My Review of the Canon 5DS R

For anyone that's interested, I've put a review of the Canon 5DS R up on my blog after getting to play with one for wildlife photography purposes last week. I'll be putting it through the landscape ringer this week during a workshop and letting some of the participants test it out, so stay tuned for further reviews.

blog.wildernessprints.com/2015/07/review-of-canon-5ds-r-camera-body.html


John

Sorry everyone, the link works now.

Great review John.  I found this paragraph highly amusing:
"And two, the in-camera crop feature is one of the sexiest things I've ever seen in a camera. The ability to flick a menu 'switch' on the fly and move between full-frame (50.6 MP), 1.3x crop (30.5 MP) and 1.6x crop (19.6 MP) is addictive, ridiculously fun, and extremely useful for wildlife photography purposes. It's basically like having a 50 MP landscape body with a 7D II built into it (the 5DS R has the same AF system as the 7D II -- which is fantastic for wildlife shooters), since the 1.6x crop leaves you with the exact same size file as you'd get out of a 7D II."

The reason is because Nikon shooters have had this capability for a long time (FF, 1.2x crop, 1.5x crop and 4:5 crop) and it can be instantly changed without going into a menu.  If the camera is set-up for it you can literally switch it in a fraction of a second.  BUT, what Canon gives you that Nikon doesn't is that the full frame is saved regardless of the crop mode.  On Nikon's there's no going back in post to get back the real estate that you cropped.  Of course the advantage of that is card space saving.  Pros and cons for everything

As far as on par with MF, it ain't even close  Sure it has the same number of pixels as the 50mp MF cameras but the detail resolving capability, especially in the distance in a scene is different like night and day given comparable lenses.  And there's a pretty significant dynamic range difference too.

Good points, all, E.J. And I was aware that Nikon had this feature already, but other than with the D800 and D800E, I didn't think the files for most of the other cameras were big enough to warrant a full-time 1.5x crop, for instance, if everything wasn't razor sharp. With both the D800 and this new 5DS R, you can even be a tiny bit off on focus and still come out of it with a cropped file that will blow up to 40x60, which is ridiculous.

And indeed, pros and cons for everything. I'm still waiting for the ultra-sweet Nikanon to come out, dazzling us all with its beauty and functionality, with the added plus of being able to make yetis appear out of thin air.

John E. Marriott wrote:Good points, all, E.J. And I was aware that Nikon had this feature already, but other than with the D800 and D800E, I didn't think the files for most of the other cameras were big enough to warrant a full-time 1.5x crop, for instance, if everything wasn't razor sharp. With both the D800 and this new 5DS R, you can even be a tiny bit off on focus and still come out of it with a cropped file that will blow up to 40x60, which is ridiculous.

And indeed, pros and cons for everything. I'm still waiting for the ultra-sweet Nikanon to come out, dazzling us all with its beauty and functionality, with the added plus of being able to make yetis appear out of thin air.

Even the D7100 and D7200 have it leaving you a 1.95x 15 megapixel image.

E.J. Peiker wrote:As far as on par with MF, it ain't even close  Sure it has the same number of pixels as the 50mp MF cameras but the detail resolving capability, especially in the distance in a scene is different like night and day given comparable lenses.  And there's a pretty significant dynamic range difference too.

So what do you think it's better quality E.J.: a file done with the 7D II or a 1.6x cropped file of the 5DS R?

imagenes_vivas wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:As far as on par with MF, it ain't even close  Sure it has the same number of pixels as the 50mp MF cameras but the detail resolving capability, especially in the distance in a scene is different like night and day given comparable lenses.  And there's a pretty significant dynamic range difference too.

So what do you think it's better quality E.J.: a file done with the 7D II or a 1.6x cropped file of the 5DS R?

Ha, trick question

First a EOS 7D2 and a 5DS file cropped to 1.6x would be essentially identical since they use the same sensor technology in both.
But your question was about the 5DS R.  In that case it depends on if you are shooting a moire prone subject like fabrics or some types of architecture, the 7D 2 would be better since the anti-aliasing filter would largely eliminate the moire.  But for most subjects in nature, the 5DS R would be slightly better due to the higher acuity offered by the AA-canceling layer on the sensor filter stack.

E.J. Peiker wrote:

imagenes_vivas wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:As far as on par with MF, it ain't even close  Sure it has the same number of pixels as the 50mp MF cameras but the detail resolving capability, especially in the distance in a scene is different like night and day given comparable lenses.  And there's a pretty significant dynamic range difference too.

So what do you think it's better quality E.J.: a file done with the 7D II or a 1.6x cropped file of the 5DS R

I asked because in your previous answer you said that one of these two options has much higher retail resolving capabilty and pretty significant dynamic range difference. Do you mean the 5Ds R cropped or the 7D-II?

imagenes_vivas wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:

imagenes_vivas wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:As far as on par with MF, it ain't even close  Sure it has the same number of pixels as the 50mp MF cameras but the detail resolving capability, especially in the distance in a scene is different like night and day given comparable lenses.  And there's a pretty significant dynamic range difference too.

So what do you think it's better quality E.J.: a file done with the 7D II or a 1.6x cropped file of the 5DS R

I asked because in your previous answer you said that one of these two options has much higher retail resolving capabilty and pretty significant dynamic range difference. Do you mean the 5Ds R cropped or the 7D-II?

No, I think you are misunderstanding what I wrote.  The article implied that the 5DS R is as good as Medium Format (MF) and I am saying that it is not.  The MF in what I wrote stands for Medium format which is a much larger sensor.  I never said anything about a 7D2 vs a 5DS R in the statement that you quoted above.  The first time a 7D2 sensor came into the conversation was when you asked about it

The 7D2 and 5Ds have identical pixels, the 7D2 is just a cropped version of the same sensor technology and the 5Ds R uses an optical trick to try to cancel out some of the blurring of the anti-aliasing filter.

The Sony 50 megapixel medium format sensor, while having about the same number of pixels, has completely different and much larger pixels.  It is the sensor being used by all of the Medium Format manufacturers that have a 50mp option. This sensor's pixels have a much higher light collection capability and dramatically higher dynamic range than Canon's sensor technology used in the 5DS (R) and 7D2.

Ups, sorry. I misunderstood your first post. In the first and second paragraph you were talking about the 1.6x crops on the 5Ds, and I understood that the third paragraph was about the same subject. Sorry!! I miss that MF was "Medium Format". Then I agree 100% with your answer.