R3 vs R5 image quality (not resolution) colors, tones, shadows?

John Sheehy wrote:

Brian D3300 wrote:

JamieTux wrote:

Hi I tried the R3 for an extended weekend and am currently factoring in when to buy it.

At ISO 3200 and up the results were significantly better, plus the other benefits of the body (higher frame rates, silent shutter thats always useable for sports and indoors with fluorescent lights, larger battery, better ergonomics, improved AF system, more OVF-like EVF, general responsiveness, etc) and smaller files are all compelling reasons for me.

I didn't get to compare it at lower isos as the light was terrible that weekend but we did just have a baby this week and I had to think about the photos way too much to get rid of the striping under the hospital lights without switching to a mechanical shutter.

I wont be getting rid of my R5 to do that though, its the best all round camera I've owned by a long way and I've been using cameras as a hobbyist and at times professiinally for about 40 years. The image quality is great and to fit it all in to such a small body while still having good ergonomics is amazing.

Hi Jamie, Thank you so much for the input. Yeah I am not looking to be fully gone of the R5 but maybe keep one of my two R5's and use an R3 for when circumstances take advantage of the differences. It sounds like in the Studio the R5 is better and outside I could use the R3 more or low light events. Thank you!

The difference in noise between these two cameras (R5 and R3) isn't very much. They are both a little noisier than the R6-II, which in turn is a little noisier than the R6, Canon's cleanest FF, currently. It can seem like the R5 is a lot noisier than it is because having more pixel density, the images tend to be magnified more when inspected, and converters will tend to sharpen more at the pixel level, exaggerating noise even more. You can hit the R5 images with a lot of NR before they seem to have less detail than the R3.

Hi John

I wasn't talking noise specifically, the colours held up better and I preferred the overall image quality.  Don't get me wrong, I love my R5 but shooting football (soccer) was a much better experience in dull light with the R3.  I haven't printed images from both yet but only got my P700 this week so will do and see if that changes anything.

For full context I shoot raw and convert with my own recipe using Capture One with very little processing on most images.  As an aside even culling images was much easier on the R3.

Other people commented on the R3 ones being better looking images (despite the light) without knowing I was using a different body.