I really like the R

RDM5546 wrote:

Rens wrote:

RDM5546 wrote:

I was disappointed in it's use for action photography. The EVF is slow making tracking difficult. I still use the EOS 5D Mk IV for action. The flashing mirror of the 5D is better for this than the last picture slide show of the EOS R EVF when the action is heavy...

I can understand action shooters being dissatisfied with the R, what puzzles me is why they bought it.

As I recall, the many poor reviews of the R when it was introduced mostly concentrated on its action shooting limitations (as well as less than class-leading DR and a single card slot).

I could be wrong, but I expect DPReview contributors to be relatively well informed, so how they could ignore the almost universally critical reviews and buy the R for action shooting is a mystery to me.

You make a good point and my response is that many action shoots do not shoot exclusively action and that the EOS R is but better at alternative at focus as well as low light operational issues. Not everything is worse than current DSLR solutions like the EOS 7D Mk II AND EOS 5D Mk IV which are two different DSLRs that are different in their action characteristics the 7D is faster in fps and offers more reach but is worse than the 5D in pixel count and and possibly in tracking. I am sure there are more differences in specific situations that escape me right now.

When I bought I my EOS R nine months after it first shipped I heard of the focus breakthroughs this camera offered with shallow depth of field at low light with requiring the burdensome distance calibration procedures required to tweak big lenses for back and front focus issues experienced when shooting lenses wide open. The reviews were right and I love this feature.

However the reviews at the time were limited. They may have mentioned 5 or 7 fps shooting speeds and that 5 fps was a little slow. I never saw a vivid description of how serious in number the viewfinder lag was. They did say there was some but DSLRs have a blackout in their OVF that varies with exposure time. If you shoot a 1/10 sec using an image stabilized lens you do not see the subject for 1/10 sec during the shot. If it is a low flying duck coming almost right at you that duck flying at 44 feet per second moves several feet and the shooter is trying to keep the duck in the middle of the viewfinder while shooting burst mode.

How bad the EVF actually is at Servo Focus Tracked shooting of action objects is hard to quanitfy but the EOS R is worse than I expected from "showing some lag" descriptions and I think the maximum shoot rate can actually be around 3 FPS and not 5-7fps when Servo AF track necessary for action focus. The EOS 5D MkiV is better at this and the 7D is much faster. But the EOS R does focus better with large apertures and may be better used in one shot mode and make fewer shots. This works sometimes. I do not hate the EOS R I love it and what can do. But spray and pray action shooting does not really work well with it. No real camera is perfect. Not even the EOS R. So far I imagine the EOS R5 is the one exception but I am willing buy one and deal with the disappointed expectations. I expect it be better for me at action shooting and offer more pixels for better cropping but there will be issues I discover despite it being a big step forward in the general direction of progress.

Understood.