Canon Announces Development of the EOS R5

Found something else. Minute 3:30

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=581U_IVFA1Q

digital paradise wrote in post #19090920
Found something else. Minute 3:30

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=581U_IVFA1Q

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Subject tracking ..... "does require the subject to be a certain size in the frame, or a certain distance from the camera."

Hmmmmmm. . One of the biggest problems I have had with traditional contrast-detect DSLR focusing is when an animal is pretty far away, and small in the frame - especially when moving quickly and unpredictably.

It really struggles to focus on the animal in such situations, and often when I get back home and download the images and look at them very closely, I will see that some patch of grass behind the animal, or in front of the animal, is sharper than the animal that I was trying to focus on .... even though the active AF point was precisely on the animal itself. . The far-away subject has always been one of the biggest weak points of traditional contrast-detect AF systems.

So I was thinking that this great new on-sensor focusing that mirrorless cameras have would just eliminate that problem entirely, even when tracking a moving subject. . That it would always focus in what it is supposed to be focusing on, no matter what, even when the subject is small in the frame and far away and moving and being focus-tracked. . But now they're saying that it may not work very well in such situations? . That is one of the situations that I need it for most.

If you need absolutely certain AF that will focus perfectly on the animal itself, when the animal is far away and small in the frame - what do you use for that? . If traditional contrast-detect AF doesn't work perfectly in those situations, and now they're telling us that subject-detect won't necessarily work in those situations, and we can't manually focus because the critter is on the move and tiny in the frame, and DOF is still not deep enough to include the animal if we're off a wee bit, and we can't pre-focus on a spot because we don't know where the erratically running animal is going to go next ..... then what do we do?

Is there really still no reliable system for these situations? . That seems unbelievable to me - that cameras and technology in general have some so far, yet still don't have this one situation covered in a way that is completely reliable.


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Tom Reichner wrote in post #19090970
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Subject tracking ..... "does require the subject to be a certain size in the frame, or a certain distance from the camera."

Hmmmmmm. . One of the biggest problems I have had with traditional contrast-detect DSLR focusing is when an animal is pretty far away, and small in the frame - especially when moving quickly and unpredictably.

It really struggles to focus on the animal in such situations, and often when I get back home and download the images and look at them very closely, I will see that some patch of grass behind the animal, or in front of the animal, is sharper than the animal that I was trying to focus on .... even though the active AF point was precisely on the animal itself. . The far-away subject has always been one of the biggest weak points of traditional contrast-detect AF systems.

So I was thinking that this great new on-sensor focusing that mirrorless cameras have would just eliminate that problem entirely, even when tracking a moving subject. . That it would always focus in what it is supposed to be focusing on, no matter what, even when the subject is small in the frame and far away and moving and being focus-tracked. . But now they're saying that it may not work very well in such situations? . That is one of the situations that I need it for most.

If you need absolutely certain AF that will focus perfectly on the animal itself, when the animal is far away and small in the frame - what do you use for that? . If traditional contrast-detect AF doesn't work perfectly in those situations, and now they're telling us that subject-detect won't necessarily work in those situations, and we can't manually focus because the critter is on the move and tiny in the frame, and DOF is still not deep enough to include the animal if we're off a wee bit, and we can't pre-focus on a spot because we don't know where the erratically running animal is going to go next ..... then what do we do?

Is there really still no reliable system for these situations? . That seems unbelievable to me - that cameras and technology in general have some so far, yet still don't have this one situation covered in a way that is completely reliable.

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This is disappointing. I'm not all that familiar with Sony, but does it offer better subject tracking in this regard, I wonder?

At what point of the video was that? My R picks out very small subjects in the sky. Better than my DSLR's. There is a reason I have not touched my DSLR since last September even with R's bad blackout and wake up time.

As for distance do they mean close to MFD? I have not struggled at all with my R in that regard and I can't imagine the R5 being worse. I guess I'll see.

digital paradise wrote in post #19090982
At what point of the video was that?

Watch from 3:25.

https://youtu.be/581U_​IVFA1Q?t=206

SYS wrote in post #19090973
This is disappointing. I'm not all that familiar with Sony, but does it offer better subject tracking in this regard, I wonder?

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I don't know for sure. . Two close friends of mine recently switched to Sony. . They have A7R4 and A92 bodies.

I have seen the subject/eye tracking work so well with birds that I was amazed. . The birds were practically filling the frame and moving rapidly and erractically, and the AF kept their eye/head in focus at all times, with no delays or hiccups whatsoever.

But I haven't personally seen it in use with far-away subjects that are tiny in the frame. . However, my one friend ripped off several bursts of Cinnamon Teal that were in rapid, erratic flight, and they were rather small in the frame, and I seem to recollect that they were all in pretty much in perfect focus. . And the background(s) was(were) variable, switching quickly from open sky to the lake surface to a wooded hillside. . Yet exposure and focus seemed to adjust perfectly as the bird(s) flew around and around. . So based on just that one experience, I would have to say that it seems to me that Sony has the subject/eye tracking down pretty good for small in the frame far-away subjects.


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The cameras will be fine. At the point tracking starts to get erratic, the subjects will be too small to really matter in the photograph anyways.

There are several videos that show the R5 in action, it looks to be a huge improvement over the R and very close to the Sony.

Some were posted already, here is another.
https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=wf9VqQW0zqI

Let's just say these two cameras will do better than probably 80-90% of the people shooting with traditional Canon DSLRs, I suspect.

https://www.youtube.co​m …VqQW0zqI&featur​e=emb_logo

As long as the R5 can consistently track birds the way Tom has described about Sony -- "from open sky to the lake surface to a wooded hillside" -- then R5's for me with a huge relief.

He was one of the presenters the launch yesterday so he basically a Canon ambassador. He will be a little biased but we will see.

https://www.youtube.co​m …I9-KYVcA&feature=emb_logo

I do like his reaction his reaction at minute 6:20.

https://www.youtube.co​m …YCWMgIuY&featur​e=emb_logo

Tom Reichner wrote in post #19090970
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Subject tracking ..... "does require the subject to be a certain size in the frame, or a certain distance from the camera."
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Was that not "head tracking" he was talking about? It certainly seemed that way to me.

KiwiMark wrote in post #19091063
Was that not "head tracking" he was talking about? It certainly seemed that way to me.

That was my interpretation from that section of the video; i.e. it's not an issue of AF tracking small objects, it's about having an object large enough in the frame (covering enough pixels) for the camera's face/head detection algorithm to be able to identify it - which makes sense.

KiwiMark wrote in post #19091063
Was that not "head tracking" he was talking about? It certainly seemed that way to me.

Yeah, he probably was talking about head tracking. But if your subject is a person's head, or an animal's head, then there really isn't any difference between subject tracking and head tracking. When photographing people or wildlife, in most cases, the head IS the subject.

SYS wrote in post #19090973
This is disappointing. I'm not all that familiar with Sony, but does it offer better subject tracking in this regard, I wonder?

I own the A7III and have used the A9II for a few hours to shoot birds and that. It A7III honestly doesn’t track that well. I find if it sticks to the subject, it will track it really well from far to near BUT it has the tendency to be tracking perfectly then just jump over to something random without reason.

I tried the A9II at a Sony event for like 2-3 hours and that tracked amazingly and didn’t have the same issue as my A7III. I didn’t try testing it on very small items but it seemed to work well at a distance. I guess it’s hard to tell how small Canon are referring too.

Dlee13 wrote in post #19091169
I own the A7III and have used the A9II for a few hours to shoot birds and that. It A7III honestly doesn’t track that well. I find if it sticks to the subject, it will track it really well from far to near BUT it has the tendency to be tracking perfectly then just jump over to something random without reason.

I tried the A9II at a Sony event for like 2-3 hours and that tracked amazingly and didn’t have the same issue as my A7III. I didn’t try testing it on very small items but it seemed to work well at a distance. I guess it’s hard to tell how small Canon are referring too.

We'll see, time will tell. Given the pricing, it looks the R5 is an answer to Sony's A7 IV except for 20mp difference.