GEAR REVIEW. CANON EOS R5 C
CANON KEEPS ITS COOL While the EOS R5 gave videographers a (heat)sinking feeling, the R5 C is a much cooler customer – Definition is a fan
WORDS. Adam Duckworth T his is the camera that filmmakers really wanted the Canon EOS R5 mirrorless to be, when it was launched back in 2020. It takes all of the video- centric benefits of that camera – including high-resolution 8K files in a massive range of top codecs – and removes the biggest bugbear: overheating. It also adds a lot of useful movie features, like waveform monitoring and no limit on recording time, as well as incredible file formats such as 8K/60p Raw. If you want the best Canon full-frame mirrorless hybrid camera for video, the R5 C is it, no question at all. And costing around 10% more than the standard R5, it’s a bit of a bargain. It’s even significantly cheaper than 8K mirrorless rivals like the Sony A1 and Nikon Z 9, with far more features for filmmaking than both of those – although it does lack their stacked sensor for uninterrupted, high-speed stills shooting at 30fps. The EOS R5 C is so good, it could well be the camera to influence users of other brands to make the switch to Canon and start investing in the RF mount system. Its unrivalled range of RF mount professional glass will even fit cameras like the Red Komodo, if you fancy something with a global shutter that helps eliminate skewed verticals while panning.
The biggest benefit of the new EOS is that if you want to shoot in one of the 8K frame rates, the top-quality C4K settings that downsample 8K files for super- detailed 4K, or in 4K/120p, you can do it for as long as your batteries and memory card last. The original R5 could also record in these settings, but since it had no cooling fan, it would quickly overheat and the camera would close down. The original had a 30-minute recording limit on all codecs. Its headline 8K resolution was at 30p, but shooting for around 20 minutes forced it to shut off to cool down. This was usually for around 20 minutes, but could agonisingly take up to twice that length of time. In the 4K/120p setting, shutdown came at under 15 minutes, but in high-quality 4K/24p, it would often make it to the half-hour recording limit before shutting up shop. All this meant that the camera couldn’t be considered as an everyday workhorse in an 8K, or even very high-quality 4K production – or if you needed 4K/120p for super slow-motion. Recording to an Atomos monitor extended these times, but you couldn’t exactly stand there with an impatient client checking their watch, while your camera required a chill-out session.
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