I’ll be the first to tell you that a new camera won’t make you a better photographer, but I’m also a self-proclaimed technology-geek and I love playing with cutting-edge electronics of any kind. That’s why I woke up early (okay…9AM) to get my pre-order for the new Canon EOS R5 when it was first announced.

Most camera updates come in relatively small increments that may not warrant the cost or hassle for upgrading unless you just really want to. That’s not the case here. The R5 is years ahead of previous Canon cameras (it’s been almost two years since the release of the original R). It’s especially true if you’re upgrading from a Rebel, 5D or 7D series (or 1D for that matter).

The basic specs are nothing short of ground breaking: A 45 megapixel full frame sensor, shooting up to 20 frames per second with the silent electronic shutter, plus in body image stabilization. All your current Canon lenses will work using the EF-RF adapter. There is no glass in the adapter so it doesn’t affect quality or speed whatsoever.

A couple of the great video features include 8K30 RAW and 4K120, although heat issues are possible depending on how you shoot. Canon should have a firmware update soon to fix some of those bugs, but I will say those issues have NO effect on the photo modes or lower quality videos. You can continue shooting photos even after the camera shuts down from overheating.

I got my camera just as we started heading back home to Montana from Florida, so why not make a few national park stops to test out the camera on a variety of subjects? I’ve included a couple of my favorites from each park so far, and I’ll be adding links to additional posts with more photos soon. RAW files for the images below are available to download if you want to check them out.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Not far from where we left in Georgia is the Great Smoky Mountains. I visited this park often while in college, but was more focused on camping and landscape photography then. Turns out there’s a good bit of wildlife around as well, including my first bear photo from that park (I’ll that add in a future post). Bear tracking is one of the lesser known features…

These elk were my first real opportunity to test out the new animal eye autofocus, and it’s just unreal. I’ve had human eye AF for a while on the Canon R, but never used it that much since I don’t do portraits (though it would occasionally pick up an animal eye).

You can click on each photo to see a larger view and more technical details. These have all been resized to 2048px long.

Even at this distance, it would often find the eye of the bull elk. If it couldn’t find the eye, it would switch to the face as a whole or the body.

The “focus point” automatically changes size depending on what it’s detecting. In cases with more than one animal in frame, it may bring up a box with arrows allowing you to switch subjects.

Another great new feature is the in body image stabilization (IBIS). This image was shot handheld for half a second at 17mm. Without IBIS, the normal rule of thumb would be to not handhold this lens at less than 1/20th or 1/15th (although it’s possible). On a non-stabilized lens, I’d say the R5 IBIS is giving you about 2-3 stops worth of stabilization. With an IS lens and IBIS combined, you’ll get more stabilization than you would have without IBIS. It’s most effective with wide angle lenses like this one (EF 17-40 f/4L), and the exact results you’ll get will vary from lens to lens.

Mammoth Cave National Park

What better place to test the high ISO capability of a camera than a pitch black cave, barely lit by a couple of dim lights? I had never been here before, so I had no real idea what to expect. It’s well worth a trip to the middle of nowhere in Kentucky to see it. With current restrictions, we were fortunate to experience it on an unguided “tour”.

In person, this cave is DARK. Something like being in a dark movie theater while wearing sunglasses dark. There might be a blind cave monster around the corner dark. It took probably ten minutes or so for my eyes to fully adjust, and we often had to use a flashlight to avoid walking off the barely lit trail. These images are much brighter than they were in real life.

The two images below were taken at ISO 12,800 and 51,200. The brightest areas of both RAW files have relatively little noise in both images. It’s the less exposed to light (dark) areas that really suffer from noise in any image. Outside of this extreme example, I have rarely needed to take a photo at an ISO higher than 12,800 so I’m pleased with the results with that.

With any camera, you’ll see less noise at high ISO if you can either physically add light to the scene or add light to your sensor through slower shutter speed or wider aperture.

Realistically you’ll probably never need to use ISO 51,200 but it’s good to know it’s not an unusable mess if you need to capture a once in a lifetime shot (or a handheld milky way shot?).

Great Sand Dunes National Park

This was another new park for us, and one you might not have heard of before in Colorado. Not to be confused with White Sands in New Mexico that recently became a National Park.

Hiking in the sand is a real workout, and fortunately the R5 is well sealed against the blowing sand.

You can walk anywhere you see in this photo, and there are millions of abstract shots to be taken here.

Instead of more sand in our shoes, we opted for more wildlife when the opportunity presented itself.

I included this screenshot from Canon DPP to show where the focus point was. I’ve yet to figure out which animal it locks onto first in a group, but it does allow you to switch. You can also set up a manual “initial AF Servo point” that will allow you to tell the camera what to look at first as the main subject. I have that enabled, with the AF-On button set to start animal eye AF.

How’s the battery life you ask? I was able to photograph several hours at Mammoth Cave, plus a couple of hours at Great Sand Dunes, for a total of 1300+ shots over a day and a half.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

I don’t think I even knew this was a National Park until I saw it on the map, but it’s still worth a visit! The canyon is deep, colorful, and full of photo and hiking opportunities. That whole area of Colorado is beautiful anyways.

If you’ve never shot with a mirrorless camera and concerned about switching to an electronic viewfinder, I promise you won’t be disappointed. The viewfinder is bright, fast, smooth, and there’s no blackout when shooting high speed bursts of photos. You can view all the shooting info you want, plus the histogram, right on top of your image. Of course you can remove that if it’s in the way. There’s a huge advantage in being able to see what your exposure will be before taking the photo.

Yellowstone National Park

We’ve only been back home in Yellowstone for a few days, but it didn’t take too long for this grizzly bear to grace us with his presence. This was another low light shot, right at sunset, just across the road from the elk you’ll see below. I believe the eye AF picked up on the ear here, but I’ll take it given the eyes are still in the focal plane and any other AF system could’ve easily picked up one of the pieces of grass in front of his face.

This is by far the best autofocus system Canon has produced, and not just a little better. It’s stupid how fast and accurate the subject detection can be. It stayed on this bear even through the trees.

I’m not saying you should jump ship if you’re shooting Nikon or Sony now, but I’ve seen quite a few people doing just that. All three camera systems are more than capable of getting great images, and each one gets their time to shine over the year. It just so happens that’s now for Canon. I haven’t touched on the little brother of the R5 (the R6) because I haven’t used one. They do share the same autofocus system though, and the R6 is a cheaper 20 megapixel alternative.

Below is a video recording of the viewfinder (done with the Atomos Ninja V) at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone. This should give you a good idea of how the animal eye tracking works in real time.

You can download the full RAW files in three separate .zip files here, here, and here. Be sure to update your Lightroom and/or Camera RAW applications to view the new files.

I have yet to see the camera in stock anywhere lately, but when Canon sends out some more you can get it at Amazon or Adorama and your purchase will help me out with a little commission. B&H is a good option too, I’m just not in their affiliate program.

It should go without saying, these images are for your personal viewing only. I will be working on adding some more detailed thoughts on the camera, and more photos from the parks in future blog posts. You can subscribe to updates by entering your email to the subscribe box to the right (or at the bottom on mobile).