Fun with a Canon R5 Camera

 Last month I saw an ad for a Canon Road Trip.  They were setting up booths at different places across the country and inviting people to sign up to come play with one of their new mirrorless cameras.  There were three locations in Toronto -- Downsview Park, Evergreen Brick Works and Toronto Botanical Gardens on Sunday - Tuesday.  Monday worked the best for me which meant the Brick Works.  So I signed up to play with an R5 camera and had a fun afternoon out.

I went to the Brick Works one afternoon last week to refresh my memory of the location as I've only visited there once or twice and then was able to arrive about 30 minutes before my appointment.  That let me take some pictures with my camera and lens.  Then I went and borrowed the R5 and a 24 - 105 lens and wander back around and took some of the same photos with the mirrorless.  I use an 18 - 300 lens so there were some challenges in a few places but given the mirrorless is full frame and captures just over twice as many pixels, I was able to crop a picture to get what I wanted.  

First up was a visit to see the watershed map.  The green growth sculpture / map represents the five watersheds of Toronto.

As I walked around the corner, this little guy went running past on the fence and paused momentarily.  I was surprised at the texture of his fur.

On the back of one of the buildings, there is a large cone flower sculpture.  I had fun taken its picture from different spots.  

There are a number of ponds on the property which provided lots of opportunity to get reflections, water lily pads and a local  Heron.

I was using a shorter lens than I would normally use.  At 105 mm, this was the best I could get of the Heron.  I took two version of the picture and cropped one of them in about 50% to see the Heron.  

There are posts scattered around the property.  Some have little binocular ports in them to let you try to see the surrounding landscape and this one had a mirror to allow you to see yourself in the landscape.

It was a very enjoyable afternoon.  The camera was just as heavy as mine but then its a full frame camera and made of heavier materials.  I was surprised at how quiet it was.  I knew it would be quiet but it was quieter than I expected.  The fact that the controls were similar to my camera was really helpful when I wanted to change something.  It also helped that I had looked at the online manuals last week.  Forty-five minutes wasn't a lot of time to get to know and experiment with the camera but I enjoyed my play time and will watch for another road trip in the future.