The difference between the Canon R1, Canon R5 Mark II and the older Canon R3

A fellow photographer friend recently sent me a message and asked me how much the Canon R1 differed from the Canon R3. He also wanted to know the difference between the newer R1 and Canon R5 Mark II. After a year of using the Canon R1 (both pre-production and the final product), Canon R5 Mark II, and receiving numerous questions like this, I thought it would be good to share my thoughts with all of you.

Let me start with the big differences between the Canon R1 and Canon R3 (in order of importance to me).

Both the Canon R3 and Canon R1 are top-of-the-line cameras from Canon and have that feel when you pick them up. At first grip, it is hard to feel or see much difference between the two camera models. One thing I love about Canon cameras is that when you get used to using one of them, the similarities are so close that a person can go between one model and another without much of a learning curve.

It is like driving a car. You can get into almost any vehicle and drive, regardless of the engine performance and handling. But that performance and handling can make a huge difference if you want to do something more than just drive from point A to point B. The Canon R1 lets you drive harder and better than you could with R3. When you get into the guts of the Canon R1, there are numerous improvements that really make the camera stand out vs the preceding model.

Focus

As I have mentioned numerous times in the past, the focus system of the Canon R1 is noticeably faster and "stickier" than the Canon R3. This was VERY noticeable when I was photographing the fast-moving Olympic athletes in Paris and the R1 tracked them so well. My take rate of tack sharp images was so much better than with any other camera.  

Pre-Capture

This is one feature that I have used many times and find it absolutely indispensable when photographing unpredictable wildlife, birds about to take flight, and sports which I am less familiar with. I don't use pre-capture all the time, but love having the feature in the camera when those moments arrive. And I should mention that this ability to go back a half second and grab frames I might have otherwise missed, has yielded me many great photos I would not have captured with the Canon R3. 

Dual CFexpress Slots

One of the things that irritated me (yes - it really bugged me a lot!) about the Canon R3 is that Canon chose to include one CFexpress card slot and one SD card slot in the camera. If you read my blog a lot, you know that I always shoot RAW images to BOTH card slots (to make darned sure that I have my images even if a memory card were to fail). I really hated the fact that the Canon R3 limited by capture abilities, when shooting at fast frame rates, to the speed of the much slower SD cards. Arghhhh! I actually missed numerous photos at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo because of this. Thankfully, Canon opted for two of the faster CFexpress card slots in the Canon R1 so I can blast off shots almost endlessly, if needed, and not be slowed down by the older and slower SD cards.

Eye Control

Just to be clear, I am not talking about the eye detection of the new mirrorless cameras, where the camera can lock in on the subject's eyes or face. Eye control on the Canon R1 and Canon R5 Mark II is the feature that allows the camera to determine which subject I am looking at and move the focus point to that subject. I know that the Canon R3 had this feature as well, but I find that with the much improved technology in the Canon R1, it now makes this useable for the first time. I tried this on the Canon R3 and found it unresponsive and distracting. The same feature in the Canon R1 is incredibly accurate and helpful in almost all scenarios. 

Burst Rate

The Canon R1 can capture images at a faster burst rate (40fps) than the R3 (30fps), but this is not a critical factor for me since 40fps is rarely used in my case.

Higher Resolution Viewfinder and LCD

The Canon R1 has almost double the resolution in the viewfinder as compared to the Canon R3. Although I find this nice, I never really had a problem with the viewfinder of the R3.

Now let me address the difference between the Canon R1 and the Canon R5 Mark II (in order of importance to me).

Both of these cameras offer exceptional focus speed and accuracy, and they share the pre-capture and pupil detection features. But there are some key differences which offer advantages to each model. Although both cameras are exceptional in my opinion, I use them interchangeably depending on what I am photographing. My choice is almost always predicated on what resolution I desire and the physical size and weight of the camera. 

Resolution

Even though the Canon R5 Mark II is the less expensive camera, it actually has a higher resolution sensor (45 megapixels) as compared to the Canon R1 (24 megapixels), but that does not mean that it is my camera of choice for all my photography.  I love having the higher resolution when photographing wildlife so that I have more ability to crop and have a high resolution image, and often choose the Canon R5 Mark II for my photo tours for this reason.

As I mentioned, the increased resolution does not mean that the Canon R5 Mark II is the best camera for me at all times, When I am photographing sports and personal events (bar mitzvah, weddings, corporate events...), I prefer not to have the highest resolution, as most images I am delivering are not going to be enlarged to a billboard size print. They are often being printed at 4x6, 5x7, or 8x10 or going into an album. In these cases 24MP is plenty. 

Physical Size

One of the obvious differences between the Canon R1 and Canon R5 Mark II is the physical size and weight of the cameras when holding them in your hand. 

Sometimes bigger is better. I really love using the Canon R1 for portraits and events since I am often turning the camera and shooting portrait (tall) vs. landscape (wide) and I love having all the redundant buttons on the camera grip. I also prefer the larger batteries for these types of situations, because when I am working an event, I am moving too fast to worry about battery life.

Sometimes smaller is better. This is why I often choose the Canon R5 Mark II for my photo tours, since it is easier to travel with the smaller and lighter Canon R5 Mark II and Canon R6 Mark II combination. Not only is the camera smaller and lighter in weight, as compared to the Canon R1, but it also uses the smaller batteries and shares the same small battery charger with the R6.

Eye Control

Both the Canon R1 and Canon R5 Mark II have the eye control, but I can tell you that this feature is MUCH better on the R1. This is probably due to the much larger eye piece and amount of detection on the Canon R1. 

Card slots

As I mentioned before, I am not a big fan of mixed memory card slots, especially when one of the card slots is a slower SD slot. Canon created the Canon R5 Mark II with a mix of a CFexpress slot and a SD slot (much like the older Canon R3). With that said, it is nice to travel with a single memory card reader which has both CFexpress and SD slots. This saves me a little more space when on the road.

Wrapping this all up

All of these cameras are excellent bodies for any photographer, capturing images at fast burst rates and with excellent focus abilities, but as you can see, they each have their pluses and minuses. If you are struggling with a purchase decision, I hope this helps you make a good choice.

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

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

• You can 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.
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The Dolphins of Costa Rica!

When I tell people about my photo tour to the rain forest of Costa Rica, they typically think about monkeys and sloths, but they don't usually think about dolphins and other marine life. After making countless trips to the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica, I am confident that my guests will get to see some amazing wildlife in and above the water. During my last photo tour, we once again had the chance to be entertained out on the Gulfo Dolce.

We started our 4 hour boat trip with a couple of Bottle-nosed dolphin sightings, but they were not very active, so we moved on.  As we were out looking for a different pod of dolphins, we saw this Frigatebird that had just collected some lunch.

As the bird flew by our boat, it dropped the fish and many of us captured images of the bird as it lost it's prey.

We also saw one of the same birds doing low flights over the dolphin hoping for some easy snacks.

I asked our boat captain to circle around and give the dolphins some wake to play with. This always yields awesome photos!

For this excursion, I chose to take the Canon R5 Mark II camera and the Canon RF 100-500mm lens. I chose this camera over the Canon R1, because I knew that I might be cropping in on my images and wanted the increased resolution for this reason.

Even though the Bottle-nosed dolphins tend to be more docile in the water, I know that the Spotted dolphins will jump high out of the water. 

For many of my guests, this was a highlight of the trip. And since dolphins are my favorite animals, I am right there with them.

This photo is one of my favorites from the trip, and is now the background image on my Mac desktop.

I encouraged my guests to fire off at a high frame rate, since the action happens quickly. I was shooting at 12fps when these four dolphins jumped up at the same time! How lucky was that?

At one point I was photographing a dolphin which was right by our other boat. (Note: I use multiple boats since I don't want to cram too many people on one larger boat.) Right as I was firing off some shots, a whole bunch of dolphins surfaced at the same time. I love that this photo shows how close we get to the dolphins on our excursion.

There is nothing better than calm waters, a nice breeze, and these types of sightings!

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

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

• You can 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.
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The B&H BILD Show: An amazing and VERY BUSY photo show!

The B&H BILD show is now over and is was an amazing time for everyone who attended. Having done countless photos shows over the last 20 years, this was the busiest show I have seen in more than a decade.

I showed up for the first day and there was a line to enter the show, and it stretched for many blocks. Honestly, for the last 10 years I have seen the photo shows slowly shrink in size, but that changed this time around.  I am going to guess that there were 30,000 attendees across the 2 days.

I took this photo on the second day, when the crowds were not as busy as Day 1, but it was still packed.

On the first day of the show I made booth appearances at ProGrade Digital, who make the best memory cards and readers...

...and DataColor who make the best color calibrators. It was really fun to share my experiences with everyone who came by their booths.

Speaking of fun, on the first evening of the show there was a NYC City Cruise sponsored by Canon. We had way too much fun on this boat, with great old friends, news friends, and an open bar! That's trouble! :)

The next morning I woke up and got ready for my presentation. My voice was a little shot from the night before, but after a good cup of hot coffee and some water I was ready to go!

It was really fun to present to a packed room with standing room only. I would like to thank all of you who attended the presentation.

I talked for 45 minutes about what it was like to photograph the Olympics for Team USA, and showed many of my favorite photos.

Laura was nice enough to capture images of me up on stage...

...and it was fun to see so many social media posts from the audience after the presentation.

This was a first - as someone asked me to sign their DataColor Spyder Pro. 

People have asked me if this presentation is available online. As of now, it is not, but I do believe that B&H is going to post it very soon. Keep an eye open for that to happen.

Now I am flying home from New York to repack and head out to South America for the Peru and Galapagos photo tours!

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

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

• You can 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.
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The B&H BILD Expo in next week in New York City!

I am really excited about the B&H BILD Expo in New York City next week and hope to see many of you there. It is crazy to think that I have not been back to the big apple since the start of the pandemic!

I have already heard from some people that are attending, and look forward to seeing them and many new faces at the show.

I will be presenting my Olympic work on Wednesday, June 18th at 12:00pm and hope you can come to that presentation. 

I will also be at the following booth locations on Tuesday June 17th:

* ProGrade Digital - 1pm

* DataColor - 3pm

You can see more about the show at the BILD web site HERE and you can register for free HERE.

Come by and say hello!

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

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

• You can 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.
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The Colors of Costa Rica (and a really tough shot)!

After leading many photo tours to Costa Rica, people often ask me if I ever get tired of it and the answer is a definitive "No!" I remind them that every trip has different people who I enjoy meeting, offers up new experiences, and provides new sightings of wildlife. This last trip started with a really big storm, and even though heavy rain is the norm down on the Osa Peninsula, the high winds downed a lot of trees. Luckily that first day was the only bad day we had, and everything else was smooth sailing. 

As I looked back at the photos from this trip, I thought about the beautiful colors that we see in the rain forest and thought that this would make for a nice blog post.

Many times I save my favorite photo for the end of the blog post, but this time I am going to lead with it. 

While driving around looking for wildlife, we came across a couple of Scarlet macaw that were nested in a tree hole. We were all trying to get nice photos of them when they both flew off and headed to our left. Without changing any camera settings, and knowing that my shutter speed would be really slow, I fired off 5 shots hoping to get a motion pan of the birds flying. I was using the Canon R5 Mark II camera with the RF 100-500mm lens at 428mm.  My ISO was set to 1250, aperture at f/6.3 and this gave me a shutter speed of 1/30 of a second. Even though I was shooting handheld, I steadied myself and hoped for the best. This is one of my favorite photos from the trip, and one of the hardest photos I have taken in a really long time. I love the motion and the colors, and knowing the difficulty of getting this with the birds faces pretty sharp.

Sure...we can capture their color without the motion, but I love the challenge of the first shot.

When exiting the vehicle at the Chocolate tour, one my guests looked at a nearby leaf and saw this beautiful butterfly. What awesome colors in the wings.

This Trogon was showing off his colors, especially against the complimenting green leaves. I posted this image in a previous blog, but found that the exposure needed to be brightened a bit. So...the repost.

And of course, I can't leave out the colorful Red-eyed tree frogs, since they are so awesome.

We saw these Seedeaters in the tall grasses by a river and had fun capturing images of them. A small splash of color amongst the green foliage.

Speaking of the foliage, it is not just the wildlife which offer colorful images. We are surrounded by abundant color on this trip.

I saw this white butterfly perched on this colorful flower and liked the scene. The simplicity of the white wings worked well against the color which surrounded the insect. 

While cruising down the Sierpe River, I saw these pretty flowers protruding over the water and thought it would make for a pretty photo.

We almost always have a free day in the rain forest towards the end of the trip. I usually catch up on work, relax at the pool, and walk the property looking for cool things to photograph. I saw this phosphorescent fly on a flower, zoomed the long lens to 500mm and captured the amazing colors of this little bug. As I mentioned, there is color everywhere, from the biggest subject to the smallest insects. 

If you want to join me in Costa Rica next year, I have added 3 new trips to 2026. Check out the dates HERE.

 

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

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

• You can 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.
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More images from our "close-up" day in the rain forest of Costa Rica!

I used to call this day our "macro day" in the rain forest but now with long lenses that can focus so close to subjects, many of my guests (and myself) like to use our long lenses to get up close and personal with the tiny subjects in the rain forest. I used both my Canon R5 Mark II with the RF 100mm macro lens and my Canon R1 with the RF 100-500mm lens.

This part of the trip is always a favorite for my guests, and they are always excited to capture images of these awesome reptiles.

The red-eyed tree frog is my favorite, and the most popular with my group. They are just so photographic with their bright red eyes.

I like to capture photos of them while they are on the move. I find that their extended legs add to the photo and make them much more interesting than just a frog sitting in one spot.

As this frog moved from one flower to another, I started firing off shots. I saw the shadow being cast on the second flower and loved that!

Here is a photo of a blue-eyed human and a red-eyed tree frog. 😀 Thanks to Patty (one of my guests) for taking this photo.

We start with the red-eyed tree frogs and then move to the Dart frogs which are even smaller. These frogs are about one inch in size and they move fast!

Eduardo, who runs the reptile area that we visit, went out and found a wide variety of frogs for us to photograph...

...from the smallest to the really big ones.

He also found us an Eyelash viper to photograph (from a distance since they are poisonous).

After we were done photographing all the reptiles, we sat down for a group lunch. After lunch I gave everyone time to photograph other fun things in the area. I chased hummingbirds, trying to get some nice photos of these ultra-fast birds.

I love the colors of this Sapphire-throated hummingbird.

Even more images to come in the next blog!

AND...I just opened up new photo tours to Costa Rica for 2026! Check them out HERE.

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

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

• You can 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.
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Some of the monkeys, sloths and birds from the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica

I pushed a blog post after our first full day of this photo tour and then we were going so fast and furious that I never had a chance to share more images from this amazing place. We had a TON of wind and rain on the day we landed and then had great weather ever since. And as usual, we have seen so much wildlife!

We watched as some White-faced capuchin monkeys jumped from one tree to another. 

We also came across some Scarlet macaw nesting in a tree. 

We were driving by a river when we saw these birds flying around an open field. I used the subject detection of the Canon R1 (with the RF 100-500mm lens) to lock in on this little one as he flew right at us.

We had some great sightings of sloths on this trip, seeing both two-toed sloth and three-toed sloth many times. 

This three-toed sloth was in a perfect position for photography...

...and then I set up my Benro travel tripod and shot some video with the Canon R1. I posted a 30 second clip of this to show you how they eat and how they move. You can click the image above or click this link to see the movement. And yes, they move pretty slow. 

This was an 8 month old sloth who came down really slow.

In the sloth area, they also have beautiful birds and flowers. I caught this hummingbird gathering some nectar. 

I got much closer to this Red-lored amazon (with a much better background).

While walking around the resort property, I found this pack of Squirrel monkeys that were passing through.

It was awesome to see so many youngsters!

As they headed towards my building, I went up to the roof to see if I could get a photo at their eye level or looking down on them. I caught this one monkey lounging on a branch.

For the first time ever, we found a tree with at least forty Howler monkeys. They hung around forever and we all had a blast capturing images of these awesome monkeys.

I saw this youngster hanging from a tree and loved the pose.

Stay tuned for more photos from the rain forest of Costa Rica!

__________________________________________________________

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

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

• You can 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.
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