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| Photo: Richard Butler |
We’ve just receieved a reviewable Canon EOS R5 Mark II, so took it straight into our testing studio.
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Our test scene is designed to simulate a variety of textures, colors and detail types you’ll encounter in the real world. It also has two illumination modes to see the effect of different lighting conditions.
The EOS R5 II gives very much the result you might expect: it’s essentially indistinguishable from its predecessor in terms of detail. It can’t quite match the resolving power of Sony’s 61MP a7R V, but it’s consistent with it most direct peer: the Nikon Z8.
The similarities persist as the light levels drop: at moderate ISOs it’s consistent both with its predecessor and its peers and perhaps a touch noisier at very high ISOs. Not enough that you’re ever likely to notice.
Dynamic range
In what’s becoming a familiar story, there appears to be a trade-off between speed and dynamic range on the EOS R5 II’s sensor. If you underexpose to protect highlights in your image, then try to make use of the shadows, by brightening them (which is the main mechanicsm by which you’re most likely to really push at the limits of a large sensor camera’s DR), you’ll find your shadows are noisier than those of the EOS R5.
And, comparing shots taken at the same exposure but differing ISOs, you can see that you need to apply more amplification to overcome this read noise, than you did with the original EOS R5. It’s not until you get to ISO 800 that the image starts to match the performance you get by shooting at ISO 6400, which suggests that, if this is a dual coversion gain design, it’s switching to its high gain mode at a higher ISO (The EOS R5 switched over at ISO 400).
Notably, there’s an appreciable noise cost to be paid for switching to electronic shutter mode, which means it’ll underperform the Nikon Z8 (at least in terms of DR) when used it its fast modes. That reduction in dynamic range doesn’t appear to be accompanied by a significant reduction in image quality in most tones of the images, though: even at high ISOs, the difference in most of the tonal range is marginal.
Our DPREVIEW Tribute:
After nearly 25 years of operation, DPReview closed on 10 April 2023. This difficult decision was part of the annual operating plan review that parent company, Amazon, shared earlier this year.
Over the course of 25 years, DP Review built up a reputation as being one of the most informative places to go for information about that new camera or lens you’re after. DP Review began as an independent reviews site based in the UK in 1998, the brainchild of Philip and Joanna Askey, but it was eventually purchased by Amazon in 2007 and relocated over to Seattle in the USA in 2010.
Cheers DPReview – thanks for the great work and content that guided photographers, videographers and techno junkies the world over!