James shares his experience having photographed a professional event with the Canon R5 Mark II.

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ISO 200 - Best in Show - Conformation - Studio Lighitng

I published a field review of the Canon EOS R5 Mark II, focusing on my work as a semi-professional nature and landscape photographer earlier in the year. If you are looking for more concrete things, like camera specs and battery life, I suggest you read the initial article. This new article is not to surplant the initial review, but to add a different perspective based upon my experience having worked with the camera in a professional setting, using the camera in a wide variety of applications and lighting conditions. Honestly, this was the reason for having purchased the R5 II in the first place - dog shows. The other thing the original article will contain that this will not is 100% swatches of all the high ISO images so that you can see what they look like at 100%. For anyone who is unfamiliar with dog shows, or have only experienced one through the movie, Best In Show (classic) this article may be eye opening as I don't think most people understand just how much coordination and care goes into these events. Most of the dogs, and hopefully the humans, are having a great time...if they are not...well then there are other problems.

While I had been doing portrait work at dog shows for over a decade, the last couple of years has seen a real transition is the type of work that I do as I have become more involved in the world of dog conformation. I have moved from working mainly with controlled studio light to working with available light and fast lenses. Most indoor dog shows (at least those here in the North East) are photographed in terrible lighting conditions - usually harsh fluorescent light and in places that may also be doubling as a place where they have cattle. In short, excellent autofocus and the ability to photograph at high ISOs is a must. I made a huge investment in camera equipment (lenses and bodies) in 2024 for explicit purpose of bringing my dog show photography up a notch. This is not to say that I could not do my work with my old SLRs. I shot a nationals in 2022 with my Canon EOS 5DSr and did just fine, thank you. However, the 2022 show was outdoors, and that makes a huge difference. There is no question that the new camera bodies and lenses are a giant leap in terms of autofocus ability and sensor speed. Also, shooting movement photos outdoors in the sun is much easier than shooting in the indoors.

In October, I was the contracted official photographer for the 2024 Samoyed Nationals in Corpus Christi, Texas. For those of you who have never been to a dog show, much less a national one, these are a big deal. In this case, imagine 300 Samoyed dogs, each vying to be the standard barer for being the 'best Samoyed in the show.' As official photographer, I was responsible for photographing all of he sanctioned show events (except agility). The events I was responsible for included: FastCAT, the Weight Pull, Rally and Obedience and the official win photos (also called Conformation). My amazing assistant, Justin Crawford, and I also took thousands of candid images throughout the event, showcasing the amazing work that everyone put into making this show come together. My thanks to the Samoyed Club of America (SCA) for their continued faith in me. I am now contracted for the 2025 Nationals.



ISO 800 - FastCAT - Natural Light

The very first event of the Nationals was something called FastCAT (photo above). Fast CAT is a moniker for Coursing Ability Test (CAT). It is a 100-yard dash where dogs chase a lure to see how fast they can run. I jokingly refer to the lure as a "trash bag bunny." It is a generally safe way to let your dog go all out in a supervised fashion. For this event, I went back and forth between my Canon RF 200-800 and my Canon 70-200 F2.8, both on different bodies. The FastCAT was a really good test of the camera because I was shooting a white dog and I was also shooting directly into the Texas sun. Specifically, the sun was just barreling down on the scene. Given the harsh lighting conditions, I am really - really - pleased with how the images came out. I do not fault the camera for the blown highlights in the sky - I honestly don't think my R5 could have done any better. Speaking of Autofocus, it is safe to say that I nailed well over 90% of them. Images were super, super sharp, with both the 70-200 F2.8 and the 200-800. When I really pixel peep, the 200-800 was not quite as sharp as the 70-200, but I will save those images for my upcoming Canon RF 200-800 Review. Generally, my opinions on the R5 II hold up between my first review and this second addition. The dynamic range issue that has been reported about this sensor is mainly over-blown (pardon the pun). Images up to ISO 800, and even 1600 seem to match really well on the R5 I, particularly when shooting with the mechanical shutter. This was a really challenging scenario and there was not a huge margin of error to play with. I will take this as a win.


ISO 3200 - Weight Pull - Available Light

The Weight Pull is a really cool event at the Sammy Nationals that shows off one of the features of a Samoyed. Samoyeds are considered 'working dogs,' and were initially raised for a variety of different tasks. They were raised, for example, to herd reindeer, hunt and they even hauled sleds for the Sami people. The Sami are indigenous peoples of Northern Europe who live in the Arctic region of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. They are also known as Laplanders or Lapps. Thank you Googles. The events at the nationals are designed to show off some of these skills. The weight pull, featured above and below, is performed over two days. Day 1 is a "novice event" for inexperienced dogs. Day 2 is a "sanctioned" event for dogs who have more experience. These events are done safely under the very watchful eye of two judges. It has become one of my favorite events to photograph because of the collective excitement and comradery shown.


ISO 3200 - Weight Pull - Available Light

The vast majority of images during the event were taken at ISO 1600 or higher. I was mainly pleased with the high ISO performance and dynamic range of the R5 II. When I compare images between the R5 Mark II and its predecessor, the R5 Mark I still holds the crown. However these are still more than usable all the way up to ISO 6400. I even took some at 8000 that I really thought were very good. I received several emails from clients telling me how amazed they were the the quality of the images that we provided them. I am including some weight pull and 'ring photos' below.


The Digital View Finder is very nice, and in some respects it is much better than the rear display of the camera for chimping (reviewing) of images. You can see really close up and at a very high level of detail. The problem I mentioned in October about the limitations of the viewfinder looking at high ISO images still remains i.e. the photos look blotchier than they actually are. However, I found the experience satisfactory over-all, and it allowed me to actually get rid of some files that I did not want to keep in between sessions. Prior to these cameras, I would never have considered deleting an image in between sessions because I could not trust the back display. Truth be told, I still don't fully trust it...but I trust it enough.



ISO 200 - Conformation, Studio Lighting


ISO 200 - Conformation - Studio Lighting


Let's take a moment and talk about the Canon Connect Software. As you can see, many of the images I took were done with strobes to properly light the scene for the Conformation photographs (the "Win" photos). I was so excited because I will often show clients the photos as we are taking them to make sure they are happy with the images. The nice thing about a National or Specialiy is that the crowds are small enough that you can do this (LOL, try that at an all breed event). I very quickly gave up using the Canon Connect Software to stream images from the R5 II to my ipad. I found the connections to not always be stable and very (very) slow. Next time I try this, I will probably bring a cable and tether the camera because while the system works, I don't think it works quickly enough for shooting in a fast paced environment.



ISO 200 - Conformation - Studio Lighting


ISO 3200 - Rally and Obedience - Available Light

During the ring and candid photos, I came across two significant issues with the camera - one of which I mentioned in my previous article. OK, the known known. I am still not thrilled with the Eye Controlled AutoFocus. WHEN IN WORKS, it is a dream. However, there were multiple situations where I absolutely could not get this camera to focus on a subject. To be fair, the ring photos were all taken in low light and these are pretty terrible conditions to be photographing any moving object in. However, there have now been multiple situations where the Eye Controlled AF completely 'went wonky' and I wound up having to shut the camera off and re-start it. I also had to recalibrate on two occasions in order to make the Eye Control properly responsive. By 'wonky,' I mean that no matter where I looked in the screen, the AF point would focus somewhere in the lower right quadrant. I felt like my camera had strabismus. This happened again when I was doing a shoot in the City while my subjects were doing movement across 5th Avenue. This is NOT a good thing when you are working in a fast paced environment. I will go so far as to call it an unacceptable. I talked in the last article about 'divorcing the shutter button' from the focusing action. I have been hesitant to do this because I am just used to doing things a certain way. It looks like either I will just have to shut off eye control (which I generally really like) or allow for a the back buttons to act as plan b or c.


ISO 800 - Available Light


ISO 1600 - Available Light


ISO 6400 - Available Light

The other area where the camera struggled had to do with the buffer of RAW images it could take without 'tapping out' when shooting to multiple cards. On the last day of the show, where we were working the ring during the Best of Breed competition. I believe that there were over 50 Samoyeds going into the big ring. I was shooting ring photos at 12 frames per second, trying to get a good movement image of each dog as they were doing their entrance around the ring. I'd say I was able to make it about half way until the camera stopped allowing me to fire - and this was taking short micro-breaks between each dog. I shudder to think of how fast the buffer would disappear if I was shooting with the electronic shutter and 20 or 30 frames per second. I found that the write speeds on the SD card is what really bottle necked my ability to shoot in a way that I really wanted to. It is a pity, because being able to write simultaneously to two different cards is one of the best safety features a photographer can take in order to insure that images don't get lost. It helps eliminate concerns about a card getting corrupted. Oh...and one of my Sandisk SD 512s has indeed corrupted as a result of use in the 5d II - fortunately, it was not during an event (Sandisk has reportedly provided a list of SD cards that are not compatible with the R5 II). For folks wondering about write speeds, max write speed on the SD cards I was using are about 190 megabits per second. Doing a bit of searching on the Interwebs, I see that the fastest of SD cards will hit write speeds of 300 megabits per second. The CF Express B that I am using can write at speeds of 1400 megabits per second. That is a huge difference. If Canon really wanted to make dual cards a real thing, they should consider transitioning from the SD cards. Please note that I do not say that lightly. I use SDXCs in my laptop as a primary storage for my photos so that I can leave the main C drive unfettered. As a 'legacy card,' SD has so many values because it is so ubiquitous. In my prior review, it did not come up as a problem because the use case was entirely different. i.e. when I am shooting landscapes, I just need reliable secondary storage. I don't need it to be fast necessarily - even when I am shooting wildlife. Unfortunately, this experience has led me to the conclusion that for fast past work, their time is just done.


What else is there to say? The R5 Mark II, outside of a couple of niggles, is a really phenomenal camera. Everything it does, it does well. I look forward to years of good use from it.


ISO 6400- Available Light


ISO 6400 - Available Light


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