Canon · EOS R5 · Free lesson
First Setup
What should you change on a brand-new EOS R5 before your first shoot?
THE ANSWER, UP FRONT
Format both cards in the camera, write every photo to both cards at once, shoot RAW (or C-RAW at about half the file size), let the in-body stabilizer work — then register the whole setup to C1 and save it to a card.
Format: Set-up → Format card · Record: Record func+card/folder sel. → Rec. to multiple · Image quality: RAW · IS: IS (Image Stabilizer) mode → Still photo IS · Save: Custom shooting mode (C1-C3) → Register settings → C1 · Backup: Save/load cam settings on card → Save to card
Format both cards in the camera
Formatting builds the folder structure the camera expects. This body has two slots of two kinds — card 1 is CFexpress, card 2 is SD — so the format screen asks which card; run it once for each. Shooting 8K or 4K video? Tick Low level format: Canon’s own manual calls for it before 8K/4K recording, and it clears every recordable sector.
Write every photo twice
The rear slot takes a CFexpress card (card 1); the front slot takes a UHS-II SD card (card 2). For stills, set Rec. to multiple: every shot is recorded to both cards in the same quality, so a card failure stops being a lost shoot. Auto switch card rolls over when one card fills; Stills/Movies separate sends photos to the SD card and movies to the CFexpress card automatically.
Shoot RAW — know C-RAW
Set Image quality to RAW for the full file — 8192×5464 pixels. Canon also offers C-RAW (Compact RAW): the manual states it produces RAW images with smaller file sizes than RAW — Canon’s own approximate sizes are 45.4 MB for RAW and 21.9 MB for C-RAW. Default to RAW; reach for C-RAW when card space is the constraint. The CFexpress slot earns its keep in bursts too: about 180 RAW shots before the buffer fills, against about 66 on a basic SD card.
The stabilizer is in the body
This body has in-body stabilization, and with an IS lens the two work together. Still photo IS chooses when it runs: Only for shot steadies at the moment of exposure; Always keeps the viewfinder image steady too. A lens with its own IS switch rules — the menu steps aside. A non-IS lens without a switch needs IS mode set to On here, and a lens that cannot report its focal length gets steadied by the [Focal length] entry (with Release shutter w/o lens enabled).
Register everything to C1 — then save it to a card
Canon’s saved setup is a physical dial position — and this body has three of them, C1, C2 and C3. Register the setup you just built to C1; after any reset or borrowed-body detour, one turn of the dial restores it. This body alone in the line can also save the whole setup to a card (Save/load cam settings on card — up to ten files per card, loadable on another EOS R5). Leave Auto update set. off for now, so experiments in other modes never silently rewrite your C1.