Canon R 5 C - video set up - please help

Dholai12 wrote:

Of course the R5s will be my main bodies.

I will use the R5C in a tripod mainly with video head and plan to use an external battery pack ( power bank) through the USB - C port .

I think the dynamic range is better in the R5C.

Also- video options are much more compared to the R5 . Whether they will be of use to me or not is debatable though!

I do not like to change lenses in the field much and hence was planning to keep the RF 100- 500 married to the R5C and use it for both still and video shooting as an additional tool!

Thanks a lot ,

Wish me luck- need a lot of it !

Dholai

If you can take so much gear, then yes, i think is a good choice.

I wish you all the best!

P.S. I have both cameras too ...

action99 wrote:

I just created and account to answer you as you seemed soo convinced that you did wrong, and I feel sorry about it as it is not true at all.

I have both the R5 and R5c and heading out to Africa in a week. I will mostly use the R5c for filming.

Let’s start with this 80% of commercial wildlife video are done with RED cameras. Why? Because high res (8k) and slow motion. REDs do not have IBIS, consume tons of big battery, need rigging, but REDs have the resolution/sharpness/fps that are key factor for wildlife.

Guess what the R5c is probably one of the best “semi affordable” wildlife film camera that come close to REDs and here is why it is better than the R5:

8k 60fps RAW (so key to have 60 fps for slow motion, if you watch thinks like Our Planet and so on are basically all in slow motion)

5.9k 60fps RAW in S35 giving you reach if you need/prefer

4k 60fps is much better quality than the pixel binned R5

4k 120fps is better quality than R5 plus you can record audio, R5 cannot.

3k S16 RAW up to 120fps even more reach and slow motion

XF-AVC much easier to edit that R5 h265 Log3 files.

Live waveform for exposure

Focus peaking even in AF. This is a life saver as is much better to judge how the AF works and if you need to bump it or correct something. R5 only has peaking in MF

Prerecording you can have the camera always prerecording so you can react later instead of missing a key moment (it has limitation as no RAW ☹) but works in XF-AVC

No IBIS. I have sometime issues with IBIS and the 100-500 while video as it sometimes jumps especially if you pan fast. Following jets is a big issue and the R5c has no issue. Ibis for video is good only from around 30 to 100mm rest is useless. Wider is wobble wobble, above it creates more problem than solving. Plus, with long lens you need a really good fluid head so no need for IBIS

Bit better DR although not world changing

No overheating. I want to see under the sun the R5 recording at 120fps…… at some point it will be so hot.

What is better in the R5:

Battery life (much better)

No need to rig it (due to the battery)

Animal AF

Object tracking in 120fps

Very good points! You have right about advantages and disadvantages.

Here a test video done with the R5c, 200mm at 2.8, 1/100, 8K 50fps slowed down to 25fps on a Gimbal all done with AF tracking:

Nufenen Wildlife - YouTube

Man, that is a nice quality video! Did you use a gimbal? Or just handheld/tripod?

mariuss wrote:

Man, that is a nice quality video! Did you use a gimbal? Or just handheld/tripod?

Thx, 100% on a Gimbal, 100% at 200mm 2.8. It was mostly a test if to take the Gimbal to Africa, the key point was to see how stable would be at 200mm.

Your footage is very nice, but I'd love to ask: have you used the R5c to film wildlife that move? I don't mean this in a snarky way--I want help.

I just spent a month with the camera, mostly shooting landscape photographs and video, but also shooting a variety of animals (mostly birds and small mammals, though some antelope, moose and coyotes), mostly to experiment but with hopes of getting useable footage, and found it utterly challenging to focus the camera (in video mode) using AF when filming animals. MF is similarly challenging.

My frustrations make me wonder if either the camera is broken or I am just doing something wrong. I'm not a pro wildlife DP--I'm a director who shoots--so perhaps I am muffing things. But I've never had this issue with previous cameras.

I've been using two lenses, primarily: the RF 70-200 and the RF 100-500, which I love for photography.

I find the AF box to be part of the problem--even in "small" size it is large enough to be problematic: the camera seeks focus within that rectangle and it can choose the top, middle or bottom of it, and when using a long lens that can be the difference between sharp and blurry. I'm just stunned at the amount of out of focus footage I've come home with.

Can you explain how you generally focus when working with the camera while shooting wildlife (other than your use of peaking)?

I'm not a wildlife expert I'm an action/sport videographer but I'm really interested in African's wildlife, but not much in birds so I cannot comment on birds AF.
Also, African's mammals are quite bigger so it may not be fully applicable to you.

AF is not perfect and wildlife being in a complex environment it makes it even more challenging. Expecting that AF always works is not realistic with the state of the art today. In fact, most wildlife docs are all done in manual focus, but it is challenging, need follow focus, big screen or even a focus puller.
I used both R5 and R5c and R5 offers more options, but I don't find it more reliable with AF, so I used 80% R5c mostly in 8k 50fps. I used 70% AF and 30% manual focus.
One thing is that it seems that R5c is focusing a bit outside the AF area, so the AF square is smaller than what it is in reality. So, the medium size area is not that useful, and it could be that the smaller is sometime still too big. In this case object tracking is better.

- AF is mostly on max response and max speed, but sometimes I tweak it depending on the situation.
- When lateral tracking on foot or on a vehicle the best is the whole area AF for shallow dof or using manual focus stopped down depending on the environment.
- When animals are walking at you, whole area with object tracking, sometimes you need to bump by reselecting the object (face), peaking helps a lot detecting if it is losing it or not.
- High-speed animal moving like chasing, small area AF
- Key is to really start the AF on the animal and bump it if needed. If the initial AF is not good the tracking will be bad or not at all. Initial AF in video mode both for the R5 and R5c is much much slower than on photo mode. Sometimes I help by turning the focus ring to help acquiring the focus at the beginning.

Here some examples, I'm far from finishing editing and no grading yet so I can only share some quick screen grab from R5c videos all at 180° angle.

EF 24-70 at 2.8 on Gimbal whole area

Whole area AF RF 70-200 at 2.8 on gimbal tracking

Still keeping focus even with all the branches

And still in focus after the termitarium

tracking from a vehicle, wanted to secure the shoot, so manual AF, RF 70-200 F11 on Gimbal.

tracking from a vehicle manual AF RF 70-200 F11 on Gimbal

RF 400 at 2.8 whole area + object tracking by selectin the face, sometimes you need to bump it a bit with the touch screen, same for the R5 (even if it has animal tracking it still loses it from times to times and sometimes it makes no sense as it tends to lose it when imo is easier)

RF 400 at 2.8, whole area + object tracking

RF 100-500 at 7.1 100fps small area AF

RF 100-500 at 7.1 100fps small area AF

Hope it helps

That is an incredibly generous response. Thank you. It's very helpful.

One quick follow up: do you have your object tracking mapped to a particular button on your R5c for quick access?

Aside: since writing that post I discovered the menu item to link the lens MF ring to degree of rotation, which I had somehow never seen, most likely because I was so busy with shooting. I'd just hated the action on the lens. I know I'm not the only one to overlook this feature. What a difference that makes. I tried it out in a local park, filming otters and seals and shorebirds and waterfowl and it made all the difference tracking or racking focus. (Now to try it on a leopard or cheetah...though otters are damn elusive.)

Chris1X4 wrote:

I discovered the menu item to link the lens MF ring to degree of rotation

What do you mean by that?

PicPocket wrote:

mariuss wrote:

Chris1X4 wrote:

I discovered the menu item to link the lens MF ring to degree of rotation

What do you mean by that?

RF lens MF focus ring sensitivity setting as described here

https://cam.start.canon/en/C003/manual/html/UG-04_AF-Drive_0110.html#AF-Drive_0110_2-3

Wow, never used that. I need to try it.

Thank you.

It completely changes things and I feel like a dope for not having just assumed it was in the menu.

bestzoom wrote:

Sorry I am late in coming to the party.

I share your experience in using movie recording in R5C. I am still trying to get the best optimal setting for movie recording in video AF.

So far, I have tried the following:

1) Turned off face and eye detect. This function can make R5C struggles to focus if >10-15 metres away or at shorter distance.. perhaps eye detect is only good for interview.

2) Used large or whole area, selectable..

3) continuous AF

4) Tracking ---when find AF

5) Rent and try video AF with 3rd party prime with EF/AF adaptor. I found AF in video with sigma art prime is much faster than my RF 50 f.12 prime wide open at equivalent distance and definitely much faster than RF zoom at 10-20 feet away. I have not tried long 3rd party prime (like 300 f2.8) as I have only been shooting indoors. This is purely my own non scientific testing. Please try it yourself before getting your own copy.

6) Yes, R5 AF in movie is much better. You can turn on in body and optical stabilisation with 100-500 hand held and get decent movie recording.

Did you change AF speed and response settings?
2) I have the opposite experience, I find the large area not really useful, either the small or whole.

6) As I own both R5 and R5c and on point 6 it makes no difference on how stable it is, actually sometime with the 100-500 on the R5 you get some big jumps due to IBIS that I don't get on the R5c. So for handled video 100-500 I find it better on the R5c. I do use it a lot of handhelds video. Btw is known that IBIS is not really particularly effective on long focal lengths.

Apropos image stabilization: I made the mistake of leaving lens IS on when using the 100-500 RF locked down on a tripod. I was filming a bald eagle on a power pole. The lens just constantly stabilizes--and the result, especially at longer focal lengths (approx 300-500) is awful. It looks like extreme heat haze--the whole image just wobbles enough to notice.
I've learned that lesson, but it's an easy mistake to make, especially when moving from hand-held to tripod.

Its impossible to clean up with image stabilization in Resolve...live and learn.