an engine that can process it at high speed. The EOS R5 Mark II achieves faster processing by adding the DIGIC Accelerator, which handles high-speed image analysis, to the DIGIC X video engine.
Thanks to this, the autofocus has become more intelligent, with features such as tracking and action prioritization (this only applies to football/basketball/volleyball).
Action priority is a very unique feature that puts the AF target on the person who took the action. This is useful in sports where there are multiple people in the frame. So it's likely that these are all three types.
Although I wasn't able to try out these special scene-specific features this time (I wish Canon would sponsor some Japanese league team and let me try shooting, etc.), for rugby fans, Canon is the ultimate rugby league camera (although I own a rugby team, I seem to wonder why rugby isn't a priority for work), but I can feel that the tracking has become smarter and more stable.
This one targets a grey heron, and even in such an acrobatic pose (presumably flapping its wings), it's able to detect its face correctly. That's great.
– Gaze input AF can now be used even when wearing glasses.
This advanced autofocus feature is supported by gaze input. This feature was included in the EOS R3, but unfortunately it didn't work well when I was wearing glasses, so it didn't give me a good impression.
This time, he said, “It was developed so you can use it with glasses,” so I tried it out, and it turned out that if I calibrated it correctly, it would be able to follow my line of sight through my glasses. Even I, who wears glasses regularly to treat my nearsightedness and presbyopia, was able to use it on a practical level.
The autofocus has become smarter, so if you look at something like “around that area”, it will find and capture a subject around that area.
I couldn't have had this much fun with the EOS R3.
After making eye contact and saying, “I want to take a picture,” I often look around and check the surroundings, but in this case, when you first look at the subject, you can use thumb autofocus or half-press the shutter button to capture it.
This uses gaze input to match the person in the background (although it is a figure. It is a Musashi Kokushi setting).
This works well when there are multiple candidates or when the subject is at the edge of the frame, but there are times when you want to fine-tune the AF point, or when the AF point isn’t moving as expected. In this case, it’s a good idea to assign eye tracking on/off to a button somewhere so you can quickly turn it off. I used it by assigning it to the “tighten button” next to the mount. It was convenient to be able to quickly turn it on and off while holding it and looking through the viewfinder.
●R5 Mark II Powerful for instant photography
The basic operating feel and shooting processes are the same as those of the EOS R5. People who are not used to EOS may find some of the detailed operations confusing, but that can't be helped.
There is a display panel at the top, and a MODE + dial button next to it. This will toggle the shooting mode.
The biggest change is the position of the power switch.
In the previous model, it was on the left shoulder, but this time it's the switch lever for video and stills, and the power supply is on the same axis as the mode button + dial. This is the same change that happened when you switched from the EOS R6 to the Mark II.
I personally find it easy to use because I can complete it with my right hand.
The back configuration is the same as the previous model. The screen is a traditional multi-angle type.
Let's take some pictures.
Let's start with the 24-105mm lens, which can be called a standard zoom lens.
Next is a sunflower facing backwards. With AF gaze input. Whether moving the stick or gaze input is more appropriate depends on the depth of field. When focus is shallow, I want to have the image defined. If it's line of sight, it should be about you.
When taking pictures of people, there is no problem because Eye AF does the job. You can select the eye you want to align, either using the stick or by entering your gaze.
Compared to the EOS R3, the eye input performance has been greatly improved, so I believe more people will use it.
Since I got the EOS R5 Mark II, I've also been experimenting with some high-end lenses. Namely, the 135mm F1.8.
People are the best for pictures.
The bokeh is definitely beautiful and the autofocus is fast.
The 85mm F2.0 is a mid-range, low-cost telephoto lens capable of half-macro. The autofocus speed isn't great, but it's convenient to have. It's very close.
If you stop down to one point, the bokeh will be nice and round. Shoot at night at ISO25600. Standard ISO sensitivity is up to ISO51200 and can be expanded to ISO102400.
Since I wanted to try continuous shooting, I brought a 100-400mm zoom lens.
This lens is a bit dark at f/8 at the telephoto end, but it's slim, light and can be held at 400mm, so it's comfortable.
When I used continuous pre-rendering to capture the moment the heron grabs something, it turns out to be a dragonfly. In one instant, it grabs a dragonfly that was flying just above the surface of the water.
Even if they are eaten all the time, there are also active dragonflies. This also uses gaze input to look closely around the compound eyes and take pictures.
This time, I basically tried shooting with servo AF + electronic shutter, but once it's captured, it tracks it so I don't miss it, and unsurprisingly, electronic shutter is the default setting, so I didn't have any particular issues.
Many of the new features unique to the EOS R5 Mark II are based on electronic shutters, so you can think of it as a camera that normally uses an electronic shutter and only uses a mechanical shutter when necessary. If you use an electronic shutter, you can mute the sound, so you can take pictures even in quiet places.
The maximum continuous shooting rate is 30 frames per second. Even when the express train was passing by at high speed, it was able to detect the front section and continue following.
Objects discovered include people, animals, and vehicles.
This shot was taken with the RF 24-240mm F4-F6.3 IS USM zoom lens. It's very convenient for humans to mess around.
And also one landscape photo.
If you look closely at the body, there are cracks on the sides and bottom.
This is for thermal radiation which is mainly used when shooting videos, and can be cooled more efficiently by attaching the battery grip to a built-in cooling fan.
Although this review focused primarily on still images, it is also a video production camera that also takes professional video shooting systems into consideration.
The media has dual slots for SDXC cards and CFexpress Type-B cards.
●Can I use in-camera upgrade?
In addition to the shooting functions, the EOS R5 Mark II has two other noteworthy features. The idea is to use a powerful image processing engine to process things that cannot be processed in real time inside the camera after shooting.
The first is “camera upscaling”.
It can take a picture taken with 45 million pixels (JPEG/HEIF accepted) and increase the height and width by two times in the camera to create a picture of 16384 x 10928 pixels. The traditional “IBIS Hi-Res” system, which takes 9 pictures and combines them, had the limitations of camera stabilization and still image capture, but this time, by taking full advantage of deep learning technology, it is possible to create a high-resolution pixel image from a single image since it was created, it can be applied to any image.
try out.
Perform the upgrade process, select the image you want to process, and then press the “Q” button to execute.
It takes about 10 seconds per image, so be patient.
If you upload the result as is, the file size will be huge, so I tried to display only two parts of the gas tank example at the same size.
The difference in the upgrade is easy to see in the text part, and the antenna and lightning rod part contain many small parts.
Many image processing apps now have high-resolution functionality, but you can do it in-camera (for example, you can use it like a digital zoom by upscaling and cropping). Of course, since it's digitally processed, the detail is a bit rough, but it looks like it will be largely usable.
The other is “neural network noise reduction”.
A function that uses deep learning technology to reduce noise at high sensitivities. It's too heavy to do in real time, but if you shoot in RAW and then develop it in-camera, it's probably fine even if it takes a while. Advanced noise reduction processing can be applied without a computer.
How different is it really?
I shot a black cat in RAW+JPEG indoors at a high sensitivity of ISO 25600, then applied neural network noise reduction to the RAW data and developed it.
Black cat fur tends to get crushed by noise, so it is ideal for such situations.
Here is a side-by-side comparison of the development results and regular JPEG recordings at the same size.
To my surprise, it was obvious when I saw the cat's eyes and white fur on top. There is a huge difference. This can be used when you want to take pictures indoors with a high shutter speed. All you have to do is raise the ISO and take a picture, then apply this later. The processing time is also not as long as upscaling.
For example, Adobe's Photoshop and Lightroom have high-resolution, AI-based noise reduction technology, but it's safe to assume that this can be done in-camera.
The processing is currently heavy, so it is applied in post-processing after shooting, but if it becomes possible to implement it in real time, the level of high-sensitivity NR during shooting will likely increase significantly, and at this stage we are deliberately integrating these functions I feel Canon's ambition in this regard.
●Is the next generation of mirrorless single-lens cameras born?
In this way, I feel that the EOS R5 Mark II is the best next-generation DSLR that is versatile and can take pictures of anything.
4 years since previous model.
We've been able to see the evolution of core performance over that period, including stacked sensors, line-of-sight input, and high-speed autofocus and tracking.
However, what I found most interesting was the focus on functions that are only effective in specific situations.
This includes an Action Priority function specialized for football, basketball, and volleyball, and a Person Priority function that prioritizes tracking specific people. It may have been developed at the same time as the EOS R1, which was aimed at sports scenes, but once the camera’s basic performance is high enough, the next step is to take full advantage of AI to develop dedicated functions for high-demand scenes that make me think I’ll go there.
In-camera upscaling and neural network noise reduction are unique features of the AI ​​era.
When I was using it, I found it interesting to take a lot of pictures with the more practical eye input and fast tracking of the AF, and I think it's the camera that makes me think about the future development of digital cameras.