Beginner’s guide to customizing the Canon EOS R5 for photography

You’ve made the jump to Canon’s new mirrorless beauty, the EOS R5. Now, where should you begin?

First and foremost, setting up any camera will always be specific to your personal needs and preferences. It can take some time to get familiar with a new camera and to figure out it’s most effective set up for your type of shooting. 

Below are some settings and features in the menus that I think are worthy of checking out when you first get your R5. Please note that this article only references the photography settings on the R5 and does not cover video settings. 

Let’s get started in the main camera menu, accessed by hitting the Menu button on the top left of your camera.

Shooting menu 1

Image quality

Set up the type of file that you want to shoot in. I always set this to RAW right away.

Cropping/aspect ratio

You will usually want to leave this as is at FULL but it’s good to be aware that you can also shoot in 1:1, 4:3 and 16:9 and 1.6 (crop) aspect ratios. This can come in handy if you’re shooting for clients who are asking for specific aspect ratios for their websites, social media etc.