Duane Paton R5ii opinion (not a review)

He's a reliable reviewer and gives his opinion on the feature set for wildlife photography.

I like him too. Always appreciated his advice, opinions, content. Thanks for sharing the link.

I like him too and his reviews are often good. However in this particular case he is pretty much just reading us the brochure and making a lot of wishes and assumptions...until he has the camera in his hands and uses it for a while then his opinion is a bit irrelevant.

His suggestion at the end for Canon: put the R5ii specs in an R3 body and call it the R3ii...I'd order that in a hot second!

rhone said:

His suggestion at the end for Canon: put the R5ii specs in an R3 body and call it the R3ii...I'd order that in a hot second!

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But isn't that what the R1 basically is LOL

gossamer88 said:

rhone said:

His suggestion at the end for Canon: put the R5ii specs in an R3 body and call it the R3ii...I'd order that in a hot second!

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But isn't that what the R1 basically is LOL

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Yes, mostly, absolutely. But two things about that comment that are different that I would love to see: The 45MP part would be chef's kiss for an R3ii. The R1 of course is still 24MP, and that makes sense for sports/photojournalists. And, two, the R3 is physically smaller than the R1, but a really, really perfect ergonomic. I'd love to have an R3ii that's still the same general size of the current R3, as the R1 seems bigger than I need/want.

And we joke about the R1 being an R3ii, but it seems all of the upgrade essentially went into the focus system (I mean, we'll see when they come out, but it looks pretty promising), and experiencing what I have with the R3 features/menus/buttons compared to R5, I have to believe there are still going to be plenty of differentiating little experience features for the R1 in those arenas that the R5ii (and R3) won't have.

Duade (with a "d") always does a good review w.r.t. birding.

From a briding perspective I agree with his assessment of R1 vs R5II and his suggestion of an R3II with the R5 sensor and features + GPS - it would for me make a terrific birding camera if it could track the birds as well as the R1 tracks sports people in action.

But my current lens line-up is better suited to the R7 - so I'm hoping for an R7II some day with the R5II features - yes, I'm willing the pay the $$

jj

This will never happen, but it would be really cool if you could custom order a bespoke camera body from among several of the sensor/size/layout/feature options. I'd pay premium for it. I'd take an R3 body, with in body GPS enabled of course, but with a 45MP back-illuminated stacked sensor (R5ii), but dual CFexpress slots (R1). And if someone wanted smaller form-factor, they could order the R5 body, for example, but maybe they want the R1/R3 24 MP sensor for low light, etc., etc. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my third grade science project idea !!!!

rhone said:

This will never happen, but it would be really cool if you could custom order a bespoke camera body from among several of the sensor/size/layout/feature options. I'd pay premium for it. I'd take an R3 body, with in body GPS enabled of course, but with a 45MP back-illuminated stacked sensor (R5ii), but dual CFexpress slots (R1). And if someone wanted smaller form-factor, they could order the R5 body, for example, but maybe they want the R1/R3 24 MP sensor for low light, etc., etc. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my third grade science project idea !!!!

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What would you price this for? My guess is you may come short. For the right price, it is not hard to get this done, but most people don’t have a number in mind that would actually work

PicPocket said:

rhone said:

This will never happen, but it would be really cool if you could custom order a bespoke camera body from among several of the sensor/size/layout/feature options. I'd pay premium for it. I'd take an R3 body, with in body GPS enabled of course, but with a 45MP back-illuminated stacked sensor (R5ii), but dual CFexpress slots (R1). And if someone wanted smaller form-factor, they could order the R5 body, for example, but maybe they want the R1/R3 24 MP sensor for low light, etc., etc. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my third grade science project idea !!!!

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What would you price this for? My guess is you may come short. For the right price, it is not hard to get this done, but most people don’t have a number in mind that would actually work

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Probably $6k US would be ideal for the smaller form factor (than the R1) and R5ii stacked sensor, considering the R1 is priced at $6.3k US. The current R3 has everything I listed except the double CF Express slots and the 45MP sensor, and that's going for about $4k US right now. But if it were $7 or 7.5k instead for that custom combination, I'd definitely still just do it and grumble for a minute.

rhone said:

PicPocket said:

rhone said:

This will never happen, but it would be really cool if you could custom order a bespoke camera body from among several of the sensor/size/layout/feature options. I'd pay premium for it. I'd take an R3 body, with in body GPS enabled of course, but with a 45MP back-illuminated stacked sensor (R5ii), but dual CFexpress slots (R1). And if someone wanted smaller form-factor, they could order the R5 body, for example, but maybe they want the R1/R3 24 MP sensor for low light, etc., etc. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my third grade science project idea !!!!

Click to expand...

What would you price this for? My guess is you may come short. For the right price, it is not hard to get this done, but most people don’t have a number in mind that would actually work

Click to expand...

Probably $6k US would be ideal for the smaller form factor (than the R1) and R5ii stacked sensor, considering the R1 is priced at $6.3k US. The current R3 has everything I listed except the double CF Express slots and the 45MP sensor, and that's going for about $4k US right now. But if it were $7 or 7.5k instead for that custom combination, I'd definitely still just do it and grumble for a minute.

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That doesn’t look like a price anywhere close to what it might cost to build a bespoke to-order product. They might have the parts, but they likely don’t have anyone that puts them together in your combo, makes sure it works well and is willing to support it. They can perhaps hire people to do that without disrupting anything else, but they would likely want a similar ROI on that as they can get by selling many of those that they offer via regular means

thomste said:

I like him too and his reviews are often good. However in this particular case he is pretty much just reading us the brochure and making a lot of wishes and assumptions...until he has the camera in his hands and uses it for a while then his opinion is a bit irrelevant.

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No, he isn't, and it isn't.

He explains those features that are most relevant (to him) and why they make the R5II attractive (to him). Some of us might not care, some of us probably know this anyway, but I'm sure there are some with less experience than Duade's that benefit from these insights, which makes this video valuable. It is not intended to be a review, after all.

On a side note, I'm surprised he (and some other regular reviewers I checked out) was not given early access to samples of the two bodies. Canon must either still have a very limited supply, which does not bode well for near-term availability, or their marketing, well, leaves room for improvement.

thomste said:

I like him too and his reviews are often good. However in this particular case he is pretty much just reading us the brochure and making a lot of wishes and assumptions...until he has the camera in his hands and uses it for a while then his opinion is a bit irrelevant.

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He’s giving his reasons for preordering an R5ii. That’s worthwhile, as he is a good reviewer and excellent wildlife photographer. If may help those considering the same issue.

rhone said:

This will never happen, but it would be really cool if you could custom order a bespoke camera body from among several of the sensor/size/layout/feature options.

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Funny, I was thinking about this the other day - custom spec a camera the way we can do so with computers and cars. Maybe not as intricate as you suggest, but choose body style, sensor, maybe buffer size. Would be cool. Unfortunately camera companies management is not forward thinking even if their product are cutting edge.

lokatz said:

On a side note, I'm surprised he (and some other regular reviewers I checked out) was not given early access to samples of the two bodies. Canon must either still have a very limited supply, which does not bode well for near-term availability, or their marketing, well, leaves room for improvement.

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He’s in Australia so it probably has more to do with Canon Australia’s marketing budget or strategy. I don’t think preproduction units have any correlation to production capacity or ramp up speed.

spec68 said:

rhone said:

This will never happen, but it would be really cool if you could custom order a bespoke camera body from among several of the sensor/size/layout/feature options.

Click to expand...

Funny, I was thinking about this the other day - custom spec a camera the way we can do so with computers and cars. Maybe not as intricate as you suggest, but choose body style, sensor, maybe buffer size. Would be cool. Unfortunately camera companies management is not forward thinking even if their product are cutting edge.

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You can do it with things where parts are loosely coupled (like big body PCS) or where superfluous customizations can be made (give me a phone with 2 storage options). I don't want cameras that are differentiated by memory cards that come soldered on the board, yet we may face that reality if that part of the interface became the bottleneck that ends up being solved by integrated storage

Anything that is trying to push the boundaries of tech, you won't find that flexibility. Look at compact PCs or embedded SoCs, or high end cars (choosing engines with different bodies). Or even within PC parts that are tightly engineered - like graphics cards with cores + vrams customizable

Moving up the chain bulks up the overheads on multiple SKUs and engineering challenges on mixing and matching - like a higher buffer on a camera its not offered on may hit some other bottleneck on processing pipeline to be useful, it needs to be tested (and before that comes R&D), and each sku that needs to do so needs a return on investment. In a shrinking market, that is not always easy to do while maintaining profits. If it was, someone would be doing it

I once worked at a firm that made industrial transformers. All bespoke, custom spec that a power plant needed. Most of the time we spent was designing, modeling and then analyzing what would eventually be manufactured. Throwing the whole thing in ansys would sometimes tell the shell would burst at a specific Hotspot because the oil pressure got too high, or the temps melted a cable or it wasn't safe to transport up a mountain or the sheets used on one wall need to have a different stress profile. And this was a simple component which is just coils immersed in oil and contained in an enclosure - but it was the scale of things which made it non trivial. We don't see this in commodity transformers you can buy off the shelf in a shop. It was order of magnitude more expensive too, and that was for a business that only made bespoke items

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PicPocket

I stopped buying 1 bodies with the 1DMKIV, on account of weight, bulkiness and price.

For some time, I always wished I had one, in spite of those reasons.

The last time I was really longing for a large, top-of-the-line Canon camera was when the R3 was launched on account of having wished for Canon to reintroduce Eye-controlled AF for quite a long a time and, then, when they finally did, it it was in a "no-no" model, for me.

But, quite frankly, now, for the very first time, I really feel I will completely and much better be served with the R5MKII then I would with the larger R1.

Quite frankly, I cannot see many instances where photographers would be better served with that bulkier, more expensive camera.

PK

PicPocket said:

You can do it with things where parts are loosely coupled (like big body PCS) or where superfluous customizations can be made (give me a phone with 2 storage options). I don't want cameras that are differentiated by memory cards that come soldered on the board, yet we may face that reality if that part of the interface became the bottleneck that ends up being solved by integrated storage

Anything that is trying to push the boundaries of tech, you won't find that flexibility. Look at compact PCs or embedded SoCs, or high end cars (choosing engines with different bodies). Or even within PC parts that are tightly engineered - like graphics cards with cores + vrams customizable

Moving up the chain bulks up the overheads on multiple SKUs and engineering challenges on mixing and matching - like a higher buffer on a camera its not offered on may hit some other bottleneck on processing pipeline to be useful, it needs to be tested (and before that comes R&D), and each sku that needs to do so needs a return on investment. In a shrinking market, that is not always easy to do while maintaining profits. If it was, someone would be doing it

I once worked at a firm that made industrial transformers. All bespoke, custom spec that a power plant needed. Most of the time we spent was designing, modeling and then analyzing what would eventually be manufactured. Throwing the whole thing in ansys would sometimes tell the shell would burst at a specific Hotspot because the oil pressure got too high, or the temps melted a cable or it wasn't safe to transport up a mountain or the sheets used on one wall need to have a different stress profile. And this was a simple component which is just coils immersed in oil and contained in an enclosure - but it was the scale of things which made it non trivial. We don't see this in commodity transformers you can buy off the shelf in a shop. It was order of magnitude more expensive too, and that was for a business that only made bespoke items

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To be clear I’m not talking about uber-detailed configurations, but basic stuff like body style, sensor.

But I 100% disagree with your premise because nothing is more complicated than auto assembly with its 1000s of parts and many days production process. When I order my BMWs I can select color, sometimes even “limited edition”, motor, wheel style annd tire type, and a variety of other options. When I toured the BMW plant in Munich a few years ago the tour guide said with the amount of customization available on the 3 series there are less than 50 identical cars in any model year. These cars go down the production line at a rapid pace and each human or robot has to insure the right option goes on the right body.

It’s a similar experience with my Macs. I choose base model then RAM, storage, processor. And as you note, every unique combination is a different SKU. So there really isn’t a reason why a camera manufacturer could not do similar where you could choose from a gripped or non-gripped body, then sensor. Perhaps the gripped body includes more features. The way BMWs and other brands manufacture in 2024 is to install many options in every car but only activate them if purchased. This reduces cost and complexity.

spec68 said:

PicPocket said:

You can do it with things where parts are loosely coupled (like big body PCS) or where superfluous customizations can be made (give me a phone with 2 storage options). I don't want cameras that are differentiated by memory cards that come soldered on the board, yet we may face that reality if that part of the interface became the bottleneck that ends up being solved by integrated storage

Anything that is trying to push the boundaries of tech, you won't find that flexibility. Look at compact PCs or embedded SoCs, or high end cars (choosing engines with different bodies). Or even within PC parts that are tightly engineered - like graphics cards with cores + vrams customizable

Moving up the chain bulks up the overheads on multiple SKUs and engineering challenges on mixing and matching - like a higher buffer on a camera its not offered on may hit some other bottleneck on processing pipeline to be useful, it needs to be tested (and before that comes R&D), and each sku that needs to do so needs a return on investment. In a shrinking market, that is not always easy to do while maintaining profits. If it was, someone would be doing it

I once worked at a firm that made industrial transformers. All bespoke, custom spec that a power plant needed. Most of the time we spent was designing, modeling and then analyzing what would eventually be manufactured. Throwing the whole thing in ansys would sometimes tell the shell would burst at a specific Hotspot because the oil pressure got too high, or the temps melted a cable or it wasn't safe to transport up a mountain or the sheets used on one wall need to have a different stress profile. And this was a simple component which is just coils immersed in oil and contained in an enclosure - but it was the scale of things which made it non trivial. We don't see this in commodity transformers you can buy off the shelf in a shop. It was order of magnitude more expensive too, and that was for a business that only made bespoke items

Click to expand...

To be clear I’m not talking about uber-detailed configurations, but basic stuff like body style, sensor.

But I 100% disagree with your premise because nothing is more complicated than auto assembly with its 1000s of parts and many days production process. When I order my BMWs I can select color, sometimes even “limited edition”, motor, wheel style annd tire type, and a variety of other options. When I toured the BMW plant in Munich a few years ago the tour guide said with the amount of customization available on the 3 series there are less than 50 identical cars in any model year. These cars go down the production line at a rapid pace and each human or robot has to insure the right option goes on the right body.

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You can disagree all you want, but the reality is that you cannot do that with high end cameras. It's presumptions to suggest what applies to car assembly applies to integrated circuits, electronics or camera assemblies. Putting a percentage on disagreement doesn't justify that number

Cars are still assembled from discrete parts with known compatibility. What can we say about the compatibility of mixing and matching sensors in cameras? Perhaps you know something we all don't?

You say you can do it with cars. I know you could not do it with industrial transformers. So what is a camera like?

spec68 said:

It’s a similar experience with my Macs. I choose base model then RAM, storage, processor.

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Can i have a MacBook air with 32GB RAM then? Or do I have to choose from the SKUs to offer

spec68 said:

And as you note, every unique combination is a different SKU.

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There are multiple camera models available too. But a finite pre-canned ones. Just like those macs

spec68 said:

So there really isn’t a reason why a camera manufacturer could not do similar where you could choose from a gripped or non-gripped body, then sensor.

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No reason besides economics. It's not about possibilities, it's about what is viable and profitable. If that is there, someone will do it

Comparing products with different market dynamics and volumes doesn't make a case. If there were enough cameras being sold like computers, phones or cars, there would indeed be a lot more SKUs. But they will still be limited by whatever thag market will support rather than a bespoke market

spec68 said:

Perhaps the gripped body includes more features. The way BMWs and other brands manufacture in 2024 is to install many options in every car but only activate them if purchased. This reduces cost and complexity.

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Perhaps they can build a camera then? Because there seems to be untapped market and sounds like they can just be built like cars

Anyway, it sounds like we have quite an opposite view on this. You seem to think it's fairly viable and I am fairly sceptical. Perhaps we can leave it at that disagreement then

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PicPocket

spec68 said:

rhone said:

This will never happen, but it would be really cool if you could custom order a bespoke camera body from among several of the sensor/size/layout/feature options.

Click to expand...

Funny, I was thinking about this the other day - custom spec a camera the way we can do so with computers and cars. Maybe not as intricate as you suggest, but choose body style, sensor, maybe buffer size. Would be cool. Unfortunately camera companies management is not forward thinking even if their product are cutting edge.

Click to expand...

Perhaps someone has done something like this. I think some phone companies tried it and it's happened in laptops.

The story about cars isn't correct. One can have very custom cars from OEMs and some specialise in it.

Similar with the parts. So the big prime Tier 1 suppliers do customise the devices for an OEM, even for a specific model and range of model years. For specials, say JLRs SVO department that could be 100 units only.

We have done designs for supercar and hypercar companies where a total of 50 is produced, including all test and validation units. That was a series of advanced domain controllers for a hypercar company.

That's part cost (parts are expensive, cars are really expensive) but also creating the demand for them.

One can make one's own camera and we do in the automotive segment and space arena. That's how the initial concept units are created.

I'd quite like the body to be customised to match our branding.