Your experience with the R5 af in low-light, high-ISO... advice, tips & tricks.

[Rudy Pohl]

I bought an R5 + RF100-500 combo a couple of months ago and am out most days trying to learn how to use this new gear for stills and videography. I do mainly wildlife subjects, most of which are birds in the Ottawa area and Eastern Ontario.

I spend a lot of my time looking for various Owl species in dimly lit forests and woodlands around dusk and dawn which are the best times to find and observe them, but definitely not to photograph or video record them. Such poor lighting conditions push the low-light, high-ISO capabilities of your photo gear to the max, as well as one's photo-editing and video-editing skills.

I use the term “low-light, high ISO” because not all high-ISO conditions are equal. You can adjust the shutter speed and/or aperture to produce fairly high ISO shots and the resulting images or video footage will still look pretty good with manageable noise. I presume this is because there is still enough contrast in the scene.

However, in low-light, high-ISO situations what happens is that in addition to a drop in the available light, the contrast between darks and lights also drops off dramatically. Not only does this condition produce noise in the image, but it also strains the auto-focus system until it eventually fails. At dusk this is always my sign to stop shooting/recording... when the af starts faling, and at dawn I can start shooting when the af starts working.

Could I ask those who face similar low-light, high-ISO shooting scenarios with their R5 or R6 to share their experience in managing these conditions and for any advice or tips and tricks they have discovered about their cameras to improve outcomes?

Also, I have a specific question: Does putting a fresh battery in the R5 improve auto-focus capabilities in low-light, high-ISO conditions, at least for a while?

Thanks very much in advance,
Rudy

--
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rudypohl/
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[JohnMoyer]

I use the R5 with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM. I hope this might be helpful anyway.

It seems to me that the auto focus needs a broad area of contrast, so I try to focus on a tree trunk or other large object at about the same distance as the bird before focusing on the bird. If there is nothing like that available, then I try to manually focus to about the correct distance before trying auto focus.

Sometimes, I just increase the noise reduction, scale it smaller, and sharpen. The fox was outside my back door standing on a tree stump and did not run away when I turned on the porch light and made the photo through the window in my door. I focused first on the tree stump that the fox was sitting on. I put bird seed on the tree stump and fox checks whether the birds have left any. I tried to rescue this photo because I like the fox.

• [EXIF:Camera] Exposure Program : Aperture-priority AE
• [EXIF:Camera] Flash : No Flash
• [EXIF:Camera] Focal Length : 286.0 mm
• [EXIF:Camera] Exposure Mode : Auto
• [EXIF:Camera] Scene Capture Type : Standard
• [EXIF:Image] Software : Digital Photo Professional
• [EXIF:Image] Exposure Time : 1/80
• [EXIF:Image] F Number : 5.0
• [EXIF:Image] ISO : 25600
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Focus Mode : AI Servo AF
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Camera ISO : Auto
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Metering Mode : Spot
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Focus Range : Auto
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Canon Exposure Mode : Aperture-priority AE
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Canon Firmware Version : Firmware Version 1.3.1
• [MakerNotes:Camera] AF Area Mode : Face + Tracking
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Num AF Points : 1
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Valid AF Points : 1
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Safety Shift : Enable (ISO speed)
• [MakerNotes:Image] Measured EV : 3.12
• [MakerNotes:Image] Measured EV 2 : -17.5
• [MakerNotes:Image] Focus Distance Upper : 10.47 m
• [MakerNotes:Image] Focus Distance Lower : 8.99 m

Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), May 22, 2021 https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/2021May26_birds_and_cats/2021may22_fox_IMG_1313c.html

Image was down scaled using graphicsmagick and another unsharp mask was done after scaling. The following are DPP edits as shown in the dr4 recipe file by exiftool:

• [CanonVRD:Image] Raw Brightness Adj : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] White Balance Adj : Unknown (23)
• [CanonVRD:Image] WB Adj Color Temp : 5200
• [CanonVRD:Image] WB Adj Magenta Green : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] WB Adj Blue Amber : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Linear : No
• [CanonVRD:Image] Picture Style : Shot Settings
• [CanonVRD:Image] Contrast Adj : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] Color Tone Adj : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] Color Saturation Adj : 1
• [CanonVRD:Image] Unsharp Mask Strength : 3
• [CanonVRD:Image] Unsharp Mask Fineness : 4
• [CanonVRD:Image] Unsharp Mask Threshold : 3
• [CanonVRD:Image] Shadow Adj : -2
• [CanonVRD:Image] Highlight Adj : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] Sharpness Adj : Unsharp Mask
• [CanonVRD:Image] Sharpness Adj On : Yes
• [CanonVRD:Image] Sharpness Strength : 4
• [CanonVRD:Image] Auto Lighting Optimizer : Low
• [CanonVRD:Image] Auto Lighting Optimizer On : No
• [CanonVRD:Image] Luminance Noise Reduction : 12
• [CanonVRD:Image] Chrominance Noise Reduction : 12
• [CanonVRD:Image] DLO Setting : 40.7646484375
• [CanonVRD:Image] DLO On : Yes
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Contrast : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Color Tone : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Saturation : 1
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Unsharp Mask Strength : 3
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Unsharp Mask Fineness : 4
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Unsharp Mask Threshold : 3
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Sharpness Strength : 4
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Shadow : -2
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Highlight : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Black Point : +0.000
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma White Point : -0.367
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Mid Point : +0.000
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Curve Output Range : 0 16383

--

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John Moyer home page with prime numbers.

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John Moyer

 

[SJPadraig]

I think it would depend on what type of AF you're using . I photograph inside music venues ,from large arenas to smaller clubs at ISO values up to 12,800 . With sufficient lighting eye/face AF works great , in (extreme )low light situations I switch to expanded single point AF as needed . Hope this helps

 

[Quarkcharmed]

I bought an R5 + RF100-500 combo a couple of months ago and am out most days trying to learn how to use this new gear for stills and videography. I do mainly wildlife subjects, most of which are birds in the Ottawa area and Eastern Ontario.

I spend a lot of my time looking for various Owl species in dimly lit forests and woodlands around dusk and dawn which are the best times to find and observe them, but definitely not to photograph or video record them. Such poor lighting conditions push the low-light, high-ISO capabilities of your photo gear to the max, as well as one's photo-editing and video-editing skills.

I use the term “low-light, high ISO” because not all high-ISO conditions are equal. You can adjust the shutter speed and/or aperture to produce fairly high ISO shots and the resulting images or video footage will still look pretty good with manageable noise. I presume this is because there is still enough contrast in the scene.

However, in low-light, high-ISO situations what happens is that in addition to a drop in the available light, the contrast between darks and lights also drops off dramatically. Not only does this condition produce noise in the image, but it also strains the auto-focus system until it eventually fails. At dusk this is always my sign to stop shooting/recording... when the af starts faling, and at dawn I can start shooting when the af starts working.

Could I ask those who face similar low-light, high-ISO shooting scenarios with their R5 or R6 to share their experience in managing these conditions and for any advice or tips and tricks they have discovered about their cameras to improve outcomes?

Also, I have a specific question: Does putting a fresh battery in the R5 improve auto-focus capabilities in low-light, high-ISO conditions, at least for a while?

Thanks very much in advance,
Rudy

 

[R2D2]

Hi Rudy,

Glad you’re getting out and about. I too am often out before sunup, and shooting until dark. Very challenging indeed! In these conditions the R5 will focus better with Exposure Simulation disabled. You might also try a Picture Style that produces a lot of contrast. Also, don’t underexpose. These settings can help the autofocus in low light situations.

There are also a couple of settings that affect the viewfinder that you can try adjusting, such as suppressing low framerate (try disabling this). You may notice a difference in AF, depending on your subjects.

You can also of course increase the EVF/LCD brightness, but these will only help You.

When you’re in a situation where the AF is struggling finding an eye/face, no matter the light level, if you enable 1.6x Crop Mode the AF will pick up better. I have my “Set” button programmed for Aspect Ratio.

As the other poster recommended, I always try to get the AF close to the distance that I anticipate the subject to be. This helps the Subject Detect AF with initial acquisition.

You’ll also find situations where plain old Spot AF will do a better job than Subject Detect (like in highly backlit scenes). I keep the ( * ) back button set to Spot AF. On the R5 it’s very quick and easy to simply lean your thumb over to the * button to activate Spot AF without having to actually reposition your thumb (from off of the AF-On button, which I have set for my eye detect).

If you’re switching between Custom Modes a lot, you can program the M-Fn button to toggle right through them. For instance my “perched bird” mode is set for C1, and if I need to quickly change to “BIF mode” (C2), a single press instantly gets me there.

If you’re using the back buttons for autofocus, keep in mind that the main AF Method (normally used for the shutter button) does still have an effect on the viewfinder operation. If you change the main AF Method, you’ll see how the display changes. For instance this is how you can pre-position the Spot AF point, or show how the subject is being tracked (even if you’re not actively autofocusing). I have the lens’ Control Ring programmed to change AF Method. Again, fast and easy is key!

Hope some of this helps!

R2

ps. The first shot that brought true realization that the R5 and DxO was going to be a great pairing for low light... :-D


At ISO 12,800 this was still a stop underexposed!

--
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
http://www.pbase.com/jekyll_and_hyde/galleries

 

[thunder storm]

Great info.

How do you use and/or tweak the AF cases?

 

[Victor Engel]

Please explain how not underexposing helps AF. I thought AF was independent of exposure, which happens AFTER AF.

 

[Ephemeris]

I use the R5 with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM. I hope this might be helpful anyway.

It seems to me that the auto focus needs a broad area of contrast, so I try to focus on a tree trunk or other large object at about the same distance as the bird before focusing on the bird. If there is nothing like that available, then I try to manually focus to about the correct distance before trying auto focus.

Sometimes, I just increase the noise reduction, scale it smaller, and sharpen. The fox was outside my back door standing on a tree stump and did not run away when I turned on the porch light and made the photo through the window in my door. I focused first on the tree stump that the fox was sitting on. I put bird seed on the tree stump and fox checks whether the birds have left any. I tried to rescue this photo because I like the fox.

• [EXIF:Camera] Exposure Program : Aperture-priority AE
• [EXIF:Camera] Flash : No Flash
• [EXIF:Camera] Focal Length : 286.0 mm
• [EXIF:Camera] Exposure Mode : Auto
• [EXIF:Camera] Scene Capture Type : Standard
• [EXIF:Image] Software : Digital Photo Professional
• [EXIF:Image] Exposure Time : 1/80
• [EXIF:Image] F Number : 5.0
• [EXIF:Image] ISO : 25600
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Focus Mode : AI Servo AF
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Camera ISO : Auto
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Metering Mode : Spot
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Focus Range : Auto
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Canon Exposure Mode : Aperture-priority AE
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Canon Firmware Version : Firmware Version 1.3.1
• [MakerNotes:Camera] AF Area Mode : Face + Tracking
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Num AF Points : 1
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Valid AF Points : 1
• [MakerNotes:Camera] Safety Shift : Enable (ISO speed)
• [MakerNotes:Image] Measured EV : 3.12
• [MakerNotes:Image] Measured EV 2 : -17.5
• [MakerNotes:Image] Focus Distance Upper : 10.47 m
• [MakerNotes:Image] Focus Distance Lower : 8.99 m

Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), May 22, 2021 https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/2021May26_birds_and_cats/2021may22_fox_IMG_1313c.html

Image was down scaled using graphicsmagick and another unsharp mask was done after scaling. The following are DPP edits as shown in the dr4 recipe file by exiftool:

• [CanonVRD:Image] Raw Brightness Adj : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] White Balance Adj : Unknown (23)
• [CanonVRD:Image] WB Adj Color Temp : 5200
• [CanonVRD:Image] WB Adj Magenta Green : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] WB Adj Blue Amber : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Linear : No
• [CanonVRD:Image] Picture Style : Shot Settings
• [CanonVRD:Image] Contrast Adj : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] Color Tone Adj : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] Color Saturation Adj : 1
• [CanonVRD:Image] Unsharp Mask Strength : 3
• [CanonVRD:Image] Unsharp Mask Fineness : 4
• [CanonVRD:Image] Unsharp Mask Threshold : 3
• [CanonVRD:Image] Shadow Adj : -2
• [CanonVRD:Image] Highlight Adj : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] Sharpness Adj : Unsharp Mask
• [CanonVRD:Image] Sharpness Adj On : Yes
• [CanonVRD:Image] Sharpness Strength : 4
• [CanonVRD:Image] Auto Lighting Optimizer : Low
• [CanonVRD:Image] Auto Lighting Optimizer On : No
• [CanonVRD:Image] Luminance Noise Reduction : 12
• [CanonVRD:Image] Chrominance Noise Reduction : 12
• [CanonVRD:Image] DLO Setting : 40.7646484375
• [CanonVRD:Image] DLO On : Yes
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Contrast : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Color Tone : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Saturation : 1
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Unsharp Mask Strength : 3
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Unsharp Mask Fineness : 4
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Unsharp Mask Threshold : 3
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Sharpness Strength : 4
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Shadow : -2
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Highlight : 0
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Black Point : +0.000
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma White Point : -0.367
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Mid Point : +0.000
• [CanonVRD:Image] Gamma Curve Output Range : 0 16383

--
https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/
John Moyer

Hi John. That's a really helpful post so I wanted to thank you for adding in the data you have. That is ever so useful.

Just two questiona and that's to do with the metering you used and also the auto lighting optimiser.

In low light do you use spot metering? If so why?

ALO. Low. Why low, not medium (for example)?



Many thanks.

 

[Rudy Pohl]

I use the R5 with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM. I hope this might be helpful anyway.

It seems to me that the auto focus needs a broad area of contrast, so I try to focus on a tree trunk or other large object at about the same distance as the bird before focusing on the bird. If there is nothing like that available, then I try to manually focus to about the correct distance before trying auto focus.

Hi John,

Thanks very much for taking the time to comment and this excellent suggestion. It is now on my list of things to try the next time I'm out there.

Best regards,
Rudy

 

[Rudy Pohl]

I think it would depend on what type of AF you're using . I photograph inside music venues ,from large arenas to smaller clubs at ISO values up to 12,800 . With sufficient lighting eye/face AF works great , in (extreme )low light situations I switch to expanded single point AF as needed . Hope this helps

Hi SJ,

Thanks for your reply and your technique of switching to expanded single point AF in extremely low light. As with John's suggestion above yours is also now on my list of things to try.

Cheers,
Rudy

 

[Rudy Pohl]

I'm not a wildlife shooter, but for action shooting in low light I use ISO invariant range of the R5. ISO is fixed at 800 or 1600, aperture as wide as possible, shutter speed - as slow as possible. Exposure simulation must be disabled, this will squeeze all the possible juice out of the AF.

Hi Quark,

I just did a quite tour of your 500px gallery and all I can say "WOW"... absolutely stunning images!"

Thanks so much for your reply and your suggestion regarding using the ISO invariant range of the R5 for some low light situations.

Just to clarify, if I remember correctly ISO invariance is where you can shooting an image let's say 5 stops under-exposed and recover the 5-stops in post processing with minimal adverse effects. Is that correct and what you have in mind?

If I have understood this correctly does this mean that I should simply set my ISO to 800 or 1600, set my lens to wide open, reduce the shutter speed to lowest acceptable minimum, disable the exposure simulation and fire away? Then in post boost all the exposures the required amounts?

Thanks,
Rudy

 

[Rudy Pohl]

ps. The first shot that brought true realization that the R5 and DxO was going to be a great pairing for low light... :-D


At ISO 12,800 this was still a stop underexposed!

Hi R2,

First off, I love this shot of this curious looking River Ottawa - fabulous.

Next, thanks so much for taking the time to supply all the great information and suggestion. Rather than respond to bits and pieces of it I will study the items and try out a few things and in a few days give you some feedback.

Sorry for my late response today. I was out in the forest much of the morning with a delightful little Barred Owl snoozing away up in her Pine tree, and this afternoon I'll be out looking for Snowy Owls of which there are now 3 taking up winter residence in our area. (Ah, a little slice of Heaven on earth... lol).

Thanks again and have a great day!,
Rudy

--
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rudypohl/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/truthtalk180/videos
Astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/users/Rudy_Pohl/

 

[Rudy Pohl]

I found this video on the R5's ISO invariance today. He explains things well.

 

[JohnMoyer]

I use the R5 with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM. I hope this might be helpful anyway.

It seems to me that the auto focus needs a broad area of contrast, so I try to focus on a tree trunk or other large object at about the same distance as the bird before focusing on the bird. If there is nothing like that available, then I try to manually focus to about the correct distance before trying auto focus.

Sometimes, I just increase the noise reduction, scale it smaller, and sharpen. The fox was outside my back door standing on a tree stump and did not run away when I turned on the porch light and made the photo through the window in my door. I focused first on the tree stump that the fox was sitting on. I put bird seed on the tree stump and fox checks whether the birds have left any. I tried to rescue this photo because I like the fox.

...

Hi John. That's a really helpful post so I wanted to thank you for adding in the data you have. That is ever so useful.

Just two questiona and that's to do with the metering you used and also the auto lighting optimiser.

In low light do you use spot metering? If so why?

ALO. Low. Why low, not medium (for example)?

Many thanks.

I nearly always use evaluative metering on the EOS R5 and I nearly always used spot metering on the EOS 80D. Sometimes I will point the camera at an area with the desired illumination and press the button to lock the exposure before pointing the camera back at the subject, for example if back lit. My settings are what I have gotten used to using and I would not present them as advice for others. But a few things like higher noise with higher temperature and the digital lens optimizer in DPP I have good technical reasons for using.

That was firmware 1.3 when I photographed the Fox and now I have firmware version 1.7. I did the auto lighting optimizer in DPP because the lighting was so uneven with the porch light far from the subject. I never turn on peripheral illumination or auto lighting optimizer in the camera because it seems to me to result in more noise as if the camera were boosting the ISO more than reported, but I am guessing and not certain this is happening. My settings seem to me quite different from what most others use. I tried to duplicate the settings I had been using in my EOS 80D, but found that they did not work well for me in the EOS R5.

In AF menu 1 I have

AF operation: Servo AF

AF method: face + tracking

Subject to detect: Animals

Eye detection: enable

Continuous AF : disable

AF menu 3: Servo AF case 1

AF menu 4: One-Shot AF release prior: focus priority

AF menu 5:

Initial servo AF pt for face is a center area (I used single point on EOS 80D, but that did not work for me on EOS R5 I guessing because the R5 needs a larger area to find contrast if it is very much out of focus)

I have "High speed display" disabled. I have Expo. simulation set to enable because that seems to work better for me even though it works worse for others.

Noise at higher ISO numbers seems to also depend upon camera temperature.

With a noisy image I use less digital lens optimizer and try to set the "fineness" of unsharp mask to 3 or 4 pixels to avoid sharpening noise and to sharpen the blur from noise reduction. For low ISO or if only the brighter areas are of interest I set digital lens optimizer higher in DPP but always leave it on the lower setting in camera because the high setting in camera is too slow and doubling what the camera chose when I get to DPP seems to me a good starting point. I am guessing that digital lens optimizer uses something similar to a Richardson/Lucy deconvolution so if I have a large F number then I set digital lens optimizer much higher in DPP.

I hope some of this is helpful.

 

[Ephemeris]

Hi Rudy,

Glad you’re getting out and about. I too am often out before sunup, and shooting until dark. Very challenging indeed! In these conditions the R5 will focus better with Exposure Simulation disabled. You might also try a Picture Style that produces a lot of contrast. Also, don’t underexpose. These settings can help the autofocus in low light situations.

Sounds interesting I hadn't thought about picture styles. Will give it a whirl.

There are also a couple of settings that affect the viewfinder that you can try adjusting, such as suppressing low framerate (try disabling this). You may notice a difference in AF, depending on your subjects.

You can also of course increase the EVF/LCD brightness, but these will only help You.

When you’re in a situation where the AF is struggling finding an eye/face, no matter the light level, if you enable 1.6x Crop Mode the AF will pick up better. I have my “Set” button programmed for Aspect Ratio.

Sounds logical. Could you help with a process to do this? My fluency with the camera isn't as good as I would like.

As the other poster recommended, I always try to get the AF close to the distance that I anticipate the subject to be. This helps the Subject Detect AF with initial acquisition.

You’ll also find situations where plain old Spot AF will do a better job than Subject Detect (like in highly backlit scenes). I keep the ( * ) back button set to Spot AF. On the R5 it’s very quick and easy to simply lean your thumb over to the * button to activate Spot AF without having to actually reposition your thumb (from off of the AF-On button, which I have set for my eye detect).

Similar question as a little help to programme.

If you’re switching between Custom Modes a lot, you can program the M-Fn button to toggle right through them. For instance my “perched bird” mode is set for C1, and if I need to quickly change to “BIF mode” (C2), a single press instantly gets me there.

Same again except how are your modes different?

If you’re using the back buttons for autofocus, keep in mind that the main AF Method (normally used for the shutter button) does still have an effect on the viewfinder operation. If you change the main AF Method, you’ll see how the display changes. For instance this is how you can pre-position the Spot AF point, or show how the subject is being tracked (even if you’re not actively autofocusing). I have the lens’ Control Ring programmed to change AF Method. Again, fast and easy is key!

We only have the 24-105 with that ring but I do take photos of dogs in fenced areas and also children so how to do this would be helpful.

Hope some of this helps!

Sorry if I have asked too many questions.

R2

ps. The first shot that brought true realization that the R5 and DxO was going to be a great pairing for low light... :-D


At ISO 12,800 this was still a stop underexposed!

--
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
http://www.pbase.com/jekyll_and_hyde/galleries

 

[John Sheehy]

Please explain how not underexposing helps AF. I thought AF was independent of exposure, which happens AFTER AF.

The AF seems to be using the EVF/LCD video for part of its information, and can be highly dependent on normal exposure if you have Exposure Simulation enabled. I knew this was true, but didn't realize how much difference it would make until I toggled the Exposure Simulation on and off at max auto ISO when having it on made the EVF nearly black. Turning it off sped up AF like as if the ambient lighting had increased by several stops! Otherwise, when it was on, the camera gave a red-box for AF failure almost immediately.

 

[Ephemeris]

I use the R5 with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM. I hope this might be helpful anyway.

It seems to me that the auto focus needs a broad area of contrast, so I try to focus on a tree trunk or other large object at about the same distance as the bird before focusing on the bird. If there is nothing like that available, then I try to manually focus to about the correct distance before trying auto focus.

Sometimes, I just increase the noise reduction, scale it smaller, and sharpen. The fox was outside my back door standing on a tree stump and did not run away when I turned on the porch light and made the photo through the window in my door. I focused first on the tree stump that the fox was sitting on. I put bird seed on the tree stump and fox checks whether the birds have left any. I tried to rescue this photo because I like the fox.

...

Hi John. That's a really helpful post so I wanted to thank you for adding in the data you have. That is ever so useful.

Just two questiona and that's to do with the metering you used and also the auto lighting optimiser.

In low light do you use spot metering? If so why?

ALO. Low. Why low, not medium (for example)?

Many thanks.

I nearly always use evaluative metering on the EOS R5 and I nearly always used spot metering on the EOS 80D. Sometimes I will point the camera at an area with the desired illumination and press the button to lock the exposure before pointing the camera back at the subject, for example if back lit. My settings are what I have gotten used to using and I would not present them as advice for others. But a few things like higher noise with higher temperature and the digital lens optimizer in DPP I have good technical reasons for using.

Hi John. Higher noise with temperature is that related to colour or physical?

That was firmware 1.3 when I photographed the Fox and now I have firmware version 1.7. I did the auto lighting optimizer in DPP because the lighting was so uneven with the porch light far from the subject. I never turn on peripheral illumination or auto lighting optimizer in the camera because it seems to me to result in more noise as if the camera were boosting the ISO more than reported, but I am guessing and not certain this is happening.

Interesting. I have always had the on but never experimented to understand if they create more noise Vs doing something post. I think it's got to be worth investigating.

My settings seem to me quite different from what most others use. I tried to duplicate the settings I had been using in my EOS 80D, but found that they did not work well for me in the EOS R5.

In AF menu 1 I have

AF operation: Servo AF

AF method: face + tracking

Subject to detect: Animals

Eye detection: enable

Continuous AF : disable

I usually have this enabled

AF menu 3: Servo AF case 1

AF menu 4: One-Shot AF release prior: focus priority

AF menu 5:

Initial servo AF pt for face is a center area (I used single point on EOS 80D, but that did not work for me on EOS R5 I guessing because the R5 needs a larger area to find contrast if it is very much out of focus)

I think I set this to Auto.

I have "High speed display" disabled. I have Expo. simulation set to enable because that seems to work better for me even though it works worse for others.

Noise at higher ISO numbers seems to also depend upon camera temperature.

With a noisy image I use less digital lens optimizer and try to set the "fineness" of unsharp mask to 3 or 4 pixels to avoid sharpening noise and to sharpen the blur from noise reduction. For low ISO or if only the brighter areas are of interest I set digital lens optimizer higher in DPP but always leave it on the lower setting in camera because the high setting in camera is too slow and doubling what the camera chose when I get to DPP seems to me a good starting point. I am guessing that digital lens optimizer uses something similar to a Richardson/Lucy deconvolution so if I have a large F number then I set digital lens optimizer much higher in DPP.

I hope some of this is helpful.

Thanks John. I think some menu options it's not clear what affect it has on AF, noise, OVF performance and so forth.

Appreciate your help.

--
https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/
John Moyer

 

[Quarkcharmed]

I'm not a wildlife shooter, but for action shooting in low light I use ISO invariant range of the R5. ISO is fixed at 800 or 1600, aperture as wide as possible, shutter speed - as slow as possible. Exposure simulation must be disabled, this will squeeze all the possible juice out of the AF.

Hi Quark,

I just did a quite tour of your 500px gallery and all I can say "WOW"... absolutely stunning images!"

Thanks!!

Thanks so much for your reply and your suggestion regarding using the ISO invariant range of the R5 for some low light situations.

Just to clarify, if I remember correctly ISO invariance is where you can shooting an image let's say 5 stops under-exposed and recover the 5-stops in post processing with minimal adverse effects. Is that correct and what you have in mind?

If I have understood this correctly does this mean that I should simply set my ISO to 800 or 1600, set my lens to wide open, reduce the shutter speed to lowest acceptable minimum, disable the exposure simulation and fire away? Then in post boost all the exposures the required amounts?

Yes, only I wouldn't go 5 stops below. For low light action I'd choose a reasonably low ISO so that the in-camera previews don't look too dark.

The main idea is that within the ISO-invariant range the noise depends on the exposure only (shutter speed + aperture) and not on ISO setting. That's why you need to try and maximise the exposure by opening up the aperture and reducing the shutter speed. With wildlife, you may have significant constraints on the shutter speed, but the point is, you can't do any better anyway, in terms of the noise.

So when you lift the 'exposure' in post, it'd have the same effect as lifting ISO in the field. Main benefits are:

• You don't lose on image quality as long as you're trying to maximise the exposure within your constraints.
• You protect the highlights (in case there are sudden changes in light/unexpected specular highlights)
• You don't worry about exposure settings, exposure compensation etc.

In the R5, the ISO-invariant range starts from 800, so you should be ok with using ISO 800 but when it's too dark you may get unusable previews - even though you can recover in post, it's still good to be able to check the results in the field.

In practice it's fine to set ISO to whatever reasonable fixed value, depending on the light, and forget about exposure modes and exposure compensation.

Also it's important to disable exposure compensation, also good to have 'smooth display preformance' enabled.

Thanks,
Rudy

 

[JohnMoyer]

I use the R5 with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM. I hope this might be helpful anyway.

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Hi John. That's a really helpful post so I wanted to thank you for adding in the data you have. That is ever so useful.

Just two questiona and that's to do with the metering you used and also the auto lighting optimiser.

In low light do you use spot metering? If so why?

ALO. Low. Why low, not medium (for example)?

Many thanks.

I nearly always use evaluative metering on the EOS R5 and I nearly always used spot metering on the EOS 80D. Sometimes I will point the camera at an area with the desired illumination and press the button to lock the exposure before pointing the camera back at the subject, for example if back lit. My settings are what I have gotten used to using and I would not present them as advice for others. But a few things like higher noise with higher temperature and the digital lens optimizer in DPP I have good technical reasons for using.

Hi John. Higher noise with temperature is that related to colour or physical?

So far as I can understand, there are always thermal photons recorded by the sensor. With higher temperature there are more thermal photons and visible light microlenses on the sensor cannot reject them. So, in low light the proportion of thermal to visible light is higher and a with a cooler camera the thermal noise is less visible in low light. Also in low light the variability of individual photo sites is more obvious so some pixels appear brighter than others. The color of a thermal photon will depend upon whether it is captured by a red, blue, or green photo site. So, the thermal noise appears as both luminance and chrominance depending upon which random photo site records it.

A median filter followed by downscale followed by unsharp mask might be expected to improve the appearance of the image when there is more thermal noise relative to color information because the median filter rejects extreme values, but this means that the median filter also rejects detail. The unsharp mask should have the radius or fineness parameter larger than the noise and larger than the blur created by the median filter. The threshold parameter to unsharp mask should be related to the magnitude of thermal photons compared to the magnitude of visible light photons. These are just my guesses.

If the DPP digital lens optimizer were to use Richardson/Lucy deconvolution, then it would emphasize the thermal noise which would be undesirable. Just guessing.

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I hope some of this is helpful.

Thanks John. I think some menu options it's not clear what affect it has on AF, noise, OVF performance and so forth.

Appreciate your help.

 

[Steve_tEkGuY]

Hello R2D2

How would one do that. I know I can switch between video and photo using the MFN but didnt realize you could just use it for cycling between photo C - Custom modes.

thank you

If you’re switching between Custom Modes a lot, you can program the M-Fn button to toggle right through them. For instance my “perched bird” mode is set for C1, and if I need to quickly change to “BIF mode” (C2), a single press instantly gets me there.

@tekguyphoto