Undone Review of R5 and R6 Production Cams

I can't help but think that in some boardroom right now, Canon execs, who gave him these cameras for the duration of his test only, are going point by point over each and every detail of his observations.
 
I like Gerald's approach and he does a good job. I would never base any camera decision on input from any YouTuber though. YouTubers are just entertainment in the guise of objective impartiality.
Great for seeing how something performs and going through lists of specs and features but I either borrow, rent or otherwise get a hold of a camera before buying.

You have to use it, for your style and material you mostly shoot to see what a camera is all about. Case in point, the Pocket 6K. I expected I would hate it, based upon YouTubers and reviews, yet when I shot with it for a month, I kind of
ended up really digging it, it's an amazing tool with a lot of limitations that can be worked around and a lot of potential to create images that rival cameras that cost much more.
 
Here's my inference from the first three minutes (supported by what has been said by other reviewers already) - if the shutdown and the recuperating times are not dependent on the environment and its ambient temperature nor can it be altered by the external cooling, then it's a simple programming mode, i.e., with the parameters set intentionally by Canon. In other words, it's bricked by design. So, if you had thought that a manufacturer that previously delivered a professional camera without a highly desired professional codec can be trusted, you got another think coming.
 
Tom Roper said:
I can't help but think that in some boardroom right now, Canon execs, who gave him these cameras for the duration of his test only, are going point by point over each and every detail of his observations.
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Ive been approached by companies who wants me to do the same thing. They send me their product i review it on my channel but they have to approve it first. I have turned down majority of them for that reason. I could have more subscribers if I get sponsored of course but I rather have my own voice when reviewing gear. If you noticed, almost everyone is saying the same thing about the r5 and sony a7siii right now. Sometimes even verbatum. Thats scary lol
 
JSFILMZ said:
Ive been approached by companies who wants me to do the same thing. They send me their product i review it on my channel but they have to approve it first....
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That depends on the popularity of the channel/host. The more hits/subscribers one can claim, the more flexible the manufacturers become. The YouTube personalities can often be harshly criticized for their personal opinions but it behooves them to be honest about their reviews. Because, if they're dishonest, their reviews are worthless and their channel will go bust.

PS. When I first clicked on the Undone video, it had ~ 27,500 hits. Now, half hour later, it's close to 30,000. I was only responsible for three.
 
JSFILMZ said:
Ive been approached by companies who wants me to do the same thing. They send me their product i review it on my channel but they have to approve it first. I have turned down majority of them for that reason. I could have more subscribers if I get sponsored of course but I rather have my own voice when reviewing gear. If you noticed, almost everyone is saying the same thing about the r5 and sony a7siii right now. Sometimes even verbatum. Thats scary lol
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FWIW, I'm a contributing editor for HD Video Pro and occasionally Pro Video Coalition (owned by FilmTools). Whenever I write about any piece of gear for any manufacturer, I will test the gear, use it on real, client paid shoots whenever
possible. I will then write about the piece of gear. I write my first draft, then send it to the manufacturer or rep company for a fact check. Gear like cameras have so many specs and innovations these days
I want to make sure that what I have written is factually correct. Who better to ensure that I got my facts right than the manufacturer? That's where it ends though. The manufacturer gets no editorial input, just gets to make
suggestions on factual accuracy.

Unlike YouTubers like Gerald who get taken on fancy junkets where they get their airfare, hotel and meals comped to fly to a venue, get to drive Ferraris on a racetrack (yes, really!), get to go to the tropics or Hawaii, I don't do those because
in my mind, by taking travel junkets to fun places, you have already compromised any shred of journalistic integrity you might have had by simply accepting the company's "hospitality". Same with accepting review
copies to keep, how you can write an honest review when the manufacturer gave you the piece of gear to review? More on this below.

I will confess that with some lower priced pieces of gear (not cameras, things like tripods or once, a color correction panel), after I have submitted my review to my editor, I have emailed or called the rep or company to ask them to send me a return label to ship the products back
or sometimes to the next reviewer, I have been told a few times, "just keep it." I don't have a problem doing so in those cases because I have always written from the perspective that the piece of gear is going back so I have not
been unduly influenced by the promise of gear. Often with these lower dollar items, it's an item I already owned something similar and I don't need it so I will sometimes give the piece of gear to a colleague/friend. The exception is software. When you
review plug-ins or some software, the rep or marketing company will give you a NFR (not for resale) license copy for the software and we just keep it, if we want to use it. Getting an NFR code though has zero influence on my reviews of
software. I recently reviewed a fairly expensive piece of software that I was given an unlimited NFR code for. I liked the software but it has some pricing and structure challenges that I pointed out repeatedly in my review. The software
is great, but the licensing model they are using, I really disliked and wrote about how in the era of Covid, when people aren't regularly working, subscription models are not a good marketing decision. This is why there has been a mass exodus away from Adobe CC
this year. Who wants to pay for months and months of subscription with no paying work coming in?

This is my experience as a writer/reviewer for over a decade. I am not a YouTuber though. The "Influencers" like Gerald, Kai, Gene, Philip, Matti, etc. all operate under a different set of rules that in my mind, mean that they are
more often "compromised" than writer/reviewers. And that's just the nature of the beast. Written reviews are almost dead anyway, people really only want to watch YouTube "reviews". But that's also why I look at YouTubers as
entertainers, not pro users, in most cases. There are a few exceptions. I know that Paul from ExtraShot is a working DP/cameraman and I really like his reviews. I am not sure what his ethics are about accepting junkets, free high end gear like cameras though?

Just thought you guys might want a bit of the BTS of what is really motivating many YouTube Influencers. Many of them recieve gear worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per year collectively. It satisfies their gear fetish and saves
them a ton of cash outlay to own and use the latest state of the art gear. Nice work if you can get it. But it completely removes any semblance of objectivity from their observations. They are mostly just the latest avenue for ad dollars
that used to be spent on print ads in the magazines, when we had gear oriented magazines. With many of the manufacturers, if you've been critical of their products or strategy, they simply move you down or take you off of the gear
review distribution list so the impetus is high to not give a piece of gear a critical review because if you do, when the next model comes out, you won't be given a chance to review it. I have relationships with most of the gear manufacturers
and I think I have been taken off of a list or two for things I have written that were less than favorable. I never write about "good" or "bad", that's too black and white in a gray world, but I do write about the value equation a piece of
gear represented for me and readers can extrapolate if their situation is similar to mine or completely different. There are VERY few terrible pieces of gear on the market these days, unlike in the past. Most all of the gear is at
least "good" and a huge amount of it is amazing. A piece of gear like the ATEM Mini Pro just a few years ago was inconceivable at almost any price, yet here we are today, it's cheap and amazingly good.
 
...and the thing about influence on the reviewer is that it does not need to be explicit at all for it to exist. This has been studied extensively in the News and PR world. The famous Chomsky/Hermann book Manufacturing Consent is one of many such surveys of the landscape. Journalists don't have to be told explicitly by the gatekeepers (in this case the manufacturers) what the "right and wrong" answers are, it's self filtering if you want access to the trough. It's the same with reporting on the military, for example. You simply won't be invited to the party and have access to this or that key figure in the future if you don't maintain a certain narrow bandwidth of acceptable critique. Again, that doesn't need to be made explicit. It's just the way it plays out, and all players intuitively understand that to varying degrees and play the game with some amount of variation. Stray to far and your removed from the list as Puredrifting says above.

That said, I still think these reviews are useful. You just have to watch several (including several from the non superstars) to make sure you don't get a one sided view, and most of all you need to get your hands on the item as Pure mentioned to see how it works for you.
 
I have not seen Undone on any of the press junkets/trips. But I do recall Sony bringing out two dozen YouTubers down to Miami in February for the A6300 review. It's near freezing in most of the USA and you get a free three day stay at the Fountaunbleu, right on the beach for free. To paraphrase that Orwell dude, "All reviewers are honest but some are more honest than others".

PS. Scotty Kilmer has three and a half million subscribers ... and trashes everything and everyone. Which is why he has three and a half million subscribers.

PPS. The thing that peeves me the most about the photo-video YouTubers is that they don't dare to bring up the cartel. Now, most only talk gear, without bringing up commerce, but they should talk commerce too.

PPPS. At 3:21 EDT, it has over 36,000 views.
 
Got to ad - as we'd discussed in the "main" R5 thread (hey, what hasn't been discussed in it, aside of Toyota Supra? ... oh, wait, that came up too), there are several ways for the YouTubers to make a living. One is to find a legitimate storefront sponsors like the old and the present the Camera Store guys. That is a good break for some reviewers. Most YouTube'rs make their money off store links and personal product tutorials. Some like Matt Granger, who's mostly a photography reviewer, also takes folks on the various photo tours. All of them depend on selling as much gear as possible. Assuming a 3% cut, selling even five R5's per week can be quite helpful. And, as is the case with Undone, there are C300 MKIII and C500 MKII, the revenues can climb a lot higher. The Northrups have a huge selections of their photography/video books on their own site.

Which doesn't mean I blame any of them for relying on this model. The Canon Rumors take a cut off the gear sales too. As does the Sony Alpha/Mirrorless/M43 Rumors site. It is what it is. Beware of the connections and make up your own mind.

PS. 38,000 at 3:52
 
Let me start off by saying Gerald is absolutely amazing. One of the best.

But if you have a high degree of integrity and a true desire for learning - with extreme perfectionism possibly being a criterion of OCPD [not saying he has OCPD] - then his breakdowns and analysis' are standard to such viewers.

The overall variety and amount of information presented on screen is always remarkable. A natural talent.

But it all has to be critically processed because it's easy to be overwhelmed by most of his content as his particular style and delivery sometimes consists of talking in circles to explain very simple thoughts (and the opposite holds true as well; he makes difficulties understandable).

Now I'll take his reviews over anyone else's any day, but I dislike how he discusses certain things in a certain tone (just my opinion), and he is also a master at sprinkling in random observations.

If someone else were to make a GU-style video, they could also share these random 10 limitations/quirks/annoyances in a subjective manner:

(1) Servo AF pauses while entering and exiting the menu.
(2) Canon Log has to be first turned off before enabling HDR-PQ.
(3) You cannot separately keep audio meters on the screen without having EVERYTHING on the screen at once.
(4) You cannot program the very convenient (by your index finger) 'M-Fn' button to one-shot AF.
(5) When you exit HFR mode, it defaults back to 4K/60p rather than your previous setting (and never to 8K if you were shooting 8K).
(6) Cannot have MF and zebras at the same time.
(7) You can only register 6 items per favorites menu tab and only have a total of 5 tabs.
(8) No timelapses in C-Log.
(9) When you exit 120p, your shutter remains 1/125+ (that's common though).
(10) You want to see attention to detail? There is a slight gray line/overlay on the GUI right below the top black letterbox during video. IDK what this is. Barely visible, like a strain of hair, but it's there. (Not there on the bottom letterbox though.)

[And there are 10+ things that I love that would make your head spin and your camera so much more enjoyable, such as changing the "AF method selection control" to the top dial which lets you quickly and naturally cycle through the various methods rather than using the other default option (there are only two for this command) M-Fn button and having to keep pressing it.]

___

One note about the two bugs he mentioned; clock issue and ISO resetting after battery swaps.

I was of course immediately curious and shot 10 different clips:
First clip, shut camera off, swapped battery, checked ISO.
Second clip, shut camera off, swapped battery, checked ISO.
ETC.

Both issues did not exist in MY camera. But to his credit, he said it wasn't an issue on the R6 and that the ISO change was intermittent. Maybe just a random bug and maybe I will eventually experience both. For now, the clock is correct and ISO stayed at 6400. (Still using that slow lens, ha.)

___

Other notes to accompany some of his thoughts:
- There is a folder with 25 different LUTs on Canon's support page (not just one LUT). It's very important to use the correct one(s). But, IMO, they are also not optimized as well as they could be.
- 10-bit is also achieved via HDR-PQ, which can be used with "standard" (etc.) for color perfection.
- Dual-recording is possible but in only one mode: 8K RAW (CFexpress) + 4K IPB SD card.
- You can look at the menu through the VF if you really needed to while externally recording.
- EOS R's eye-AF is excellent.
 
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OK, now you got me curiouser. If you take the battery out, how long would it take for everything on/in the camera to go completely blank?
 
DLD said:
Here's my inference from the first three minutes (supported by what has been said by other reviewers already) - if the shutdown and the recuperating times are not dependent on the environment and its ambient temperature nor can it be altered by the external cooling, then it's a simple programming mode, i.e., with the parameters set intentionally by Canon. In other words, it's bricked by design. So, if you had thought that a manufacturer that previously delivered a professional camera without a highly desired professional codec can be trusted, you got another think coming.
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Isn't it possible that the interior is very well insulated and that's why it has a hard time cooling down and little influence from ambient temperature?

I doubt it's programmed when to shut down because they also say it will shut down 3 minutes after the warning comes on but it seems like it can keep shooting with the warning longer than that?

Man, all they need to do is change the material of the back to something more conductive - then you slap on your tilta cooling fan and you're set!
 
You can shoot longer than 3 minutes after the symbol appears (but it will vary).

One random individual somewhere out there in the world will eventually carefully peel of some of its shell for some ventilation (where possible) and try to use it that way.

Or drill micro holes in the best spots, ha.
 
ahalpert said:
Isn't it possible that the interior is very well insulated and that's why it has a hard time cooling down and little influence from ambient temperature? ...
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Yes, a lot of things are possible. That's why we're throwing sh!t up the wall and seeing what sticks.

NorBro said:
???
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How long does the internal memory hold if you pull the battery out?
 
Peel off the back and there goes your warranty.

I love the color and details of the R5. I'm also toying with the idea of the R6 with an external recorder for guaranteed oversampled 4K. (I wonder if the R6 does oversampled 4K60p too since it has similar heat limits in that mode. But it has a heat limit on 4k60 even recording externally).

But then I'm left wondering if the good things are worth dealing with the bad things.

And for all the people talking about using a speedbooster, it would be great with a $2k APS-C body with all the same features...

I'm not happy with the look of the A7SIII colors or sharpening. Everything else is great. S-log3 is hard to grade so there may be an advantage there to the R5 vs A7SIII footage we have seen. I've looked at some a7iii standard profile stuff and the skin looked healthy and had depth. (As good as Canon? Dunno, but good enough.)

Sony is not going to pull a better-color mirrorless camera out of their bum.

But will Canon pull out a $5500 c100mk3 that is an unlimited R6 with 10-bit internal and xlr/nd? Would that even be what I want on my ronin-s?

So many questions...
 
DLD said:
Yes, a lot of things are possible. That's why we're throwing sh!t up the wall and seeing what sticks.

How long does the internal memory hold if you pull the battery out?
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For him, it was just a random quirk about ISO resetting. (Do you watch these videos? lol)

If the camera would reset its memory, it would have been recalled already because no one would own it.

It took me 2 days to finally get it like I want it with numerous changes to the settings/buttons.
 
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