The Online Photographer

Basic Camera Functions

I'm back from my trip. The purpose of it was for my son and his mother to meet for the very first time, 29 and a half years since his birth. He has a sprawling family on her side, and we met only a fraction of them, but there were a lot of new faces, and some I remembered from the old days. And I got to meet my son's new girlfriend, Kate, for the first time. Nobody knew in advance how it was all going to go, but it seemed to go as well as it could have. There was a nice spirit all around; one of reconciliation, and compassion, and forgiveness, and generosity. Kate is pregnant, and has experienced intermittent feelings of illness, and she is taking very good care of herself and their as-yet-unnamed son-to-be, but we managed some touristy activities as well. The high point was the National Aquarium in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, which is absolutely an A+ attraction—Kate and Xander both especially like aquariums, and I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. Despite having lived in the area all those years ago I had never been there before. It's really well done. If you're ever near it and find yourself considering a visit, don't hesitate.

Visitors at the National Aquarium in Baltimore,
which was remarkably crowded on a weekday.

I took the Sony A6600 and tried to use it, although I forgot to bring it in from the car on the Aquarium visit. Although I took only a couple of hundred exposures, it was really the first time I had used the A6600 since I first tried it as a loaner from LensRentals. I'll show you a few pictures from it tomorrow.

Wait for it
One of the surprises, not a good one, is how slow it seemed. Of course one of the many "vexations" (I like that obsolescent word) of the iPhone is that it's so slow and awkward to use—if I see something like an airliner against a while cloud or a speedboat passing a perfect position in a lake composition, I've learned to not even try to get the iPhone ready, but just to observe the sight. Well, unfortunately, I have some of the same feelings about the A6600. It just seems to take a while to go from off to on and ready, and even if it's in the "On" position it takes too long to wake from sleep. Shutter lag also feels long, although it might not be.

One of the great advantages of the classic film Leicas—M4 through M6—is how responsive they could be. Shutter lag (the interval between pressing the button and the film being exposed) was famously short—if memory serves, 19 milliseconds vs. ~80 ms. for a pro SLR and 150 and up for an amateur SLR (many were around 200 ms.). But of course you don't have to turn on a film camera—it's always on. With the Leica, I got into the habit of zone-focusing it by feel depending on the situation I was in—at the Aquarium, for instance, I might have set it to six or eight feet and just carried it that way. Then when you raise it to your eye you have just a little adjustment to make. At any rate, good film cameras were "shutter-button priority"—there were a number of things you had to do to get ready to take the shot, but if you pressed the button the shutter went off and that was that. It didn't refuse to fire until the settings were all set.

It struck me that it's kind of curious that for all our "measurbating" and comparing of features on digital cameras, we don't really make a big deal of the basic responsiveness numbers, although AF speed might be an exception. I guess because these are so hard to measure, and differ based on circumstances. Does anyone know of a site that has compiled a comparative list of functions like turn-on time, wake from sleep, AF speed, latency, buffer clearing, and other responsiveness traits? I do see these mentioned hither and yon, but as I say I'm not sure we pay these things sufficient attention.

Anyway I did notice that with the A6600 slumbering on my shoulder, hanging from one of Al Stegmeyer's UpStraps, too many beats pass before it agrees to take a picture. Repeatedly, things changed before I could get a shot. Part of that is down to my rusty chops, but part of it was the camera's fault.

If you'll excuse a digression (of course you will, because those who don't are long gone by now!), the UpStrap is by far the best camera strap I have ever used—and many famous photographers starting with Jay Maisel agree with that. My new one is the "Friendship," and it's the best small-camera UpStrap yet. I have several similar older UpStraps, but I have other cameras now and needed a new one for the Sony. The only one I've ever found that stays on my shoulder without fuss.

Everything has an arc
And incidentally, while I am on the subject of responsiveness, the new iPhone is definitely worse than older ones. The auto-turn-on feature is a pain—I'm going to turn auto-turn-on off if it turns off—and the swipe commands are too many and too touchy to be convenient, although I suppose a few adroit young people will have them mastered. My brain doesn't work that way. Plus, the camera is now so configurable that it's actually possible on the phone to get into that dreaded state where I've done something and don't know right away how to undo it, which is the tell-tale curse of all overly electronic-i-fied devices. And face recognition is worse than the old fingerprint recognition, because it assumes you will be shining the moon of your mug directly at the screen at all times, which I often am not. So the iPhone-as-camera is leaving its signature strength—simplicity—behind. That trend will continue, because it always does.

More about "what I did on vacation" tomorrow or Monday. At any rate, I am back.

Mike

(New Book of Interest coming on Sunday[?])

Grit and Grace: Women at Work in the Emerging World. Unfortunately, this will be the posthumous swan song of the indefatigable documentarian Alison Wright, whose untimely death at 60 in the Azores this year meant she never got to see it published. Wright's photography was inextricably entwined with her life's dedication to social justice, a sense of acceptance of humanity, and a roving search for beauty and color.

Our link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
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Friday's Journey Through the Past

Double entendre here. Not only are we visiting a long-ago post from August 2009, but the post itself is a reminiscence, about the first "good" camera I ever used. It was long ago in my life, but the camera, a Zeiss, was old even then.

"The 'Use Me' Appeal of Cameras," it's called.

Sadly, that Zeiss was stolen, as the post will relate, although it was entirely my fault. I still dream of losing cameras, to this day. I wonder, do thieves still steal cameras? I don't think they're popular targets like they once were, but I don't know, not being a thief.

Mike

(TOP doesn't post on Saturdays any more—even famous bloggers have to do housework—but Mike will return on Sunday with exotic tales of his time off.)

Thursday's Journey Through the Past

I always think I have to link to long posts. But here's a short one.

"Oil Shots," from April of 2008.

I haven't done this in a month of Sundays. That's a pity. It just means I don't put myself in shooting situations very often any more.

My father used to call these "B-clicks," because he didn't like to waste film on them. He'd set his mechanical Konicas on "B" and pretend to take pictures with no film in the camera. But that made me antsy; I was too superstitious. I was convinced I'd see a fantastic picture go by and I wouldn't have gotten it. Fate is a trickster in my world.

But however you do it, it works. You get into the flow and after a while you don't feel self-conscious or shy any more. You're just "in it." It's a nice feeling.

Mike

(Mike is on vacation this week. But the week is almost over.)

Wednesday Journey Through the Past

Today, we delve into a curious area...commentary on the vast number of photographs taken of the same thing:

"'Most Tourists Take Pictures from the Same Spot,'" from February 2011.

These composite pictures are intellectually but not visually interesting. They meld together hundreds of publicly-available photographs of standard scenes taken from more or less the same place. It's curious too that we (Ctein too) immediately got into the issue of copyright...because of course we identify with the photographers whose photographs have been used without their knowledge. Of course, no one could prove that their picture was one of the ones used in the composites. How would you possibly know?

Then again, if you release a photo into the world, you never know what's going to happen to it—I miss the stories from that era of photographs posted online showing up in weird places, do you remember that? It was sort of a low-level meme at the time. Like Justin Watt's Incredible Encounter, which I also posted about that same month and year. The weird thing about that one was not so much that his photo was used, although that's pretty unlikely, but that he encountered and identified it.

Mike

(Mike is on hiatus this week. One reader said, "one week is not enough," but I'm not sure I've taken more than a week off since George W. Bush was President. Comes with the territory.)

Tuesday's Journey Through the Past

Cameras! Cameras! Cameras! I thought you could do with a memento mori of the vanished past. Most old reviews hold little interest for the present, but this is the no. 1 most-viewed post in TOP's storied history:

"Sony vs. Nikon vs. Canon," from December 2008.

It received a whopping 73,000 pageviews, the all-time one-day record for TOP. I have no way of guessing how many people came to look at it after the day it was published—or in subsequent days—but traffic was stout the day after, too. Blogs are not as popular now—videos have taken over. Cameras are not as popular now either, come to think. And of course the cameras in this post are historical as well...although you may recall one or the other of them fondly. Digital cameras were a "frontier market" then, wild and woolly as they say, and DSLRs were coming into their own at the time. Everyone and his uncle—and his brother, and his uncle's brother and his brother's uncle—wanted to know what to buy. Those were the days?

I rather think these are the days, but you know what I mean.

Mike

(Mike is on holiday, like Monsieur Hulot. He will return anon, refreshed and revived. I hope I am keeping up with the comments, but, as I write this on Friday, present me cannot know what future me is doing.)

Monday's Journey Through the Past

Mike has skulked off on holiday, as our British friends call it. It being Summer and all. But a long-forgotten post has turned up when you least expected it:

"The Case of the Purloined Prints" by Jim Hughes, January 2014

In which a puzzling mystery is described. But not solved; because that's the way life is sometimes—although it would never do for fiction, which truth is stranger than. On the other hand, all's well or well enough in the end, as you shall see.

Mike

(Mike is on vacation this week, recreating. Seeing his son and sundry others. Comments may be left, and that's all right.)

Sunday's Journey Through the Past

While Yr. Hmbl. Ed. has stolen away for vacation, hoping no one will notice, a post from days of Yore has bubbled to the fore:

"Qualities and Properties" from September 2007

The post is about two things we don't really think about any more: noise, and printers—but it makes some interesting points along the way. The crux to me is in the two paragraphs above the subhead "A book about food." Unlike some other frequent commenters from that era, Robert Roaldi is still around here.

I wish I was paying more attention to what we were paying attention to in 1994–2015 or so. It would be nice to have a clearer map about what we cared about and when. I really don't think very many people care much about noise any more...it's completely demystified now. We don't see much of it, and we know exactly what to do about when we do see it. But it was a big deal back then.

Mike

(Mike is on vacation this week. He will be still be posting comments—but not Featured ones, as that is too similar to work, which is what he is trying to avoid.)

Random Excellence: Steph Chambers and the Peak Moment

When I happen across a picture I like in a news source, I sometimes look up the photographer. Most recently it was a picture of the new world record holder in the women's 400 meter hurdles, the amazing Sydney McLaughlin, in this article. (The video of the race is worth watching, although the cameraperson keeps letting the leader leave the frame) The stills photographer, Steph Chambers, catches Sydney at the finish line, body flying, her facial expression a mixture of the pain of effort and supreme self-control. Sydney set the world record with a time that would have been impressive in a race over the same distance without hurdles.

Granted, we have ways now of helping us get the moment—AF tracking and high-speed frame rates. But you still have to know what you're after and where you'll find it, where you need to be to get it, and which frame got it. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

A visit to the website of Steph Chambers, a Getty photographer from Seattle, shows a photographer with a real knack for capturing just the right moment, whether it's a high school football player crossing the goal line airborne and upside down, a little kid doing a Michael Jordan impression in a basketball game on the street, or an overexcited Penguins fan losing his eyeglasses. They say shooters are in control of three things: where you stand, where you point the camera, and when you press the button. Getting the exact peak moment is a skill verging on a gift, not common at all in my experience (even with today's tools), and that's what I see in Steph Chambers' portfolio. She makes it look easy, and it's thrilling stuff. (I love the one of the parachute dude.) An up-and-comer to watch.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Grit and Grace: Women at Work in the Emerging World. Unfortunately, this will be the posthumous swan song of the indefatigable documentarian Alison Wright, whose untimely death at 60 in the Azores this year meant she never got to see it published. Wright's photography was inextricably entwined with her life's dedication to social justice, a sense of acceptance of humanity, and a roving search for beauty and color.

Our link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

A Correction: Sony A6600

I'd just like to correct a couple of mis-impressions in the Sony A6600 post below, which set a record for traffic in recent days.

First, although it could definitely be improved and in fact is rather crying out for some improvements that would be easy to make, it's also a very fine little camera that is a constant pleasure to use. It's got a great feel in the hand, the battery lasts forever, and the haptics (hand-feel, the feel of the knobs, size, sounds, responsiveness etc.) are excellent, among those indefinable things that make a camera pleasing.

If Sony improves it they'll only double down on making the video features better, and that won't improve the camera as a stills shooter which is all I care about.

A reader admonished me for saying the A6600 has "top-level features," claiming that the camera re-uses the A6500 sensor and allegedly doesn't have Sony's very latest. I don't think he knows that for sure, but maybe he's right. However: doesn't matter. The A6600 sensor is excellent. It's outstanding. It's highly correctable, especially in terms of shadow recovery; has very good DR in practice, great color, and the files are very pleasing. I really hope to put it up against the Leica's full-frame sensor before I send that camera back, because my seat-o'-the-pants sense is that it's going to hold its own even in absolute terms. I don't care if something isn't the absolute latest, which is a constantly diminishing attribute anyway, as long as it's good. I said that A6600 has a very good sensor, and I'll stand by that all day long. It's one of the main reasons I use the camera.

That is all.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Grit and Grace: Women at Work in the Emerging World. Unfortunately, this will be the posthumous swan song of the indefatigable documentarian Alison Wright, whose untimely death at 60 in the Azores this year meant she never got to see it published. Wright's photography was inextricably entwined with her life's dedication to social justice, a sense of acceptance of humanity, and a roving search for beauty and color.

Our link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Thank You

I'd just like to thank everybody for using my links. Blogging about photography was a great business for half a dozen years, and people thought I was in it for that reason. I wasn't; I was in it because I'm a content-creator and I care about the subject. Now it's getting a little thin, and I'm still at it. At the bottom of every post you'll find a book link which is also a gateway to any purchase at the big A site, and a link to B&H Photo for Americans. I have to follow strict rules about how I can promote those links, so I depend on readers who are supporters to take up some of the slack. A big thank-you to all of you who do.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Grit and Grace: Women at Work in the Emerging World. Unfortunately, this will be the posthumous swan song of the indefatigable documentarian Alison Wright, whose untimely death at 60 in the Azores this year meant she never got to see it published. Wright's photography was inextricably entwined with her life's dedication to social justice, a sense of acceptance of humanity, and a roving search for beauty and color.

Our link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Going On Vacation

Just wanted to let you know...I'll be on vacation for one week starting on Saturday.

UPDATE: So this coming week the theme will be "Journey Through the Past." Here's the theme music! Each morning at 7 a.m. a link to an older post will appear, along with a few brief comments (although as usual, nothing on Saturday [UPDATE to the update: ended up having some time on Saturday morning. Woke up early]). Speaking of comments, you can leave new ones if you want to. But I won't be posting any "Featured" comments while I'm off.

Hope you enjoy the selection! I'll be back before you know it.

Mike

-

William A Lewis: "Have a good time. We'll look forward to the eight pics you edit down to.  ;-)  "

Mike replies: lol!

The Sad Story of the Sony A6600

I thought I would bring you up to date on the situation with some of Sony's smaller cameras.

Sony told its dealers at the end of last year that it would no longer take orders for the APS-C A6600 or the beautiful A7c, which put a full-frame 24x36mm sensor in the A6xxx form-factor. Parts shortages were the reason. The A7c was essentially an interchangeable-lens version of the fixed-lens RX1. The A6600 was the latest in the A6xxx product line, with a larger battery, top-level features, and improved build-quality. The A7c was barely more than a year old at the time of discontinuation, having been introduced in September of 2020. The A6600, introduced in late August 2019, was a little more than two years old, but it hadn't been easily available before the news came of its suspension.

Sony A6600

At the same time, it was announced that the A6100 had reached end-of-life. Intended as an entry-level replacement for the longtime-bestselling A6000 of early 2014, the A6100 also turned out to have a short life, as it, too, was announced in August 2019 alongside the A6600 and thus came to an end after only a little more than two years. Although parts shortages were blamed in that case too, declining interest in APS-C cameras probably also played a part.

It's possible either the A6600 and A7c or both could return one day, when parts supply problems are solved. It's possible even Sony doesn't know, as it would depend on decisions yet to be made.

My A6600
One of my longtime frustrations with Japanese cameramakers is that there is always an assumption that smaller, lighter, or simpler cameras are for less serious photographers and should be decontented, built less well or more to a price point, or use less than the best sensors. The A6600 bucked this trend: it had most of Sony's best AF technologies including tracking and eye-detection, a huge battery and beefy grip, and a very good sensor. The build quality was first rate, a far cry from the high-value but budget build of the original A6000.

Alas, the camera was just not designed by photographers. I can't believe it was, anyway. As DPReview noted in its review, "this camera is just begging for a front control dial"—both dials on the A6600 are accessed with the thumb (i.e., set flush so you can't grab them with thumb and forefinger) and there's no way to control both aperture and exposure compensation with dials. The back controls are inherited from past models and have an unexamined feeling to them, like nobody bothered to take a fresh look. It's not a disaster but it's still something of an ergonomic fail. Basic operating controls should be job one for camera designers, not something that come in second to how sleek and cool the shapes all look in a drawing. (Nikon schooled everybody with its Z series, which look goofy but feel great in the hand and ergonomically put the needs of the operator-photographer foremost.) Sony's cameras seem to me to give precedence to clean industrial design over either hand-feel or operating control. I've never held or operated an A7c, but it solved the top-plate problems, assuming the FF lenses you get for it have aperture rings. Unfortunately it dispensed with the in-line viewing screen. And it didn't have a front control dial either.

Anyway, that's what's going on with these products, as of now.

Mike

UPDATE: Looks like the A7c will be back. Jeff In Colorado found this report of an announcement to that effect.

Book o' the Week

Grit and Grace: Women at Work in the Emerging World. Unfortunately, this will be the posthumous swan song of the indefatigable documentarian Alison Wright, whose untimely death at 60 in the Azores this year meant she never got to see it published. Wright's photography was inextricably entwined with her life's dedication to social justice, a sense of acceptance of humanity, and a roving search for beauty and color.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Bob Rosinsky: "I've been shooting with Sony cameras for over ten years. They all have their quirks; most cameras do. I currently use a Sony A6600 and an A7c. Ergonomics aside, both are highly capable machines. I use them for stills and video. Sony color science has improved over the years, and autofocus is stellar. Another plus is the availability of reasonably priced high-quality third-party lenses, although the Sony 24–70mm ƒ/4 is a bargain, especially on the used market."

The Best Bargain Out There Right Now

I came very close to buying another camera yesterday. As close as you can come without actually doing it.

The Canon 5DS R DSLR from 2015—basically a 2012 5D Mark III with a 50.1-MP sensor (which dominated the pixel race in 2015).

It's on blowout sale brand new at B&H Photo for a mere $1,499. Are you kidding me? Considering it listed for $3,900 new, that's beyond a deep discount. Not only is it older now, its strengths matched and exceeded by current competition, but Canon is moving away from DSLRs altogether. The perfect storm for a true blowout sale price. So the former king-of-the-hill prosumer Canon DSLR is now only $100 more than the garden-variety hobbyist 6D Mark II FF that has half as many pixels.

As regular readers know, I've been playing with the iPhone camera a lot lately, and thus I've had a hankering for a while now to balance it out by going the other way. I keep talking about trying a medium format camera, or something else where high quality is part of the point. Something at the other extreme from the phone. You know, so all the ballast isn't over on one side of the hold.

But I didn't know about the blowout price of the 5DS R until Jonathan mentioned it commenting on the "Hypothetical Camera Question" post.

To get a camera that used to cost $3,900 for $1,499 is almost more than my "cheap gene" can pass up. Of course it's not exactly cheap, because I don't need another camera and I know from experience I don't particularly like big SLRs. But I was willing to overlook that because...well, because I overlook practicality when GAS strikes! (If I'm honest.) And the 5DS R is best for one kind of photographer: people who print larger than 13x19". Which I don't. Yet.

Yet?! Be reasonable, Mike.

I think the only thing that will cure my GAS is when they RUN OUT of these. The 5DS's are already gone. Sure the 5DS R's won't be far behind?

I'm still out on the ledge, to be frank. I've been reading reviews for two days. Could it hurt to try it? Just try it? The two little figures on each of my shoulders are whispering into my ears. Don't do it...better hurry...don't do it...better hurry...aaaaaugh....

Mike

ADDENDUM in the light of day early Thursday morning: Take a look at a few pictures. I can't snag them and reproduce them here, so you'll have to click through and see them on flickr. (Left clicking on the link usually gives you an option to open them in a new tab, as you probably know.)

Just look at them holistically...do they work okay as pictures, notwithstanding whether you like them or not? Sharp enough, adequate detail, decent color, unobtrusive bokeh? Do they get across what the photographer was trying to show, do you think?

Cat picture by DizzieMizzieLizzie

HDR Storefront by Gordon McCallum

Small B&W object by Glen Bledsoe

Action shot by Youri Koliada

Kid pic by Gaétan 

We used to say "but how would they print?" except that these days, things usually print better than they look onscreen...we need to pixel peep to tease out the alleged flaws a little better. For instance, this shot by Glen Bledsoe isn't perfect, but it works perfectly well. Nobody minds the slight motion blur, which just indicates, well, motion. It's no worse than 98% of the pictures ever taken in similar situations on film.

Anyway, the upshot is that these were all taken by my current $264 lens, the Sigma 30mm Contemporary, and earlier versions* of my little Sony camera**. When sanity returns I realize I should just take pictures with that, and not get all swept up in the idea of a Canon 5DS R (just because it's "cheap") and EF 50mm ƒ/1.2L (which isn't cheap, except it's a good bargain used).

GAS crisis averted. But it was a close one!

*Respectively: A6500, A6000, A6500, A6000, A6000.

**The A6600.

Book o' the Week

Grit and Grace: Women at Work in the Emerging World. Unfortunately, this will be the posthumous swan song of the indefatigable documentarian Alison Wright, whose untimely death at 60 in the Azores this year meant she never got to see it published. Wright's photography was inextricably entwined with her life's dedication to social justice, a sense of acceptance of humanity, and a roving search for beauty and color.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Robert: "I have a rule which helps with GAS: 'when in doubt, don't.' If you have waited two days already you are in doubt."

Trevor Johnson: "I bought one from B&H last year. Although I live in the UK, the cost, including all duties, VAT and carriage, came to just under £1,400. And delivery from order to arrival at my doorstep took only three days.

"Why the 5DS R? Because I use the 17mm and 24mm Canon TSE lenses and the 5DS R is still the king of resolution when using them. I have used those lenses on an R5, but the 5DS R has a clear resolution advantage over the R5. It is quite simply a great camera, still extensively used in pro architectural photography."

Jim Kofron: "Buy 10. Think of the money you'll save!!!"

John Camp: "Maybe you don't do big digital prints, but you could—there are all kinds of online printers, and you can get like 24x36 for $65 bucks or so. And it's not like you'd buy a hundred of them, just one now and then when you hit something really good. If you think of yourself as a photographic writer, maybe you need a lot of cameras going through. But if you still foster a photographic picture-taking gene, you should have one good solid high-res camera, that basically you could keep forever."

Alberto Bengoa: "I was in the same boat with the recent closeout discount for the Fuji 50R, originally introduced at $4,500, now sold for $2,800 with a free lens. That's the same price I originally paid for a Canon 5D Mark II in 2009, with a (lackluster) lens thrown in. Long story short, I now own a Fuji 50R."

Ken Bennett: "Don't do it, Mike. Avoid the GAS attack. I have the 5DS and while it was a fine camera, it is nothing really special, and it's 10-year-old tech. The Fuji GFX stuff blows it away."

Tam: "I can’t blame you. I bought an open-box 5DS for something like eleven hundred a few years ago and it’s still my main work camera for product photography and landscapes and portraits and stuff. If you need ninja-level eye focus or ultimate dynamic range for amazing nightscapes there are certainly better choices these days. But if you just need a bangin’ camera body for the buck, it’s hard to beat the 5DS/5DS R."

Aaron: "I chased the high megapixel cameras (for me A7R Mark IV) because I kept thinking 'but what if I want to print large?' In reality I’ve printed larger than 13x19" exactly three times in 20 years of photography. All three are high detailed landscape photos printed at about 24x30 hanging throughout my house. They’re fantastic prints in my humble opinion. I’m still always proud of them every time I walk by. They were all taken with the original Canon 5D—12 MP! So I’ve decided to be happy with my more than capable Micro 4/3 cameras and let the A7R Mark IV go the way of my other completely unrealistic expectations of myself and my photography. (Now check back with me in three months and see if I’ve actually been able to make myself sell the Sony!)"

Bruce Alan Greene: "Go on…get the camera! I’ve been using the 5DS for four years. Bought a used one for…$2,600! It’s a great camera and not so big for me as I often use a 35mm ƒ/2.0 prime lens which is small and lightweight. With 50 MP, one can easily 'zoom' in Photoshop to 50mm or a bit more. Way lighter and smaller than a zoom on a mirror less camera.  :-)  And, dynamic range is better than the reviews describe and I’ve shot many photos at night hand held with success. At the very least, the price of admission will provide content for future stories here!"

Phil Aynsley: "I used the 5DS R professionally for many years, before switching to the R5. It is an excellent camera!"

Gordon R. Brown: "How much is a used Canon 5DS R selling for at Precision Camera in Austin, Texas? A recent Visual Science Lab blog post had pictures of the display cases there filled with used DSLRs that no one wanted. I suspect you could buy one there for less than the new price at B&H Photo."

[Link added by Ed.  —Ed.]

Geoff Wittig: "Hah. Don't do it, Mike. Don't get me wrong, I love the 5DS R. I own two of them, complete with battery grip, L-brackets and lots of lenses, and I still use them all the time. They still yield great results—with a giant asterix. You can get wonderful high resolution files that print beautifully right up to 24x36", if you work within its limits. This older sensor does not like high ISO; noise in the shadows is annoying by ISO 400. Any camera movement will instantly degrade the image, so you must have the camera bolted to a heavy, solid tripod; and use mirror lock-up with a cable release; and focus very carefully. The small apertures needed to maximize depth of field and the low ISO limits mean long shutter speeds, which in turn means waiting patiently for the wind to stop blowing before tripping the shutter. Oh, and it's big and heavy. So there's that. And it doesn't have IBIS. I don't think it will be a good match for your style of documentary, slice-of-life photography. If you didn't bond with the Nikon or Sony full-frame hi-res DSLRs, you won't like this one either."