The best settings for your Canon R5 Mark II and Canon R1 cameras

Over the last couple of months, I have had a lot of people ask me about my setup for the new Canon R1 and Canon R5 Mark II cameras. Specifically they are asking about what I change on my menus and how I set up my focus buttons.

In this blog post, I want to share with you all my recommended menu changes for both cameras. Whether you are setting up the camera for the first time or maybe looking to make some tweaks to a camera you already have been using, I hope this helps.

I am going to take you through a bunch of menus to help you make the changes and explain why I suggest these settings. I should also mention that these are my recommended settings that I feel are best for almost all photographers. That does not mean that these are perfect for everyone, but they work great for me. Consider this my holiday gift to you all. 😀

The Red Menu

* Image Quality - I always set my camera to shoot in RAW mode and turn off JPEG. I do this because RAW give me the best quality images and I don't need JPEGs. If I do need JPEG images, I can easily convert my RAW files on my computer. Also, you may not know this, but when capturing both RAW and JPEG images, it really slows down your camera buffer clear.

* ISO Speed Settings - I like to set the lowest ISO of the camera's ISO Speed Range to L (which is ISO 50). This is handy when I am shooting waterfalls or daytime shots when I am trying to kill the shutter speed to get motion in my images. It is rarely used, but an easy tweak to set this up for those instances where it is desired.

* Color Space - I change sRGB to Adobe RGB in the rare case that I do shoot JPEGs. I like this color space better.

* Drive mode - I always default this to a slow burst mode. I NEVER shoot in the single shot mode.  Regardless of what I am photographing, I want to take a short burst photos of each person or scene. I will turn this up to a faster burst rate when I am photographing sports or wildlife.

* Shutter mode - I usually take photos in Elec. 1st-curtain mode since this works best for most captures, including when I am using a flash on camera. Even though full Electronic shutter is nice for some conditions, I find it restrictive for flash photography and long exposures. 

* Release shutter without card - Turn this OFF. I really hate that Canon defaults this to on, since it means that people can use the camera without a memory card in the slots. Why would you ever want that?! 

The Purple Menu (Auto Focus)

* AF operation - I set this for Servo focus since I almost always want the camera to track the focus on my subjects whether they are moving fast or not.

* Subject to detect - I leave this on People unless I am traveling to Costa Rica, Africa or other locations where animals are the main subjects. 

The Blue Menu (Playback)

* Highlight alert - I definitely enable this since I want to get a visual representation of over-exposed areas in my photos. I use this as opposed to the histogram (which I never use).

The Yellow Menu (Tools)

* Record func+card/folder set - I set the second line which is the Camera records options to Rec. to multiple so that I am writing the same RAW files to both memory cards in my camera. I worked in the memory card business for more than 10 years and know how finicky they can be. Even though I use the best cards on the market (ProGrade Digital), I still always write my images to both cards.

* Play - I set this to card 1 and I also check mark the Info Priority box so that it stays on card 1.

* Record/play - I set this to card 1 and I also check mark the Info Priority box so that it stays on card 1.

* Auto rotate - I change this to the middle option which is the "On (computer icon)" so that the images will be rotated correctly on my computer but show full screen on my camera LCD. 

The Green Menu (Tools) - And this is an IMPORTANT ONE!!

* Customize buttons for shooting - I change numerous items in this menu to get the camera working the way I want it. Even though back button focus is less imperative than it used to be, I still prefer it, so I change the following things:

1. Shutter button to "Metering start" so that the focus mode is determined by the back buttons only.

2. AF-On button to eye detection (and with eye control on when setting the Canon R1)

3. AE Lock button to "Metering and AF start" and I change the Detail settings to "AF operation to Servo", Whole area tracking "Off", Subject to detect "Off", Spot detection "Off", Eye detection "Off" 

When setting all these, this will give you face detection on the AF-On button and a single focus point (servo) on the AE Lock button. I use this ALL the time. If I have a person or animal in front of me, most of the time the face and eye detection works great, but for the times when it is not locking on or I don't have a person or animal in front of me, I use the AE Lock button to establish my focal point.

* Customize dials/control ring - I change this so that the Main dial is AV, the second dial is ISO and the back dial is TV. I leave the Control ring for exposure compensation, but rarely use the control ring.

* Eye control - I turn this on and train it. I also turn the Pointer display settings to Off since I find it really distracting having the pointer moving all over the display when I am shooting. 

The "other" Green Menu (My Menu)

This screen is rarely used by hobbyists but widely used by professional photographers. With that said, I think that it should be used by everybody! This menu lets you put your most used menus on one screen.  I have mine set for these:

* Image type/size

* Subject to detect

* Highlight alert

* Record func+card/folder

* Format card

* Eye control on/off

Regardless of whether you are using the Canon R1 or the Canon R5 Mark II, I hope that this helps all of you to get better control of your camera and take even better photos. They are both amazing camera and the settings really do matter.

Happy holidays to you all!

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more. 

 _________________________________________________________________  

Canon R3 for Sale

Update on my camera and lens sale. I think I might have priced my Canon R3 a bit too high on the last blog post, and since I now have the Canon R1 I am definitely ready to sell the R3. 

I have lowered the price to $3099 and I am including some very high capacity memory cards as well.

THIS IS SOLD!!!

The camera is in perfect condition, with no scratches or marks anywhere on the body. 

And of course, everything works perfectly internally.

Along with the camera, for the $3099 price I am including a 325GB CFexpress card and a 256GB SD card, which saves you another $400.  Both of these cards are extremely fast and perfect for this camera.

First come, first serve, as always!

If you are interested, please email me at jeff@jeffcable.com

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more. 

 _________________________________________________________________  

I am selling a bunch of Canon gear! (First come, first serve)

I have recently upgraded to new Canon gear and I am selling some of my previous cameras, lenses and even some accessories. Just in time for you to purchase a new gift for yourself or someone else who loves photography.

All the gear is in perfect working order, and treated with care by me. As I mentioned in the title of this blog, I will sell these first come, first serve, which usually means that everything will sell within the first 48 hours. 

If you are interested in buying any of this gear, you can email me at jeff@jeffcable.com.

Here is what I am selling:

Canon R3 Body - $3395

This has been my baby for the last 3 years but has now been replaced by the new Canon R1 body. I still have the box with warranty cards, strap and cables all unopened... Shipping cost is $40.

Canon R5 Body - $1995 - SOLD!!!!

This camera was only used for my photo tours and not much else. It has now been replaced by the new Canon R5 Mark II body. I still have the box with warranty cards, strap and cables all unopened...  Shipping cost is $30.

Canon 200-400mm f/4 L IS Lens (with hard case) - $4250 - SOLD!!!!

This was my "go to" lens for many of my photo shoots, including the Olympics in Tokyo and a couple of safaris in Africa. It has the built-in 1.4x tele-extender and is an awesome lens for sports and wildlife. I am also including the hard case which I never really used. The case alone sells for $600 new. Crazy but true. Shipping cost for this beast is $100,

Crucial X8 2TB Solid State Drive - $99

This is brand new in the box. Shipping cost is $10.

MagMod MagBounce - $50

I have two of these that are brand new in the box. You can buy one or both of these. Shipping cost is $10.

MagBeam Wildlife Kit - $60 - ONE SOLD!!!!

I have two of these that are brand new in the box. You can buy one or both of these. Shipping cost is $10.

My upgrades give you a chance to get these great products at a very good price. And you know that they have been taken well care of.

US residents only please.

Again, if you are interested in buying any of this gear, you can email me at jeff@jeffcable.com.

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more. 

 _________________________________________________________________  

Holiday special on my photo tours!

As we wind down 2024, I look forward to next year which is going to be a great one with some amazing photos tours. My trip to Alaska and all three of the trips to Costa Rica are sold out, but I have opened up 3 more trips to Costa Rica for 2026, so make sure to reserve your spots early for those.

In the middle of 2025 I will be returning to Peru to lead another photo tour of this amazing country. And after that trip, I will be leading my first tour of the islands of Galapagos! Both of these trips have openings and I thought I would offer a holiday saving opportunity for you all.

If you sign up for either the Peru photo tour or the Galapagos photo tour before the end of this year, I am offering the following discounts:

$250 off of the Peru trip

I have room for 4 more people for the Peru trip.

$500 off of the Galapagos trip

I have room for 8 more people for the Galapagos trip.

You can see more information on these trips and my others on the tour page at: https://www.jeffcable.com/phototours and you can see comments from past guests HERE.

And if you would like to reserve a spot or would like more information for any of the tours, you can reach me at jcable@jeffcable.com

This offer expires on Dec 31, 2024 so make sure to reserve a spot now!

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more. 

 _________________________________________________________________  

My favorite images from the latest VERY RAINY trip to Costa Rica

I recently returned from my 15th visit to Costa Rica, and my 13th photo tour in the rain forest of this amazing country. This visit was totally different from any other trip due to the excessive amount of rain that we had. Now I know what you might be thinking, and yes it is the rain forest, but we had a TON of rain on this tour. Even the locals who have lived in the area for their whole lives had never seen this amount of rain consistently falling. But that did not stop us from getting great photos and having an awesome time.

This was also the first time that I have taken the new Canon R5 Mark II camera on a photo tour, and it performed VERY well.

I had eleven guests on this trip, and took this photo on our first day on the Osa Peninsula. It turned out to be the only day without rain.

We ended up seeing more Toucans on this trip than ever before, and down low too! The cloudy skies did provide great lighting for photos and we turned these lemons into lemon aid. 

These Howler monkeys were on the resort property, and perfectly framed with the lush greenery.

It is always fun to watch them munching on the leaves.

It was towards the end of our first day when we saw these Scarlet macaw feeding off the local palm nuts. We all had to shoot at ISO 10,000 to get enough shutter speed to freeze them in flight. About 6 months ago I started using Topaz AI to take the noise out of my high ISO shots and it is amazing!

Macro shooting in Costa rica is great, even on rainy days, since we can shoot under cover. And as always, everyone had a blast photographing the Red-eyed tree frogs.

I never get tired of photographing these little frogs.

We had this Dart frog in perfect position for a photo, even with a long lens. I took this with my Canon RF 100-500mm lens at 500mm. 

From that day on it rained and rained and rained. You can see the water moving sideways on this photo of a Toucan in flight. During the hardest rains, I had everyone meet me in the conference room where I taught photography workflow and Photoshop retouching. 

These two White-faced monkeys joined us for breakfast, literally hanging out 15 feet from our table.

Also joining us for breakfast, this Toucan came down to within 4 feet of the ground and everyone got really nice photos of this bird eating.

Since we had so much rain, I added an extra day of macro photography (since we could shoot under cover and stay dry). Since we visited some new macro locations, we got to see some new insects that I had never seen before. This spider has six eyes. How cool is that? 

This spider was carrying an egg sack. All of these photos were taken with my RF 100-500mm lens since I loaned my second camera (with my macro lens) to one of my guests.

I have photographed bats in Costa Rica before, but never up close. The people who went out and found subjects for us the night before our shoot, found this bat and had it for us to shoot. I love the way that it was looking right at me when I took this photograph.

We actually visited two new macro locations in one day, and when walking through the grounds of the second location I saw this beautiful Lilly in the water. It was perfectly covered in rain drops. I pointed this out to the group since it was easy to walk past, but worth a photo.

Once again we were treated to new subjects to photograph, including some species of frogs I had never seen.

It was fun to capture them up close but also from a little ways back, to show more of the environment.

Towards the end of the trip we had a little break in the weather and I decided to move forward with the boat tour on the bay. It turned out to be the right call, as we saw a couple of whales and lots of dolphins. 

After seeing a lot of marine wildlife, our boat captains took us into the mouth of the Tigre River and we saw this awesome Boa Constrictor resting in the brush along the edge of the river. It did not rain hard until we pulled back to the dock at the end of the tour. Luckily we all had plastic bags to cover our cameras. We all got soaked walking back to our rooms, but were happy to have had such a great time on the water.

On our last day, we had light rain, but nothing that would stop us from doing the boat tour of the Sierpe River. And we saw a lot of great wildlife, including this Blue Heron 

This Iguana was posing for all of us as we took it's portrait.

We were photographing this Egret along the shoreline when it reached down into the water and pulled out this fish. I fired off a bunch of photos and got this shot when the bird flipped the fish and I caught it mid-air.

On our way back from the river, we stopped by some feeders and captured photos of these beautiful birds.

Even though we had an unprecedented amount of rain, we all walked away with great photos and had an awesome time. Everyone enjoyed each other's company and learned some new photography tricks too. I always say that the most important part of my photo tours is to have fun. And coming home with great images, although very important, is secondary to the experience. 

I am almost completely sold out for the Costa Rica Photo tour for 2025, but I just opened 3 new tours for 2026. You can check them out HERE.

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more. 

 _________________________________________________________________  

Putting the new Canon Pre-Capture to good use

You may remember when I was using the pre-production Canon R1 camera and Canon R5 Mark II at the Summer Olympics in Paris, this was the first time I had really put the new pre-capture feature to good use.

For those not familiar with this new feature, it allows the user to press halfway down on the shutter button of the camera (to start the camera writing images to the internal memory buffer) and then when pressing all the way down, it will go back half a second and grab those images and write them to the memory card. thus capturing images that we might have otherwise missed. To make that simpler, the camera captures a burst of images before we even hit the shutter button. And this can be done with JPEG or RAW photos.

When I first heard about this feature, my first thought was "this would be perfect for capturing birds and other wildlife that move fast."  But as it turns out, it benefited me first at the Olympics.

I knew that capturing images of Simone Biles was important for these Olympics, and I did not want to miss any key shots of the GOAT in action. I think that this was the first time I turned on pre-capture. When setting up both cameras, I added the pre-capture menu to the green "My menu" screen so that I could easily turn this on and off. 

You might be thinking that, with this cool feature, why would I not use it all the time? And I will tell you why. It adds an additional 15 or so images every time I hit the shutter button. This is great for those key moments with unpredictable action, but I did not want to shoot hundreds more images than needed. It was just more images to go through, and with my crazy fast deadlines, this was a killer. 

For the first water polo game that I photographed in Paris, I left pre-capture on for the whole game and ended up with 5700 images by the end of the match. That was WAY too many to sort through in my 15 minute deadline. I promised myself that this was the last time I would do that! But I did turn on pre-capture whenever there was a penalty shot. These shots happen very fast and I did capture some really nice photos that I probably would have missed without this new feature. 

When photographing sports like badminton and volleyball (beach and indoor), I relied on the pre-capture pretty heavily. These are sports that I have not captured very often and I found myself missing some of the best action shots. Once I turned on pre-capture, then I was able to get more "peak of action" shots, like the ones you see above and below.

Two weeks ago I was down in the rain forest of Costa Rica for yet another photo tour and this gave me a chance to put the pre-capture to good use for nature photography. 

While we were out searching for monkeys and other wildlife to photograph, we came across this Roadside Hawk. It was perched on this post and I saw this as the perfect time to put pre-capture to it's test. Remember, this was the moment I had first visualized when being told about the new feature at a Canon briefing. 

In the past, when waiting for these birds to take off, myself and most of my tour guests would get tired of holding the cameras in position and miss that moment ending up with shots like this. Arghhh.

This time I was using pre-capture and hoping to get the hawk taking off from the post. I had the shutter button pressed half way down and saw the bird poop. Usually, when a bird poops, it is about to take off. In this case the pre-capture ended up capturing the bird pooping and then...

...the bird took off and I got the shot that I otherwise would have missed.

Within the 28 frames that I captured, I got numerous photos of the bird in flight

Later that same day, we saw about 20 Scarlet Macaw taking turns grabbing fruit from this palm tree. I used the pre-capture to capture as many frames as I could, The goal was to get the best image of the birds with their wings open and showing as much color as possible. 

If you saw any of my social media posts, you know that we had a ton of rain on this trip. Way more than normal! But even with the bad weather, we managed to go out for the dolphin watching tour. The pre-capture feature worked VERY well in this instance. The Spinner dolphins would jump high out of the water and we had a split second to point the camera in the right direction, achieve focus and then hope for the dolphin to do another jump. Those of us who had the cameras with pre-capture would hold the button halfway down and hope to get another jump. Look at the height that this dolphin jumped!

I also used the pre-capture when the dolphins were riding the wake of the boat. The second I would see their heads emerge from the water I would press the shutter button all the way down, knowing that the camera would capture the entire sequence, from beginning to end. Then, when viewing the photos on my computer, I could select my favorites.

On our last day of the Costa Rica photo tour, we took a boat ride on the Sierpe River. We saw this Little blue heron on the shoreline. As we approached the bird, I locked focus on it's face and hoped that it would take off. Before I expected this, it flew off. Without pre-capture I know for sure that I would have missed this shot. After the bird was gone, I looked into the viewfinder of the Canon R5 Mark II and saw this image. I love that the heron almost looks like a ballet dancer in this shot.

I was happy to see that I also had numerous other photos of the bird in flight.

This last image is of a Tropical kingbird. It was sitting on this branch and we all focused our lenses on this little guy. As it turns out, the bird did not fly away, but it did jump up in the air to change positions. Seeing this happen, I pressed the shutter button all the way down and got this photo of the bird in mid air. Something that happened before I even hit the shutter button. So cool!

I know that other cameras have had this feature for some time, and I am glad that Canon has added this to their lineup. Currently, the Canon R1, Canon R5 Mark II, and Canon R6 Mark II (with a slightly different take on pre-capture) have this feature, but I expect this to be available in many more models in the future.

I would love to know how you all are using pre-capture.

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more. 

 _________________________________________________________________