Photography News issue 21

Camera test

FULL TEST, PART 1

Canon EOS 5DS After a spell playing second fiddle to its great rival Nikon in the resolution stakes, Canon’s launch of the 50-megapixel EOS 5DS and S R has changed all that. In this two-part reviewwe take a long look at the EOS 5DS

SPECS

PRICE EOS 5DS £2999 body only, EOS 5DS R £3200 CONTACT www.canon.co.uk SENSOR CMOS effective 50.6 megapixels with Dual DIGIC 6 processor and integrated cleaning system SENSOR FORMAT 36x24mm, 8688x5792 pixels. Cropped shooting modes available. Three Raw options (full size, M and S), various JPEG options ISORANGE 100-6400, expandable to 50-12,800 SHUTTER RANGE 30secs to 1/8000sec, B, flash sync 1/200sec DRIVEMODES 5fps in continuous, two self-timer options, single silent and silent continuous. Integral intervalometer METERING SYSTEM Multi, spot, centre- weighted and partial using a 150k pixel RGB and IR sensor, EOS iSA systems gives 242-zone metering EXPOSUREMODES PASM, scene intelligent auto, 3x custom COMPENSATION +/-5 in 0.3 or 0.5EV steps. AEB 2, 3, 5 or 7 shots MONITOR Fixed 3.2in LCD with 1040k dots FOCUSING Auto selection uses 61 points, manual selection allows selection from 61, 15, 9 or cross-type points only. There are many AF zone selection options and AF Microadjustment allows up to 40 lenses to be memorised FOCUSING POINTS 61, 41 f/4 cross-type including five dual cross-type at f/2.8 and one cross-type at f/8. Number of cross- type sensors varies according to the lens VIDEO Full HD 1920x1080 CONNECTIVITY USB 3.0, mini HDMI STORAGEMEDIA 1x CF, 1xSD/SDHC/SDXC DIMENSIONS 152x116x76mm WEIGHT 922g body and battery only

Words by Will Cheung

There had been rumours on the internet of Canon’s very high resolution DSLR for a while – just as there are rumours of 50-megapixel Nikon and Sony DSLRs. What was more of a surprise was that two arrived at the same time, in the tradition of buses. The Canon EOS 5DS and 5DS R are identical except for two aspects. First is price with the 5DS R costing £200 more than the £2999 5DS body. And secondly the 5DS R has an optical low-pass filter (OLPF) cancelling feature for optimum resolution. The reality is that both cameras have an OLPF in front of the sensor so the image is ever so slightly softened, but the risk of moiré patterns and false colour minimised. What the 5DS R has is a modified OLPF to cancel any softening effect for optimum detail resolution. Essentially, this is the same scenario as when Nikon launched the D800 and D800E. So, with a 50-megapixel Canon EOS DSLR on your shopping list, which one do you go for, the S or the R version? Here we have the S on test so let’s concentrate on that model and we’ll take a look at the 5DS R next month. The camera body certainly feels reassuringly solid and its shape and size is almost identical to the original EOS 5D that came out ten years ago – the difference in body size is literally a few millimetres. The 5DS body itself features weather-sealed controls to keep out dust and water and is made from magnesium alloy. For any Canon user, navigating around the 5DS will be completely natural because the control design, menu structure and overall layout is just like other Canon DSLRs. This filial consistency can only be admired and it must help long-term users. If the EOS 5DS is your first-ever Canon DSLR handling holds no alarms either, with controls clearly marked and great to use. The menu system, however, is extensive so you do need to think carefully about how you want to set the camera up. There are six separate panels of menu options for camera set-up, five for focusing, three for playback, four under the spanner icon and four for custom functions. There is lots of scrolling through them using the top-plate input dial with the rear quick command dial or multiway toggle control for scrolling down and setting the options once you are in the right panel. Whether you are a newbie to Canon or a dyed in the wool user, some time with the menus is time well spent. The extensive menu options mean plenty of choice and they offer tremendous flexibility in how you want to work or how you want the camera set up. There are some excellent innovations too. Take, for example, the Custom Quick Control that lets you add or delete what you want showing when the Quick (Q) menu button is pressed, and even

The extensivemenu optionsmeanplenty of choice and they offer tremendous flexibility inhowyouwant towork or howyouwant the camera set up and there are some excellent innovations too

With the camera’s high resolution anything added to help keep vibration down to a minimum is clearly of benefit to help maximise image quality. The unobtrusive shutter is also welcome for street work or in cases when noise might be an issue. There are ‘silent’ single-shot and continuous shooting modes (this works at 3fps instead of 5fps in usual operation) and pitch is even lower. At 5fps, I got 21 Raws at 5fps and 30 in continuous silent before buffering using a SanDisk Extreme Pro 90MB/s CompactFlash card. In Large JPEG, I got 100 shots and the camera was still going. That’s a very good showing from such a high-res camera. Battery life is also very good. I got 600 shots from a full charge and the battery still had one bar on the indicator showing. This included a good deal of continuous shooting with servo AF, menu fiddling and image previewing.

change the size of the item on show. It is a very cool feature and very useful, I thought. Also useful is the latest version of Canon’s Intelligent Viewfinder which overlays key information on the viewfinder image itself. You get the usual stuff like aperture, metering scale, shutter speed and ISO showing on the image border as usual and then there’s the choice of several useful items like battery level, image quality setting and the virtual spirit level. The latter prominently showing is definitely a welcome one for me as I suffer from wonky horizon syndrome. If you prefer a clean viewing image that is possible too. When you get round to using the camera and you press the shutter button, the shutter fires with a quiet, low-pitch noise and vibration is minimal. This is thanks to Canon’s Vibration Control system where cams are used to control the mirror’s travel.

Photography News | Issue 21