Pro Moviemaker Sept/Oct 2020 - Web

GEAR CANONEOS R5

EOS R in pretty much every way. At launch, Canon admitted the EOS R was not going to be the flagship professional model. The new EOS R5 is that camera. Despite the overheating issues, the optimum setting is to shoot high-quality 4K HQ, which is downsampled from the 8K signal, recorded internally in glorious 4:2:2 10-bit H.265 in Canon C-Log 1 for maximum dynamic range. The image quality and colour fidelity from this has to be seen to be believed. It’s simply stunning, and it can be pushed and pulled around in the grade with virtually no loss of quality. If you can’t handle the worry of overheating, then the standard 4K setting has no worries about temperature, but the recording spec drops to 4:2:0 8-bit H.264, internally recorded. This uses line- skipping to get rid of some of the 8K data, which affects sharpness, but does give very usable 4K footage. But it can’t get near to the HQ footage quality at all. The HQ footage really spoils you, as does the 4K/120p. Shooting 120p in HD just doesn’t cut it in comparison. In isolation, the 120p HD slow motion is good and certainly compares well to rival cameras, even though it doesn’t record audio at these rates. However, Canon’s newest rivals can shoot HD in 180 for 240fps for even more dramatic slow motion. One of the best features of the camera is that its Dual Pixel AF system works at all settings, while in some manufacturer’s products the highest frame rates are manual

“The image quality and colour fidelity has to be seen to be believed. It’s simply stunning”

ABOVE The new 70- 200mm pro lens is very compact and very sharp

focus only. That’s a big feather in the EOS R5’s cap and makes a world of difference to everyday usability. The AF is about as good as it gets thanks to the Dual Pixel system, and the EOS R5 uses a newer version dubbed the Mark II, which is even better. It tracks moving subjects well and holds focus, has face and eye detection and is customisable in terms of focus speed. When set to eye detection, if the camera detects eyes, it locks in on them. If there are no eyes in the shot – for example when the subject turns away – it locks on to the head. If there is more than one person, you can select the main subject using the touchscreen. You can also use the touchscreen to do smooth focus pulls by tapping on the subject you want to focus on. And for fans of manual focusing, the focus guide works very well to give you a visual indication of which way to turn the focusing ring. You can even customise the focus ring of RF lenses to give a more linear, direct response and one that’s closer to the feel of a manual focus lens. And while the EOS R didn’t have in-body image stabilisation but relied on lens-based systems for stills and a basic digital IS for video which cropped the image,

BELOW Stills are stunningly detailed

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