The Canon EOS R5 Mark II finally arrives, aiming to improve the bar already very high in the field of mirrorless cameras. This review looks at some of its most riveting characteristics, performance, and usability in the field; this is a must-have for many pros and serious enthusiasts.

Key Specifications:

• 45MP Stacked CMOS sensor
• Eye-controlled AF subject selection
• Up to 30fps continuous shooting with blackout free viewfinder
• In-body stabilization rated at up to 8.5EV correction, coordinated with lens
• Pre-burst capture (up to 0.5 sec in stills, 3 or 5 sec in video)
• 8K Raw video capture up to 60p
• Canon C-Log2 profile
• Waveforms and false color display
• AF trained by machine learning for specific sports
• AI-enhanced post-shot noise reduction or upscaling
• Wi-Fi 6E
• 1x CFexpress Type B, 1x UHS-II SD

Eye-control AF

The EOS R5 II receives the same updated version of Eye-control AF that is found in the R1. Like the first modern version in the EOS R3, this allows you to select a subject to focus on by just looking its way: when you half-press the shutter button or hit AF-On to start focusing, the camera will select the topic nearest to where it thinks your eye is looking.
Now it sports sensors with a wider angle of view, allowing it to see more of the eye, while revised algorithms mean it works better when the eye is further away from the viewfinder, particularly for those who wear glasses. There’s an eyeglasses detection mode to stop it getting confused by the extra lens and distance between the sensors and the photographer’s eye.

‘Digic Accelerator’ co-processor

The EOS R5 II makes use of the same co-processor, or ‘Digic Accelerator’, as found in the R1. Much like Sony touts its ‘AI processing unit,’ Canon is touting this: a dedicated processor cranking its way through the complex algorithms created by AI mechanisms, so the main processor remains focused on distance measurement and other elements, like communicating with the lens, instead of all at once.
Canon claims this chip also makes possible the running of more sophisticated exposure and white balance algorithms, thus improving not only the fundamental performance of the camera but also some of its new features.

Pre-capture

Like the R1, the R5 II allows you to press, hold, and even press-and-hold the shutter button to capture up to 1/2 a second of action before you fully depress the shutter. Likewise, you can also pre-capture of 3 or 5 seconds of video.

Action Priority modes

One of the biggest features the R5 II gains from the R1 is its slate of Action Priority AF modes. These are based on machine learning trained on how different sports look: how active players’ bodies are positioned and what the ball looks like at key moments. It can track the ball and work out which player to focus on. For instance, Canon boasts that Football/Soccer is a mode that is fine-tuned to recognize these actions going on: “Shoot, header, short pass, long pass, dribble, clear, place kick, save by keeper, throw in, sliding tackle”.

Pre-registered person priority

As well as the generic subject types the camera has been taught to recognize, it’s also possible to register up to ten sets of ten people in the camera’s memory. If active, the camera will try to prioritize those people if it identifies them in a scene.
This would ensure that you got the photos of some players at a sporting event or, for example, wedding shoots where you could tell the camera to hold more emphasis on the betrothed rather than being distracted by your camera with various members of the wedding party who happen to get closer to your AF point.

You can even construct a priority rank of the people you’ve identified so that the camera knows to focus on the bride ahead of the groom, ahead of the maid of honor, and so forth. Despite giving the camera only a single image of each subject, it proved pretty good at recognizing the people we asked it to prioritize.

AI-derived noise reduction or upscaling

Like the R1, the R5 II adds two post-capture options to reprocess your files using the full power of its AI-derived algorithms. It’s not got the power or battery life to apply these as you shoot, so you’ll need to select which images to process, after the fact. Even with a dedicated ‘accelerator’ chip, both processes take several seconds to apply to each file.
First, upscaling images to double their native resolution, which is four times the pixel count. With this capability, it will predict—using machine learning—what could possibly be in between the captured pixels, thus increasing the effective resolution. Rather surprisingly, this is done with JPEG or HEIF images rather than on the Raw data itself.
The other alternative is to apply advanced “neural network” noise reduction to files. Once more, it is machine learning-based and makes an effort to differentiate between noise and detail, providing a clean but detailed image. The option could be applied to Raw files but Canon says the JPEGs that are then produced cannot then be up-sized.

Blur/Out-of-Focus detection

Another bit of post-capture smartness the EOS R5 II picks up, meanwhile, is its ability to review just how well in focus the subject you’ve chosen actually is, for all of the pictures you’ve taken. Again, hard pressed to see a reason for this not to be enabled as standard before you start shooting.
A metadata tag is included in the file to show which images are the sharpest due to the auto-focus. This tag can then be used, after the event, to filter your images in playback mode on the camera, or in Canon’s Digital Photo Pro software once back at the computer.
While it may not shoot at quite the same blistering speeds as the EOS R1, any amount of 30fps shooting is likely to make you appreciate the ability to home in on the most focused shots.

Anti-flicker

Now, like the EOS R3, there are options both to sync the camera’s shooting to when the scene and the flicker are at their brightest as well as a new High Frequency Anti-Flicker mode, which calculates the flicker rate of fast-flickering light sources, like LED. And then, it chooses a fractional shutter speed at a harmonic frequency to minimize visible banding.
What these modes have in common, and which severely restricts the maximum shooting speed, is that it is only possible to shoot at the exact moment in the flicker cycle at which the light is stable. For 100/120Hz flicker, Canon quotes figures of 12-15fps in e-shutter mode, 8.6fps in electronic first curtain mode and 4.8fps when in mechanical mode.
The EOS R5 II still does keep a mechanical shutter for where it is needed. This would be for things like enabling flash sync at higher speeds, for example, which can then further be used when shooting continuously up to a maximum of 12 per second.

What’s new for video

Indeed, most of the leaps forward in the EOS R5 II’s video capabilities are underpinned by the Stacked sensor, but Canon has done much more besides: imbuing the thing with newfound speed; it worked much harder to make this camera usable as a video camera, and brought a range of features across from its Cinema EOS line—finally. On the top of 8K capability of the camera with internal Raw, the R5 II becomes the first camera in the EOS Mainline having waveforms, a false color display, zebras, and therefore making it much easier to optimize optimized exposure. It also has a tally lamp to let the person in front of the camera know when it is recording.
The camera can record high quality footage (8K Raw or 4K compressed) into its CFexpress card, with corresponding, lower resolution, and more heavily subsampled and compressed footage it into the SD card.

Raw video

Using the EOS R5 II, 8K Raw footage can be shot at up to 60p or ‘SRAW’ 4K video at up to 60p, both using the 1.89:1 aspect ratio DCI format. Canon hasn’t yet given details on how the 4K Raw is generated (downscaling or sub-sampling). For the 50 and 60p footage, it uses Canon’s compressed ‘Raw Light’ format, so the file sizes remain workably small.
It seems that both DaVinci Resolve and Adobe’s Premiere natively support Canon’s Raw and Raw Light formats, whereas Apple’s Final Cut Pro or Avid Media Composer apparently require the installation of a Canon-provided plug-in.

	Resolution (Aspect ratio)	Frame rates	Crop
8K Raw	8192 x 4320 (1.89:1)	59.94 / 50 29.97 / 25 23.98 / 24	1.0x (Full width)
4K SRaw	4096 x 2160 (1.89:1)	59.94 / 50 29.97 / 25 23.98 / 24	1.0x (Full width)

Raw video allows a slightly greater degree of lightness adjustment (often incorrectly described as ISO or Exposure adjustment) and white balance correction compared to compressed and gamma-encoded footage. It allows for nothing even close to as big of a difference as Raw vs. JPEG in stills, though, because 10-bit Log files can fully encode the sensor output and can be designed for tonal edits in a way JPEGs aren’t, and Raw footage typically is 12-bit.
Shooting raw also affords you a lot more authority regarding noise reduction, sharpening, adjustments, etc., because these are usually done, to a greater or lesser extent, on gamma-encoded files—thus freeing you up more but adding another step to the workflow.

Compressed video

The compressed video options in the R5 II are more extensive, with 8K or 4K derived from 8K at up to 30p. Both of those come in a 1.89:1 DCI aspect ratio or the 16:9 UHD shape which crops the edges of the footage in a little.
The R5 II can also shoot sub-sampled in DCI or UHD 4K at 120p, while maintaining the same angle-of-view. We measured the DCI 8K as having a rolling shutter figure of 12.6ms (∼1/80 sec), which suggests the main reason to shoot the less detailed sub-sampled footage will be to access those faster frame rates or to avoid any heat concerns, rather than because of any need to lower rolling shutter.
There’s also the fact that the DCI and UHD 4K footage crops-in from around an APS-C area of the sensor. There are also options to capture 2048 x 1080 full-width or edge-cropped Full HD footage at up to 240p, and with APS-C versions of each going up to 120p.
C-Log 2 is added to the EOS R5 II’s ability for capturing footage, in addition to C-Log 3. The latter is just a more exaggerated rendition of the original C-log profile, but C-log 2 is a curve intended to encode an even wider extent of dynamic range.

	Resolution (Aspect ratio)	Frame rates	Crops
DCI 8K	8192 x 4320 (1.89:1)	29.97 / 25 23.98 / 24	1.0x (Full width)
UHD 8K	7680 x 4320 (16:9)	29.97 / 25 23.98	1.05x (Horizontally cropped)
DCI 4K Fine	4096 x 2160 (1.89:1)	29.97 / 25 23.98 / 24	1.0x (Full width)
DCI 4K	4096 x 2160 (1.89:1)	59.94 / 50 29.97 / 25 23.98 / 24	1.0x (Subsampled) or 1.61x
UHD 4K Fine	3840 x 2160 (16:9)	29.97 / 25 23.98	1.05x (Horizontally cropped)
UHD 4K	3840 x 2160 (16:9)	59.94 / 50 29.97 / 25 23.98	1.05x (Subsampled) or 1.70x

The EOS R5 II is also the first camera outside of Canon’s Cinema EOS range to be able to capture C-Log2—meaning, at a very minimum, it should be easier to use in a workflow alongside those cameras.
The camera continues support Canon’s existing 8-bit H.264 and 10-bit H.265 MP4 files for resolutions up to 4K, in line with what is on offer on the EOS R5. It can also still record HDR PQ footage to enable it to be displayed on HDR displays as well. It does appear that the HDR PQ option can be combined with the HDR video mode that captures normal and underexposed footage simultaneously in order to add some extra highlights to the final image (at up to 8K/30 or 4K/60).

Dual Shooting

There’s also the ability to shoot UHD 8K—7620 x 4230px—JPEGS to one card, while the camera is recording Full HD video at up to 30p on the other. That does require the more powerful LP-E6P battery, and, of course, means your shutter speed settings will apply both to the video footage and still images, but it can pluck stills at up to 7.5fps depending on whether you’re recording 30p or 25p video.

Body and handling

The body is extremely close to that of the R5 II’s predecessor—so much so that its BG-R20 battery grip can be used with the existing model. The only other major exterior change is the power On/Off switch on the top left-hand corner. It now has a stills/video switch as previously introduced on the EOS R6 II, with power itself now around the rear command dial on the top plate.

This change is sure to infuriate upgraders who are used to handling the existing R5, but after a few days of accidentally flicking to photo mode, rather than finding the power switch, it soon enough becomes second nature.
That’s no bad thing, since we really liked the way the original R5 handled. It’s a pretty big camera, but its grip is very well-shaped and -proportioned. The general position and ergonomics of all buttons and dials are excellent for extended use.
The EOS R5 II probably attests to that rarest of things: a change in the Canon menu layout. On top of the familiar menu sections, there’s now an olive green tab that contains all of the control customization options from the menu, so they can all be easily located. This includes control customization for shooting and playback mode.

Viewfinder

The EOS R5 II still uses a 5.76M dot OLED panel and still maintains the 0.76x magnification but it has had a big optics redesign, now allowing Eye-control AF to be implemented. This makes it seem like there is a larger viewfinder as you look at the camera, but in practice, it’s the same size when you’re using it.
The spec doesn’t make this clear, but this new OLED panel can go much brighter than on the original R5—though not as bright as on the R1—enough to allow the inclusion of the ‘Optical Viewfinder Simulation’ mode that most impressed on the EOS R3. There’s also 1mm increase in the eyepoint to 25mm, making it possible to see the whole viewfinder panel from a very slightly greater distance from the finder.
The rear screen is the same 3.2-inch, 2.1-million-dot fully articulated unit.

Flash hotshoe

The EOS R5 gains the multi-function hot shoe that debuted on the EOS R3. This one carries a row of contacts that, in this case, can be used to feed a digital audio signal into the camera for use with the DM-E1D digital stereo mic. Alternatively, the contacts can provide power to an ST-10 radio flash trigger, or provide wired data connection to an Android smartphone using the AD-P1 adapter.
The shoe itself offers weather sealing, but if you need to maintain a water-resistant seal with a weather-resistant flash, you will require the AD-E1 adapter.

As before, the EOS R5 II has one CFexpress Type B card slot and one UHS-II SD slot. This means you’re always likely to have a card that’ll work with the camera but also means there’s a longer list of video modes that can’t be saved to the smaller, slower card.

Battery

The EOS R5 II is built around a new battery but, traditionally for Canon, also capable of accepting the existing LP-E6N or E6NH—though not the original E6. The new LP-E6P is capable of powering the camera for a longer period of time compared to its predecessors, in order to exploit a couple of functions, such as Pre-burst shooting, HDMI Raw output, Dual Shooting (simultaneous stills + video), or use high-powered devices mounted in the multi-function hotshoe. These functions and the camera’s highest performance may not be available with older batteries.
The CIPA rating is 250 shots per charge, upward of 15% from the original R5, while the rating is up 70% with the LCD on 540. Quite frankly, we’ve always found CIPA testing methodology much more demanding than most people’s real-world usage anyway, and the numbers become less and less meaningful the more burst shooting you do. These aren’t bad numbers, all considered.
There is an option to charge this camera over USB, although to drive the camera over USB, you would have to use either the new PD-E2 power adapter or a high-powered USB PD power source. We don’t have specs for the PD-E2 yet, so can’t confirm which Power Delivery modes are required to power the camera.

Conclusion

The Canon EOS R5 Mark II is the revolutionary mirrorless camera beyond all expectations. Its high-resolution imaging, next-gen autofocus, powerful video performances, and indestructible quality of build make the camera perfect for professionals and enthusiasts alike, upping images and videos a notch. From capturing those stunning landscapes to that fast action, even to making cinematic videos, the R5 Mark II gives all you need in perfection and ease.