CANON R5 Video Test at Sunset. Is it Good Enough?

So, much talking about the Canon EOS R5. Overheating, 8K, best stills camera? It went from being the most anticipated camera or the year to the most controversial one. I decided to buy it and now I’m testing it. I’m a hybrid shooter and according to Canon’s marketing, the Canon R5 should be the perfect camera for me. Is it?

Check out the video footage on my YouTube channel…

First of all, overheating and drama aside, this camera is great. For stills, I consider it almost perfect. All I ever wanted. The files look great, the autofocus is out of this world and the IBIS is so good. I still can’t believe I can shoot at 5 second shutter speeds. Now, all good and well… but like I said, I shoot a lot of video too these days and when I heard about the overheating… well, let’s say I wasn’t happy about that but after reading.

First of all, overheating and drama aside, this camera is great. For stills, I consider it almost perfect. All I ever wanted. The files look great, the autofocus is out of this world and the IBIS is so good. I still can’t believe I can shoot at 5 second shutter speeds. Now, all good and well… but like I said, I shoot a lot of video too these days and when I heard about the overheating… well, let’s say I wasn’t happy about it but after reading Canon’s statement with the overheating times, I felt a bit better.

Is the Canon EOS R5 future proof… for me?

Now, what’s the reality of it all. Well, I’m not a professional videographer. I’m a photographer first but I’m doing a lot of video these days for my YouTube channel and personal projects. No clients, though. So, I should be OK, right? Well, after two weeks of testing, I’m sill OK.

Last week, I went out to test the Canon R5 at sunset. I shot the same sequence in both 1080p and 4K 60 and it didn’t overheat. I did it like that because honestly, my MacBook can’t handle the crazy 4K files and editing and rendering would be agonizing. I guess I’ll have to update the ol’ MacBook. Now, the 1080 IPB files look great so I can image the 4K All-I files will look even better.

Screen grab of the Canon R5 sunset video footage.

Plenty of dynamic range, clean shadows and color grading is easy and fun. Even with heavy back light, the files hold up and I can bring back highlights and shadow. Low light is also no problem for the Canon R5. Sure, there might be better cameras for low light but I went pretty high in the ISOs and all the files look great. Image quality and video quality is definitely not the problem.

So far so good. It seems for short clips like this, I won’t have any problems but am I going to stay with short clips like this?

It’s always good to buy a camera that’s future proof and if I start shooting more video, more 4K and maybe even some 8K… I don’t know. Maybe Canon will fix most of these problems with a firmware update but to what extent is the question. 

I’m going to keep testing this camera in the next few weeks. Longer shoots, more shoots and more 4K… and I will try to get my hands on a Sony A7s III too. Only then I’ll decide if this camera is future proof for me or not. I’ll keep you updated…