Canon EOS R5 C Mirrorless Digital Cinema Camera Body

In the past I have avoided buying grey market electronics, if only because of the chance a warranty claim would run into problems. I wasn’t entirely clear if I was buying this from a certified dealer in Canada so was a little disappointed not to find a warranty card in the box. I’m told that Canon have respected their warranties even for grey market cameras in the past, and I’m certain it is a legitimate product and I’m certain it is absolutely new. All of the manuals were in English, there wasn’t anything else to suggest grey market except the lack of their classic warranty card. In any case the chance I’ll have any problem over the next year is really small, I’ve never had to make a claim on the dozens of Canon products I’ve owned in the past.

This camera is an excellent pro level hybrid video/still camera, and the image quality is no less than outstanding. All my full frame Canon L glass works great with the EF-EOSR adapter (not included). It blows one away to see how far you can zoom in and still have excellent detail. Well above my old EOS 1D, for detail, although my old 580EXII flash doesn’t play nice with the newer mirrorless ETTL system so I’m shooting with my old speedlight flashes in manual mode. Also ergonomically there are a few minor things I’ll have to get used to. For example adjusting ISO is done through the touch screen rather than with a dedicated button. With this kind of camera, expect the learning curve to take ten thousand images before you can navigate the menus without thinking. Like any pro level camera there is more effort required for post processing. So if you shoot in RAW format, expect colors to appear faded until you adjust that in post. On the video side, there is some digital stabilization but no in body sensor stabilization. Many pros prefer to do that with a gimbal to avoid artefacts. I was a little disappointed that my new Rode Videomic2 mounted on the hotshoe picks up autofocus noise from my really old lenses. For example in a quiet room my 16-35 2.8L lens autofocus noise is picked up on the hotshoe mic. Likewise for my old 70-200 2.8L and 28-70 2.8L. So if I use those old lenses I’ll have to mount the mic on a separate tripod away from the camera. The thing I noticed right away is how short the battery life is in video mode, I ended up buying three batteries and a large NANO aftermarket V mount battery as well. The real price of this kind of cutting edge professional camera is how much more computer space you need to store those massive files. For most of us this means getting an SSD drive for video storage and processing. You may end up needing to upgrade the computer to more easily deal with the huge files in FCPX, Davinci Resolve, or Photoshop. I’m going to look into proxy files to make processing more streamlined.

This camera is the Swiss Army knife of cameras. To be clear, I have shot for several years now professionally for both photo and video, but I am not someone who has been in the industry for an incredibly long time. That being said I have worked with a lot of cameras from the BMPCC4k/6k, FX3, C300 mII, etc. Of all of these I have been the most impressed with the R5 C

The biggest advantages are great resolution, great photography capabilities, good dynamic range, dual native ISO, and lack of Canon IBIS (which is definitely an advantage). In my use of this camera the dual native ISO has been one of my favorite features. I also find the dynamic range quite usable and more than what I need. If you are disappointed with the video quality then you either don’t know how to use it, or are looking for a camera that is in a much more expensive price category.

What really sets this camera apart is the photography capabilities. Other cameras have great video, but few cameras can boast these video capabilities AND 45MP RAW stills up to 20fps. That is crazy. The photos look good too. Plenty of resolution for printing or cropping, good dynamic range (again), and colors hold up well in the edit.

Disadvantage: battery. Solution: V-Mount.
You’ll probably want to rig it up anyway so I haven’t found this to be much of an issue in practical use. My friend uses an FX3 and our rigs are almost identical in size, so for video this isn’t a problem with a proper external power source since you’ll probably need one anyway for a good cinema rig. For photos, battery life is fine. Carry a back up, but you’ll probably do that anyway.

Hope this helped! Purchase a camera that you need and not just one you want!

Edit: Also make sure you have a good cable clamp, that mini HDMI is usable but is something to be careful with.