Photography News issue 22

Camera test 33

Photography News Issue 22 absolutephoto.com

The EOS 5DS isn’t an action camera but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the camera’s AF menu. It’s extensive

Images Single point AF tracking was the most successful zone option when shooting an approaching horse and the camera was reasonably successful at maintaining focus. This set was shot on a 70-200mm f/4 at 200mm. The exposure was 1/750sec at f/4 and ISO 400.

AF tracking The EOS 5DS isn’t an action camera but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the camera’s AF menu. It’s extensive and akin to what’s available on other top-end Canons including action case studies and many zone and focus point options. The camera’s fastest continuous shooting speed is 5fps so while it’s behind the fastest DSLRs around it’s still quite quick considering how much information is being handled by the DIGIC 6 processor – and the fact this isn’t an action camera. The buffer allows 20 full-size Raws at 5fps before buffering kicks in. If you shoot large JPEGs, the camera just

carries on shooting with a SanDisk 90MB/s CF card. I tried the AF system in various guises and on moving subjects, from walking and a horse’s cantering pace to high-speed, oncoming traffic on the motorway. Whether you’re snapping family barbecues or shooting sport, you need to set the AF system up and there are many options. You can have 61, 15 or nineAF zonesworking, or just cross-type sensors. If you manually select AF areas, you have the option of, among others, spot AF, one zone with four neighbours, nine zone AF or the choice of all 61 zones. Then for action there are six AF case studies, giving options of,

for example, whether the subject is moving erratically in any direction, accelerating or decelerating quickly. At the Appleby Horse Fair where horses were coming towards me I stuck with case 1, a multi-purpose setting and case 2, which claimed to continue to track subjects and ignore obstacles. I also tried various AF zone options and had the most success with single point AF expanded by four AF points. This group I moved around using the multi-function toggle control when needed. Single point AF worked well, but keeping a small area on a moving subject takes practice. Keeping the AF cluster on a horse’s nose as it trotted, cantered or

walked towards me was reasonably successful. The contrast on a horse’s head or nose isn’t always great and although the light was good the system didn’t always track. Obviously you have to factor in some user incompetence there. I used the EF 70-200mm f/4 and perhaps the f/2.8 would be better. Cars on a road was generally easier to cope with, largely due to the better contrast and the more predictable direction of travel. Here the expanded four or nine zones focusing pattern worked well. While the 5DS’s forte isn’t action it does a respectable job with focusing. Correct set-up and practice are definitely needed, though.