The Canon EOS 5DS & 5DSR are finally here! Canon Australia & Camera Electronic were nice enough to let me get my hands on the first 5DSR to land and give it a field test! So I am just going to share some of my findings and images I have produced using this camera. My kit currently consists of a 5DMKII and 5DMKIII which are perfect for what I do and it was interesting to test out what is essentially the new 50MP version of the these cameras.
WHATS THE DIFFERENCE? 5DS vs 5DSR
The 5DS & the 5DSR are identical in every way except one. The 5DS has a low pass filter like any other camera, but the 5DSR has this filter effect cancelled out. A low pass filter (also known as a blur or anti-aliasing filter) is designed to minimise the chances of your sensor producing moire and other artifacts in your images. It basically splits the light travelling to your sensor and causes a subtle blur effect. This is in most DSLRS on the market today. So the result of having this filter cancelled out in the 5DSR means that it can resolve finer details just that little bit more and it produces a sharper image with more crisp detail.
This ability though can make it more prone to producing things like Moire, but remember this camera has such a larger resolution now, and the more you increase the resolution of a camera the better it can resolve detail. The better a camera can resolve details means the less likely it is to produce moire. So it’s something you need to test out for yourself. Once the camera has been released for a few months we will probably start to find out on the internet what everyone is experiencing. I personally had a hard time trying to produce moire, and when I did, it was so subtle and barely noticeable, and the moire tools in Lightroom (and other applications) could easily remove it.
IN THE FIELD
This camera is partially targeted to Landscape photographers and while I am certainly no Landscape photographer, when Canon ask you to test out something like this, you have a go! There is an interesting bit of landscape right near my house that I’ve always wanted to explore with a camera, and this opportunity was the kick in the butt I needed.
Taken with Canon 5DSR with Canon EF11-24mm F/4 L USM.
Bracketed 1.3″ & 20″ @ F/11 ISO 100 at 11mm.
This shot combines two seperately exposed photographs, one for the sky and one for the grass. There has been no sharpening applied of any kind other than the small default amount set by Lightroom when images are imported. The image to the right is a 100% crop where you can see the fine detail of the individual blades of grass. Not bad eh!
Moving on to something a bit more up my alley, I teamed up with the beautiful Rachel Elizabeth and headed to the forest for some tasteful glamour shots. I had never been to this place before but what a magical place this was! It was perfect for the scene we wanted to create.
Taken with Canon 5DSR with Canon EF70-200mm F/2.8L IS II USM.
1/100th @ F/5.0 ISO250 at 75mm.
This will stand to be one of my favourite images for a while I think. I placed Rachel on the same focal length as the leaves on the right as best I could to be able to showcase the detail. Again this is a 100% crop on the right and the detail there is incredible. Here is another 100% (approximately) crop this time of Rachels face. Some very minor retouching has gone into this image but nothing to affect the details or sharpness.
As you can already see, the power of cropping that the 50.6 Megapixels enables you to do is amazing.
HOW BIG CAN I PRINT 50 MEGAPIXELS?
This is also where it gets exciting. You can print a 50.6megapixel image to 36 x 24 inches at 240ppi natively! That means no upsampling at all. That’s rather awesome. Of course you can print it much larger and it will hold up a lot better than other smaller files. The 5DMKIII’s 22megapixel file can print up to 24 x 16 inches natively without upsampling. So thats a nice jump! If you always print quite large and these numbers seem small to you, that’s because you were likely upsampling your image and didnt realise it. You can afterall technically print any photo to any size you want. You can print billboards with this thing. For my presentation at the launch of the camera we had some 60 x 40″ prints and they looked incredible.
NOISE
Obviously with the pixel pitch (size) of this camera being decresed from 6.25 microns (5DMKIII) to just 4.14 microns the cameras low light capabilities are already at a disadvantage. For people like me who mostly shoot flash this doesnt make the slightest bit of difference. For some though, it might not be ideal. I did some rough tests though and the camera sits about 1 to 2 stops behind the MKIII in terms of noise.
Canon dont claim to have any improvements in dynamic range or noise for this camera.
I managed to get at least one photo of a car in the mix while I had the 5DSR. It just so happened that I didnt have any cars booked in that week but I managed to sneak this one in at last minute. I have manipulated the colours and contrast and little bit but I have not manipulated the sharpess at all. The image on the left is the same framing out of the camera. Once again, this image on the right is a 100% crop so you can see just how well that tiny detail shows up.
If you’re interested in a bit of behind the scenes from my week with the 5DSR there are photos and a BTS Video on a more recent post here: Behind The Scenes with the Canon EOS 5DSR
Famous Headshot photographer joined Scott Kelby on The Grid to talk about the 5DS/5DSR which you can watch here: http://kelbytv.com/thegrid/2015/04/02/the-grid-canon-5ds-5dsr-hands-on-with-peter-hurley-episode-186/
Gregory Heisler joined Rudi Winston and Larry Becker on a live panel discussing the cameras for about an hour and a half here: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/promotion/11107/canon-eos-5dsr-live-panel.html
Have a good day!
