I'm still thinking of buying the R5 mark II. Should I or should I wait? I BOUGHT IT!!!

An hour ago I shot a cormorant flying by my apartment. I can report that it found the head better than any other camera I have shot with, including the R6m2. I have shot a lot of cormorants from home, flying by (the birds, not me :lolz: ). Done it for years. And all cameras struggled with them and often missed the head. The R6 and R6m2 mostly found the body and then you often get soft heads. Well, not today. I was amazed to see the little square on the head consistently whilst tracking him.

Here's a shot from the sequence. Light wasn't the best, the bird was underexposed and I had to add quite a bit of light in post but I just wanted to show how well the autofocus did in finding and tracking the head.
_52_4235.jpg


Screenshot from DPP. Unprocessed and underexposed. But look where the focus point is. And it was there or thereabouts all the time. A bit to the front, a bit more to the neck, but always on the head. Only at the start of the sequence did it do a full body lock on. Then it switched to this and it stayed like this. I have never seen this before, not with cormorants. They are big, long birds and dark. For the camera to track and stay on the head like this, is amazing.

Schermafbeelding 2025-02-16 om 18.18.41.png
 
An hour ago I shot a cormorant flying by my apartment. I can report that it found the head better than any other camera I have shot with, including the R6m2. I have shot a lot of cormorants from home, flying by (the birds, not me :lolz: ). Done it for years. And all cameras struggled with them and often missed the head. The R6 and R6m2 mostly found the body and then you often get soft heads. Well, not today. I was amazed to see the little square on the head consistently whilst tracking him.

Here's a shot from the sequence. Light wasn't the best, the bird was underexposed and I had to add quite a bit in post but I just wanted to show how well the autofocus did in finding the head.
View attachment 7564

Screenshot from DPP. Unprocessed and underexposed. But look where the focus point is. And it was there or thereabouts all the time. A bit to the front, a bit more to the neck, but always on the head. Only at the start of the sequence did it do a full body lock on. Then it switched to this and it stayed like this. I have never seen this before, not with cormorants. They are big, long birds and dark. For the camera to track and stay on the head like this, is amazing.

View attachment 7569


OH YOU ARE MAKING IT HARDER TO SAY NO!! Again I am watching to see what the R6iii will be and going to rent the R5ii
 
OH YOU ARE MAKING IT HARDER TO SAY NO!! Again I am watching to see what the R6iii will be and going to rent the R5ii
I know!
I was just really impressed with the AF on the cormorant.

Best to stick to your plan all right. And it's not like you lack good gear. The R6m2 is an awesome camera! And if you can keep the ISO low, so is the R7.
 
100% crop of a gull. Taken today, late afternoon, sun going down. Only a slight crop but except the 100% crop no processing.
Gull 100Crop.jpg


And the shot with just a little bit of high pass sharpening in LAB mode.
Low sun coming from the left, giving his tail a bit of a rim light.
_52_4484.jpg
 
100% crop of a gull. Taken today, late afternoon, sun going down. Only a slight crop but except the 100% crop no processing.
View attachment 8128

And the shot with just a little bit of high pass sharpening in LAB mode.
Low sun coming from the left, giving his tail a bit of a rim light.
View attachment 8129
Great photo and the 100% crop shows the potential to crop with those 45 MP's. The crop could stand on its own if needed and for viewing online/ digital it more than suffices. And I expect that the crop would even print fine to at least A3-format.
 
Great photo and the 100% crop shows the potential to crop with those 45 MP's. The crop could stand on its own if needed and for viewing online/ digital it more than suffices. And I expect that the crop would even print fine to at least A3-format.
Those 45pmx are amazing, there is so much detail. And still when I pixelpeep (as in zooming in to a 100% view) images are sharp.

That was something that drove me nuts with the R7, where images weren’t sharp at 100%. I was told I shouldn’t pixelpeep images from a high res sensor. I should view them at 50% or whatever it was. But I have always judged the focus and sharpness of my raw files by zooming in to a 100% view. How else can you tell if an image is in good focus? So I am very happy with the files of the R5m2 because despite the high pixel density the images are sharp at 100%.
 
Those 45pmx are amazing, there is so much detail. And still when I pixelpeep (as in zooming in to a 100% view) images are sharp.

That was something that drove me nuts with the R7, where images weren’t sharp at 100%. I was told I shouldn’t pixelpeep images from a high res sensor. I should view them at 50% or whatever it was. But I have always judged the focus and sharpness of my raw files by zooming in to a 100% view. How else can you tell if an image is in good focus? So I am very happy with the files of the R5m2 because despite the high pixel density the images are sharp at 100%.

The R7 is dependent on the ISO, you need to keep it below 3200, it is a great camera for good light giving 1280mm on the 200-800 or 700 on the 100-500, but it has issues that can't always be fixed in Topaz. My R6ii is great in low light, from what I can see in examples I have seen it is slightly better at high ISO than the R5ii, I am talking well above 12,800, however I believe it can't be cropped as tight at the R5ii with its 45mp.
as a replacement for the R6ii I think it will be a very good one as in the examples you had posted up to just below 40,000 ISO the R5ii was as good as the R6ii and I don't shoot that high an ISO that often, although I do at times.
The thing I wonder about is how tight can you crop with it compared to the image with the R7? The two images below are a full APS-C shot from the R7 and then a typical crop that I routinely do from it. To me the cropped picture is getting pixelated but for social media is acceptably sharp at least to me.

Since the R5ii is better than the R6ii at all but the highest ISO's, and that is due to the R6ii larger pixels, I probably should just buy one and sell the R6ii or give it to my son if he wants it.

I wonder if you shoot the R5ii at APS-C mode 1.6x and then crop in similar to what I have done what result do you get, let me know. I will be testing this when I rent one for myself.

full image on R7 and then the severe crop

R7A_0669-Edit-1.jpg
R7A_0669-Edit-1-5-Edit-1.jpg
 
LOL Impatient, are we?

I processed a few shots. I must say the files are different than the files from the R6m2. There's more wiggle room, for lack of a better term. And colours seem to be richer. Anyway, it will take me some time to get used to it. I always have that when switching to a new camera. It seems that every one has different files that I have to get used to.

Wood pigeon
View attachment 5070

Mallard drake. The wing is a bit dodgy but the head is sharp. I chose this one over others because the background was the nicest.
View attachment 5072
Where's the party? Am I late again?! Darn! lol! Nice shot's, Levina, I think you are going to be very happy with the extra MP's, I was when I went from 24 mp to 32 (80D > R7).
The one thing I always suffer from after buying anything that's expensive that I can actually live without is "buyers' shame." But that feeling always dissipates quickly when I tell myself that I worked hard for it and deserve it, and then the first pics put a smile on my face, and I forget about the money altogether. I hope your pics put a smile on your face, too. Enjoy!
Oh, just a tip, try editing @ 200 %. That way if you blow up a pic to poster size it will be sharper for larger sizes and the 100% pics will look even sharper. An old chief taught me that back on the reservation. ;)
 
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Where's the party? Am I late again?! Darn! lol! Nice shot's, Levina, I think you are going to be very happy with the extra MP's, I was when I went from 24 mp to 32 (80D > R7).
The one thing I always suffer from after buying anything that's expensive that I can actually live without is "buyers' shame." But that feeling always dissipates quickly when I tell myself that I worked hard for it and deserve it, and then the first pics put a smile on my face, and I forget about the money altogether. I hope your pics put a smile on your face, too. Enjoy!
Oh, just a tip, try editing @ 200 %. That way if you blow up a pic to poster size it will be sharper for larger sizes and the 100% pics will look even sharper. An old chief taught me that back on the reservation. ;)
Oh, I am very happy with the extra mpx! Going from 24mp to 45mp is huge! And the files are really good. So I'm pleased. As to the money, I find it difficult to spend so much on one item that I don't really need. But once bought, I have no regrets.

Editing at 200%? I will try that. We should never ignore an old chief's advice!
 
The R7 is dependent on the ISO, you need to keep it below 3200, it is a great camera for good light giving 1280mm on the 200-800 or 700 on the 100-500, but it has issues that can't always be fixed in Topaz. My R6ii is great in low light, from what I can see in examples I have seen it is slightly better at high ISO than the R5ii, I am talking well above 12,800, however I believe it can't be cropped as tight at the R5ii with its 45mp.
as a replacement for the R6ii I think it will be a very good one as in the examples you had posted up to just below 40,000 ISO the R5ii was as good as the R6ii and I don't shoot that high an ISO that often, although I do at times.
The thing I wonder about is how tight can you crop with it compared to the image with the R7? The two images below are a full APS-C shot from the R7 and then a typical crop that I routinely do from it. To me the cropped picture is getting pixelated but for social media is acceptably sharp at least to me.

Since the R5ii is better than the R6ii at all but the highest ISO's, and that is due to the R6ii larger pixels, I probably should just buy one and sell the R6ii or give it to my son if he wants it.

I wonder if you shoot the R5ii at APS-C mode 1.6x and then crop in similar to what I have done what result do you get, let me know. I will be testing this when I rent one for myself.

full image on R7 and then the severe crop

View attachment 8254View attachment 8255
These are definitely plenty good for viewing on a screen.

So I did the test you asked for. I shot from home. I was hoping for a heron but he didn't come and it's freezing cold so I settled on the gulls. Which is not the best bird to test this on because they have such smooth feathers. I ran them through Topaz Denoise and took it down a lot, so it's minimal.

The full image from the 1.6x crop out of the camera:
_52_4730.jpg


A huge crop, just over 1600px wide:
_52_4730_2.jpg


The full image from the 1.6x crop out of the camera:
_52_4784_2.jpg


Huge crop, just over 1600px wide:
_52_4784.jpg


The full image from the 1.6x crop out of the camera:
_52_4802_2.jpg


Huge crop just over 1600px wide (I cleaned up the poop! :lolz: )
_52_4802.jpg
 
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