Timelapse with the Canon EOS R5 and R6

Since the start of 2021 i have been using the new EOS R mirrorless system from Canon for all kinds of work. I often have the opportunity to try out a timelapse with either the new RF15-35 f/2.8, RF70-200 f/2.8 and sometimes but not as often due the size and weight, the RF28-70 f/2.

The Canon system allows many interesting features for timelapse production including setting minimum and maximum aperture, shutter speed and ISO. Both the Canon EOS R5 and R6 include a built-in intervalometer.

This will allow you to take photos at preset intervals without he need for additional remote controllers. They also have a timelapse movie mode that allows up to 8K recording on the R5. The camera automatically creates a video file once the timelapse session has completed.

Learn more about Canon RF Lenses Here

I personally wouldn’t recommend using this feature for professional results, but if you intend to do a timelpase without any post-production then it’s probably an ideal solution.

Within the timelapse movie mode there is a setting called Auto exposing for each frame, this will allow you to capture changing lighting conditions such as a day-to-night timelapse, while reducing or even eliminating flickering. I often use the felixble-priority (Fv) mode for timelpase.

Fv mode lets you choose to change the shutter speed, aperture, ISO speed and/or exposure compensation to suit your shooting intent and leave the rest up to the camera, all within the same shooting mode.

Most of the time i’m in Programmed Automatic (P) with minimum and maximum shutter speed and aperture pre set. The ISO is left on auto mode but with a maximum setting, for example 1600 ISO. With this set-up the camera will only expose within those pre-defined constraints.

An example of P mode for timelapse.

Maximum Shutter 1/15 – Minimum Shutter 8s

Maximum Aperture f/16 – Minimum Aperture f/5.6

Maximum ISO 1600

The video simply covers my journey with the EOS R5 and R6 so far for timelapse production.