5D m3 vs 5ds-R

Early in 2016 I'm going to upgrade to one of the subject bodies. My principal applications are landscape and travel photography. When travelling, most of the shots are hand held (lugging tripods around Europe is not an option for me). I also want to start to skill up on night sky photography. Present glass includes 17-40 f4 L, 24-105 f4 L, 70-300 f4 L, 50 f1.4. The present use body is a 60D which I have totally outgrown.

I'm conflicted over the suitability of the ds-r to shoot primarily hand-held.

Thoughts and opinions?

TIA,

-Tim

Hi Tim and welcome to POTN. I have no experience with newer 5ds-R but I've used my 5D3 for a few years now with the 17-40, 24-105, 70-200 2.8 IS and a few other lenses. A fair amount of my work has been low light, hand held/braced, and I've been very pleased with the results.

IndyTim wrote in post #17765451
Early in 2016 I'm going to upgrade to one of the subject bodies. My principal applications are landscape and travel photography. When travelling, most of the shots are hand held (lugging tripods around Europe is not an option for me). I also want to start to skill up on night sky photography. Present glass includes 17-40 f4 L, 24-105 f4 L, 70-300 f4 L, 50 f1.4. The present use body is a 60D which I have totally outgrown.

I'm conflicted over the suitability of the ds-r to shoot primarily hand-held.

Thoughts and opinions?

TIA,

-Tim

Heya,

Well, to put it simple, you either need the 50MP resolution, or you don't. It comes down to what you're doing with these files at the end of the day (ie, just looking at them, or printing them at large sizes where resolution starts to matter). If you're printing 30x20 or less, you will do fine with anything. If doing larger than that, you would benefit the larger resolution. Otherwise, they have very similar systems (AF, ISO, etc). From there, it's just cost, about $1k difference for that resolution bump. No other real big feature differences.

Honestly from what you've described as a goal (travel, handheld, and night sky) it sounds like the 6D might actually be more what you would need (get every last drop if high ISO performance).

Very best,

You will want to upgrade the 17-40 to the stabilized 16-35.

Stabilization is really important for handheld shots. If you can afford it, get the 5Dsr

IndyTim wrote in post #17765451
Early in 2016 I'm going to upgrade to one of the subject bodies. My principal applications are landscape and travel photography. When travelling, most of the shots are hand held (lugging tripods around Europe is not an option for me). I also want to start to skill up on night sky photography. Present glass includes 17-40 f4 L, 24-105 f4 L, 70-300 f4 L, 50 f1.4. The present use body is a 60D which I have totally outgrown.

I'm conflicted over the suitability of the ds-r to shoot primarily hand-held.

Thoughts and opinions?

TIA,

-Tim

Given what you wrote above, get a Sony A7Rii (landscapes, travel).

I own a 7D2, two 5D3s, a 5DSR and a A7Rii with a Metabones IV T adapter so I am weighing everything you said and giving my answer. The IBIS will make your 17-40 F4 L @ F8 a perfect handheld travel & landscape lens.

I bought the Sigma 24-105 F4 OS and it lives on the 5DSR - tack sharp (far more than the 24-105 canon), great IS, but no weather sealing (so I kept the canon as well for those dicey weather days). You need very high SS with the 5DSR if the lens does not have IS. I have moved my 85L and 135L over to using on the Sony because you can get tack sharp images at 1/20th versus 1/640 on the 5DSR for the 135L (it is crazy) - but with the Canon 35F2, the Sigma 24-105, Canon 70-200, Canon 100-400II you can use very low SS.

IndyTim wrote in post #17765451
Early in 2016 I'm going to upgrade to one of the subject bodies. My principal applications are landscape and travel photography. When travelling, most of the shots are hand held (lugging tripods around Europe is not an option for me). I also want to start to skill up on night sky photography. Present glass includes 17-40 f4 L, 24-105 f4 L, 70-300 f4 L, 50 f1.4. The present use body is a 60D which I have totally outgrown.

I'm conflicted over the suitability of the ds-r to shoot primarily hand-held.

Thoughts and opinions?

TIA,

-Tim

In regards to shooting the 5Ds handheld, have a look in the threads here. Plenty of people shooting it handheld with really long lenses and shooting BIF nonetheless. The claim from some that you MUST used a tripod with the 5Ds is unfounded. I just rented a 5Ds for 5 days and tested it against my 6D. I shoot fashion/glamour either under strobe lights or in natural light, so your results may vary. Bottom line is, I saw pretty much zero difference in resolution on my 27 inch iMac monitor, even a full size and at 100%. Then once they were both resized, there was really zero difference. The only times the extra resolution will come into play is if you plan on doing insane cropping or if you are doing gigantic billboard sized prints. Thats pretty much it. If you don't plan on doing either, save yourself some money and get the 5Diii.

I'm torn between these 2 as well, The ability to crop is what I like about the sr. but most often I do not need 50mp.

If I were you I would investigate MalVeaux's suggestion of the 6D. It's quite compact, has an excellent sensor, VERY good high ISO (so less need for tripods/IS etc) and not expensive. The 5DsR is an awesome camera but will it be any better for you? My 1DX has a paltry 18mp and that is more than enough for detailed A3 prints of cropped images (we are not talking ridiculous crops here). For what you state you want the camera for I don't think there would be much advantage in the 5D3, the AF is nice but I prefer the sensor in the 6D compared to the 5D3.
Also, if you have the funds for a 5DsR you could trade your 60D + 17-40 + 24-105 and probably get a 6D, 16-35 F4 L IS and 24-70 F2.8 V2 or close to them? Earlier this year I sold my 24-105 + 17-40 to get these two lenses and the improvements are visible even on the back screen of the camera! The 17-40 and 24-105 are nice lenses but the 16-35 F4 and 24-70 F2.8 V2 are in a different league in my experience.

canon has always been good about sRaw/mRaw. Just shoot those modes when you dont need to crop, and full raws when you do.

Hi,
I bought the 5Dsr and sold my Pentax 645z, 5D3 and 1DX as a result.

The whole image sharpness thing is a non issue. Especially when you consider a lot of the Canon glass is image stabilised. There's no real downsides to the 5DSr, not really and especially not in comparison to the 5D3, a great body, but is now aging compared to others. The 5Dsr is more fun to use especially when shooting full resolution and particularly for landscapes and travel.

I use dual 5DSr's for wedding photography and the resolution is greatly received and I've no issues with it, otherwise I would of kept my old setup of the 1DX and 5D3.

Gel wrote in post #17766661
Hi,
I bought the 5Dsr and sold my Pentax 645z, 5D3 and 1DX as a result.

The whole image sharpness thing is a non issue. Especially when you consider a lot of the Canon glass is image stabilised. There's no real downsides to the 5DSr, not really and especially not in comparison to the 5D3, a great body, but is now aging compared to others. The 5Dsr is more fun to use especially when shooting full resolution and particularly for landscapes and travel.

I use dual 5DSr's for wedding photography and the resolution is greatly received and I've no issues with it, otherwise I would of kept my old setup of the 1DX and 5D3.

Sure there is. The 5Diii focuses quicker, has 25k ISO vs only 6400k, better FPS rate, larger pixels, better battery life, bigger JPG buffer and its less expensive.

dexter75 wrote in post #17767099
Sure there is. The 5Diii focuses quicker, has 25k ISO vs only 6400k, better FPS rate, larger pixels, better battery life, bigger JPG buffer and its less expensive.

5DSR has 12,800 ISO that is cleaner than the 5d3s 12,800 and the 25k ISO is not a selling point given the noise and I would never ever use it - ever.

Larger pixels are not an advantage if there is no ISO noise advantage - which there isn't.

Battery life must be a very very small difference and is not noticeable at all?

If you equally size the jpgs that is not true - you can fill up an entire card holding down the shutter with the 5dsr

Less expensive absolutely.

The major advantage in my opinion of the 5D3 is that you can quickly review files and I think it has slightly better water sealing - and if you a video person you can hack it with Magic Lantern.

wallstreetoneil wrote in post #17767163
5DSR has 12,800 ISO that is cleaner than the 5d3s 12,800 and the 25k ISO is not a selling point given the noise and I would never ever use it - ever.

Larger pixels are not an advantage if there is no ISO noise advantage - which there isn't.

Battery life must be a very very small difference and is not noticeable at all?

If you equally size the jpgs that is not true - you can fill up an entire card holding down the shutter with the 5dsr

Less expensive absolutely.

The major advantage in my opinion of the 5D3 is that you can quickly review files and I think it has slightly better water sealing - and if you a video person you can hack it with Magic Lantern.

Fair enough but the 5Ds is not a good low light/high ISO camera at all really. Here are a few head to head reviews for the OP to look at. They both basically say if you are a studio photographer shooting under controlled lighting environments, the 5Ds is the way to go. For pretty much everything else, its still the 5Diii. I am a studio photographer shooting under control lighting conditions most the time and as I said, I didn't notice any real difference between my 6D and the 5Ds I had for a week. Certainly not a $2200 difference by any stretch. Unless money is no object, my vote goes to the 5Diii, or better yet a 6D for even less money.

http://www.trustedrevi​ews.com …-5ds-vs-5ds-r-vs-5d-mkiii
http://bokeh.digitalre​v.com …-which-one-should-you-get

First of all I want to give a big thanks to all of the respondents. Your expertise and opinions have really helped out.

Weighing all of the responses and also doing a side by side matrix analysis of features between the 5DS-R : 5DM3 : 6D I've come to the conclusion that the 5DM3 is the way to go for now. I'll probably re-visit the high mexapixel options in 4 years or so. My guess is that things will be more mature with more cost effective options by then.

Your feedback also confirmed that I should trade in the 17-40mm for a 16-35mm w/ IS.

At this point I plan on doing the lens and body early in 2016. Hopefully this will give me enough time to get up to full speed before our planned road trip to Utah, USA for 2-3 weeks in the fall.

Thanks,

-Tim

I just got the 16-35mm F/4L IS USM and LOVE it!

Here is a thread on these forums with sample pictures taken with that lens:

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1384030