Full disclosure, Canon Asia is the sponsor of the TV show I’m on and I do a lot of work with them. However, they have never asked me to write any reviews of their products and I was a Canon user long before my TV show every happened.
I’m not a very technical guy so I don’t discuss much on technical specs nor will you find any charts, Bunsen burners, or lab coats in my reviews. I go off of feel, intuition and real assignment experience.
A little bit about me, I work independently as a photojournalist (most notably for The New York Times), I own a destination wedding photography business, and a commercial photography and video production studio. You can see all my work here.
For the sake of simplicity I made the review revolve around resort photography(even though I use it for all my commercial photography), but I’m sure you can see the benefits of it in numerous genres of photography.
Why I Bought It?
I purchased the 5DS R solely for my commercial business. We shoot a lot of luxury resorts all over Asia and beyond and I was looking for a high-resolution camera for these shoots. The 5DS R packs 50mp on a full frame sensor so you can see the appeal. I wanted a camera with great files because I’m always looking for more details and beautiful colors and when my clients need to print the images huge, I want those images to look stunning.
The Good
The best thing about this camera is the delicious files it produces. You still need to take nice pictures with your eye and brain but if you do get a nice shot you will be wildly impressed with the file, wow, just wow. The details and colors are like no camera I’ve ever used before, simply amazing.
For resorts I shoot a lot of inside out, meaning balancing light in a gorgeous room with the rooms view of the beach. You could always light the room and expose for the outside but I’m all about natural light and I try to avoid artificial lighting at all costs to maintain a sense of reality. The camera has a built in HDR mode, like a lot of new cameras, but I still prefer to get one middle ground exposure and then move the file in post production to get a more natural feel. The files on this camera can move a ton in post-production without compromising quality.
Here is a sample of a room shot we did for Intercontinental Pattaya, no artificial lighting at all we just ran the image through processing twice in Lightroom. This is all from one file, this isn’t a multiple exposure.
For cropping, you can crop in so close and the files still look amazing, see below. This comes in handy more than you think. This image was shot last week for Intercontinental Sun Peninsula Danang.
The Bad
It’s not as fast at processing as the Canon 5D Mark 3 or obviously the 1Dx series but I don’t need it to be. If you are firing off shots quickly the camera lags a little bit and takes that extra second to buffer. Put it up against medium format cameras and I’m sure it crushes them. If you are use to a performance action camera like the above mentioned the one extra second it takes will annoy you a little bit at the beginning but you’ll get over it.
The other thing is this camera is not a beast in low light. You can’t crank it up to 4K or 8K ISO like the 1D and expect the files to be crisp. It’s not horrible in low light but obviously it doesn’t compare to the Canon 5DM3 or the 1DX series.
This camera eats memory because the files are gigantic. It’s not a huge deal but get used to big files.
Ok this isn’t really the camera’s fault but I shoot predominantly with primes so I use a two two-body camera system. This camera destroys others with the files and I couldn’t match it up with others so went back to shooting with one camera at a time.
Some Advice
Buy the fastest cards you can get, I am a huge fan of SanDisk cards. Pay the extra money for the fastest cards, time is money.
I don’t recommend this camera as a one camera for wedding photography because the files are so huge and unnecessary but if you dial down the file size to Camera RAW medium then it becomes a fantastic number 2 camera, I use it all the time.
Who Needs This Camera
Obviously anyone working in commercial photography will love this camera, but it’s not just for professionals. Anyone interested in fashion, portraiture, pre-wedding, landscape, fine-art, food photography, basically anyone that loves color and fine details at any level will adore this camera.
Conclusion
I’d buy this camera again and again. Even when I shoot commercially I’m rolling around in the sand, dirt, trees, etc. so I’ve put this camera through the stress test and after over 100,000 shots and it still performs flawlessly. It’s a medium format camera packed into a DSLR body and not at a budget breaking medium format price. If you love gorgeous colors, printing your images, and fine details you will be hooked on this camera the second you load the files into your computer.
I use to hate when people say to me, wow those are nice images you must have a great camera. I have to admit that still annoys me but with the 5DS R I do have to give credit where credit is due.
Here are some of my favorite images, all shot with the 5DS R, from my commercial assignment last week for Intercontinental Hotels at Intercontinental Sun Peninsula Danang.
To see more images shot with the 5DS R please visit Mott Visuals.
5DS R Specs
• 50.6MP Full-Frame CMOS Sensor
• Dual DIGIC 6 Image Processors
• Low-Pass Filter Effect Cancellation
• 3.2″ 1.04m-Dot ClearView II LCD Monitor
• Full HD 1080p Video Recording at 30 fps
• 61-Point High Density Reticular AF
• ISO 100-6400; 5 fps Continuous Shooting
• 150,000-Pixel RGB+IR Metering Sensor
• User-Selectable Shutter Release Time Lag
• Anti-Flicker Compensation
Coming to a company to take photos of management and staff a photographer is not always met with great enthusiasm.
I feel the corporate photos are often seen as a nuisance or a chore during a busy day – and of course there is often the thought “I hope the photographer makes me look good, after all I a not a model.”
Also I often can see clients being skeptical why they should spent money on headshots or staff portraits – after all someone in the company has good camera too.
Over the past 8 years or so I have taken a lot of corporate portraits in and outside of Vietnam. Based upon this experience my little checklist below on corporate portrait shoots:
Who? Your company’s capital and greatest asset, your staff
Why Corporate Portrait Photography? Your employees are your capital / they are the face of your company
How? Professional photographer, make up (we always suggest one of our make-up artists – so your staff look professional and feel good), good light (we usually bring 2 profoto strobes) , fast (we spent time casting the location and setting up light, so the shoot does not cut too much time out of your busy schedule)
What? Headshots, natural portraits , in corporate environment – these are just some options – we like to sit down with you and have a chat to find out your needs
When? Morning, Thursday – well this is my preferred time for many reasons – earlier in the week people are busy catching up on work, Friday people might be busy finishing things. Morning is good as people tend to look fresher then afternoons and if your office has big windows or outdoor space we can probably even catch some gorgeous sunlight – having said that we are of course totally flexible on timing – in the end it is up to you.
Where? – at your office – if there is a bit space we can set up an impromptu studio – if you want to shoot at other places or in a studio of course that is also possible – again we like to have a chat first to figure out what you really need.
Also – who says corporate portraits cannot be fun?
Christian Berg is a documentary photographer working in Southeast Asia since 2008 – he joined Mott Visuals to run the Saigon Office in 2014 and has since then worked on photo and video shoots all over Southeast Asia and beyond. His work has been published for example in the New York Times and the Wallstreet Journal. For inquiries please contact chris@mottvisuals.com
Tet, or Lunar New Year , is approaching in Vietnam and if you know the region, you know that this is truly the end of the business year.
We opened the Mott Visuals Saigon office in late 2014 but we fully got it running right after last Tet (February 2015) – so it has been pretty much exactly one year now – a good time to take a look back and see what has happened.
We built up a great team including a full time producer, junior producer and a growing network of freelancers. We also renovated and refurbished the office so it looks pretty sexy now:
In terms of work we did a wide range of jobs ranging from corporate portrait shoots:
to full video productions
This video for Comfort we produced for Ogilvy Vietnam ranked number 3 in the Campaign Viral chart in September 2015.
We did quite some work in the area of food photography
as well as Hotel Photography
and got commissioned a great Project with Unicef all over Vietnam including photo and video
We supported our Hanoi team with a video shoot for IHG in Dubai
We shot on land, under water and up in the air
It was an exciting year – we look forward for the year to come!
Happy new year of the Monkey!
Christian Berg is a documentary photographer working in Southeast Asia since 2008 – he joined Mott Visuals to run the Saigon Office in 2014 and has since then worked on photo and video shoots all over Southeast Asia and beyond. His work has been published for example in the New York Times and the Wallstreet Journal. For inquiries please contact chris@mottvisuals.com
I’m a bag for every occasion photographer and my assignments are extremely diverse so that adds up to a lot of different bags. I was given a pre-release version of theCommander backpack and was asked to field-test it by Wotancraft. I love getting my hands on their new products because they are always making improvements and all their bags are just so damn sexy.
I was commissioned by Asian Development Bank for a weeklong documentary project in the northern mountains of Vietnam. We would be traveling through treacherous terrain and rainy weather photographing some of their projects benefiting remote ethnic minority communities. We would be doing some hiking so a backpack is ideal for comfort on the long days, this would be a perfect test for the Commander.
I’ll start with the pure beauty of this bag, as with all their bags it has that signature stylish look with the vegetable tanned leather and their new lightweight water repellant canvas. Most bags take years to have that cool broken in look but Wotancraft bags come with that look already. It feels like cheating but whatever, the bottom line is they look great. The bag doesn’t scream camera bag filled with expensive equipment, which is a blessing. It just looks like a rugged stylish backpack but of course it is much more than that. I packed the bag with the following; Canon 5D Mark 3, Canon 6D, Canon 24mm 1.4, 50mm 1.2, 16-35mm 2.8, and a 200mm 2.8 and plenty of memory cards and extra batteries. That’s a lot of gear and I was nervous it would feel heavy but it felt great on my back and shoulders throughout the trip.
The inserts are quite interesting and unique in their set up. It has a top loading option and two side compartments. The side loading pockets took some getting use to but once I adapted I really loved the option to get my extra lenses from the side pocket. It has a natural feel when you take the backpack off to rest it on your knee and then bam, your side pocket is right there.
We tested the bag in the heavy rain and the only time my equipment got wet was when I couldn’t resist shooting in the rain, when my gear was in the bag it stayed dry and protected from the elements.
If I had to add an improvement for the next generation of this bag I’d say it would be nice to have a little padding on the body contact points on the shoulder harness but overall I love this bag. It’s great to see Wotancraft come out with its first backpack and now the more adventurous photographer can travel in comfort and in style.
Here are some specs on the bag from Wotancraft along with pictures from the assignment.
Mott Visuals | Commercial Blog 