Canon 5Ds

Nothing comes close to the 5Ds' resolution. Also notable is that, for the first time (ever?), a full frame Canon EOS DSLR has a pixel density nearly as high as or higher than the highest resolution APS-C sensors. With a pixel pitch that essentially matches the EOS sensor densities found in the 70D and 7D Mark II, the 5Ds effectively erases the "reach" advantage formerly always held by APS-C DSLRs. Yes, the announced-at-the-same-time Rebel T6i and T6s have slightly higher density sensors (3.7µm vs. 4.14µm), but the density difference is not big and the camera model capability difference is huge.

No longer is the 7D Mark II's pixel density an advantage for reach reasons – or for angle of view reasons. If you want an APS-C camera's 1.6x narrower angle of view, simply use the 5Ds' 1.6x center crop mode with 19.6 megapixel (5424 x 3616) images captured. Prefer the old 1D 1.3x framing? No problem as that crop mode is also available with 30.5 megapixel (6768 x 4512) images captured. Especially nice is the viewfinder-provided crop lines (mask or outline) for these two crop modes. In addition to the 2:3 native aspect ratio, images can be captured in 1:1 (think Instagram), 4:3 and 16:9 ratios. Ideally, cropping is done during post processing, and with this extreme resolution, extensive cropping is possible with a still-high resolution image potentially remaining.

I often find myself using the entire image dimensions to frame the final composition I am seeking, attempting to have the most detail for viewing or printing large. Sometimes, that tight framing gets me in trouble later such as when I need a bleed edge or need to format the image to a non-3:2 ratio such as for an 8x10 print (possibly because someone liked the frame and now needs a print to go into it). With this much resolution available, I hopefully will allow myself to frame slightly looser to accommodate those needs. With this much resolution, it will not be hard to make a wide variety of final compositions from a single image. For example, shoot a small group photo and crop individual headshots from it.

If having ultra-high resolution is a disadvantage for some of your needs, rest assured that the 5Ds has you covered. Raw capture is available at a still-higher-than-any-other-EOS-camera 28 MP (M-RAW) and at 12.4 MP (S-RAW). A wide variety of JPG sizes and quality levels are also available in-camera. As always, JPG images can be generated at any size desired when converting from a RAW image.

Along with increased resolution come other image quality concerns. A big concern is noise, but I'll defer that one for a few paragraphs.

Magnify the image being captured and problems not visible before become apparent. Flash back to the time when digital DSLRs first became popular. Suddenly, people who rarely printed images larger than 4x6" were looking at 100% views of their images on monitors, the equivalent of viewing huge print sizes. When enlarged, these images revealed technique and equipment issues not before noticed. Since that time, AF system performance and lens quality have increased significantly, largely eliminating those initial issues when good capture technique is used. The 5Ds resolution takes technique and equipment performance requirements up another notch and similar issues can be raised.

Magnify the image and any lens flaws become magnified. The 5Ds is going to show a strong affinity to the best lenses available with pixel-level image sharpness being a primary benefactor from high quality lens use. We plan to test all of Canon's lenses with the 5Ds, provided that support and interest make this endeavor possible. These tests will clearly show which lenses can make full use of the 5Ds resolution gain.

Magnify the image and camera motion (shake, vibration or other movement) is going to be magnified. Canon has implemented some improvements designed to aid keeping the 5Ds motionless during the exposure.

The first is an improved mirror mechanism. The 5D III's mirror is spring driven and the mirror impacting the top plate can cause vibration. When you really get to know a camera, you can feel this vibration. While the 5D III's mirror impact is relatively minor (far better than the 1Ds III that I go back to sometimes for capturing product images in the studio), I sometimes shoot with the 5D III in Silent mode to gain a slight edge. To its benefit, the 5Ds gets an electronic motor-driven mirror that slows the mirror down at the end of its travel, reducing vibration.

A primarily tripod-based vibration-reducing improvement is the ability to program a shutter release delay upon mirror-up condition. In addition to the option of Mirror Lockup being enabled or disable, a 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, one or two second delay can be selected. When the shutter release occurs, a selected delay is implemented after the mirror is raised and before the shutter is automatically opened (without a secondary shutter release needed). This delay allows mirror vibrations to settle, very similar to using the 2-second self-timer with mirror lockup enabled. The new feature is especially useful when the self-timer feature is not usable including during intervalometer/time lapse capture.

Whenever possible, a camera should be used on a tripod as this technique usually delivers the sharpest images by eliminating camera shake. However, not all cameras are created equal in terms of their solidness on a tripod and the difference is not that hard to notice. The flex difference between a tripod-mounted 1D series body and a Rebel series body, for example, is very easy to see. The 5D III was good in this regard, but the 5Ds has a much more rigid base plate and tripod socket for a more-solid tripod lock-down.

Increase the resolution and autofocus accuracy becomes more critical with Auto Focus MicroAdjustment (AFMA) taking on an elevated importance. Like the 5D III, the 5Ds has this feature available.

Because there are more pixels in the same amount of sensor space, camera and subject motion causes subject details to cross over pixels at a faster rate, potentially resulting in blur and a loss of pixel-level sharpness. Because of this, you may find that a faster minimum shutter speed is necessary for handholding this camera (and that image stabilization becomes more important). Similarly, fast-moving subjects may require faster shutter speeds to avoid pixel-level motion blur.

Another issue that becomes more visible at high resolution is diffraction. While not everyone is going to understand diffraction (nor do they need to), everyone should be aware that, as resolution increases and the aperture opening decreases, images become less sharp beyond the approximate aperture we refer to as the Diffraction Limited Aperture ("DLA", included in table above). While you will likely and frequently want to use apertures narrower than the DLA, the decision to do so must happen with the understanding that pixel sharpness becomes a compromise being made. Those wanting to retain maximum sharpness in their ultra-high resolution, very deep DOF images may decide that tilt-shift lenses and focus stacking techniques are especially attractive.

Note that, while the 5Ds is going to magnify any flaws in an image and those flaws will be visible when viewed at 100% on a monitor, those flaws will be no more visible than those from a lower resolution camera when output size is matched and that is the ultimate importance. If the flaws can be minimized through good technique and great gear, the higher resolution image has big advantages including the ability to be output at larger sizes.

I mentioned the high ISO noise level issue. As the rule goes with today's technology, along with a higher density sensor comes increased noise levels. Make no mistake, Canon is not marketing this camera for its clean low light/high ISO performance and that is reflected in the 5Ds' max ISO settings that are lower than those found in many current APS-C models. Canon is indicating that the 5Ds' noise levels are better than the 5D II and 7D II, but not as good as the 5D III. My personal expectation is that the 5Ds noise levels will be close to the 7D II when comparing at the pixel level, but I expect the 5Ds to have a very nice advantage when the 50.6 MP image is scaled down to 20.2 MP resolution. I'm anxious to see this specific lab comparison. Commercial, studio, portrait, landscape, still life, architecture and a great many other subjects are most frequently captured at ISO 100 and those images should be very clean.

Included with the 5Ds is a new Picture Style named "Fine Detail". The Fine Detail PS provides increased sharpness, offering individual control over Strength, Fineness, and Threshold parameters. CPN explains this picture style: "The parameters are similar to those found in the Unsharp Mask filter in Adobe Photoshop and Canon’s DPP software: The ‘Strength’ slider adjusts how much sharpening is applied to edges in the image. The ‘Fineness’ slider determines the size of the details that are sharpened. Move it to the left to sharpen smaller details. The ‘Threshold’ slider specifies how much contrast there needs to be in a part of the picture before it is considered an edge and sharpened. At low settings even subtle edges can be sharpened."

The 5Ds has the same dynamic range as 5D III. While some will complain that the closest Nikon-equivalent body has more dynamic range (and more is better), I haven't had an issue with the 5D II's DR. When I can't retain both shadows and highlights in an image, that scene generally needs very significantly more DR and exposure bracketing with HDR handles those instances nicely.

Canon Japan has posted sample pictures captured with both the 5Ds and 5Ds R. You are going to be impressed by the amount of detail showing in these images. I promise.

File Size and Media

The following table shows comparative RAW file sizes for a photo of a standard in-studio setup with a moderately-high amount of detail taken with the referenced Canon EOS DSLR body. Without the 5Ds in hand at this time, I plugged in estimates based on linearly increasing the file size of the 7D Mark II. While I plugged in the same numbers for both the 5Ds and 5Ds R, the R will likely have slightly larger file sizes.