I've used both a lot. The D850 will allow you to pull shadows significantly better. It has marginally fewer pixels but actually resolves detail slightly better.
I shoot Canon so I'll vote 5DsR. Haven't used either but D850 is supposed to have the low is DR everyone has been obsessing over on here in recent years it seems. Might not be too different past 400 iso though.
Which isn't to say that the 5DsR doesn't have enough. All cameras have DR, and you can pick up shadows on all of them. The 5DsR has been a bargain lately, and I might look at the 5Ds due to higher iso settings
AmbientMike wrote:
I shoot Canon so I'll vote 5DsR. Haven't used either but D850 is supposed to have the low is DR everyone has been obsessing over on here in recent years it seems. Might not be too different past 400 iso though.
Which isn't to say that the 5DsR doesn't have enough. All cameras have DR, and you can pick up shadows on all of them. The 5DsR has been a bargain lately, and I might look at the 5Ds due to higher iso settings
The D850 has excellent DR - one of the best sensors. The shadow recovery is also far superior - I know both from experience and you can see both of these facts very easily from the Photons to Photons site.
Honestly, it really doesn't matter. Both are excellent cameras. I happen to use the 5DsR, but I have a good friend who got the Nikon system when he want to Antarctica to teach some workshops and needed something smaller than what he usually uses.
No one will ever be able to tell which system you used by looking at your photographs.
If you are a Nikon person, stick with what you know.
bernardl wrote:
There are applications where both cameras will perform well.
There are applications where the much superior DR of the D850 will save the day.
This has been known for years.
There are almost no situations in which the either camera's slight differences in performance will "save the day."
As a person who uses multiple brands, systems, and formats I can tell you that either of these cameras is going to have plenty of DR, and that the other differences are really minimal. (I have not had to do an exposure blend since I've had the 5DsR.)
When it comes to DR, you'll find yourself in one of three situations with a given photograph:
1. The dynamic range of the subject is well within the capabilities of virtually any camera. This is the most typical situation.
2. The dynamic range is larger than that of essentially any modern camera that we're likely to have. This is the second most likely scenario. No matter what camera you use, you'll need to find ways to deal with this situation.
3. The dynamic range of the subject is too great for one camera that you might use but another otherwise equivalent alternative has just enough extra DR to make the shot work. This is the outlier of the bunch. It happens, but it is quite rare.
Regarding #3, also keep in mind that DR ranges do not provide hard limits on what you and cannot do. It isn't like (to make up an example) the camera will work with 10 stops of DR but fail with 10.5. There is essentially a roll-off in performance that manifests as perhaps a bit more noise in the frame (and a slightly increased amount of NR in post) in some areas of the frame, but the difference is typically so small that you would not be able to notice it.
There's a lot of mythology built up about these things, and "motivated reasoning" often plays a pretty big role in how it is perceived. If it were really the case that system A was miles beyond system B, we'd see this clearly in the photographs made with the two systems — e.g. you'd walk into a gallery, look at the images, and exclaim, "Ah! Obviously THAT one was done with System A!"
But it doesn't work that way.
System choice involves a whole bunch of parameters, not just a single soft datapoint about something like DR. Your feelings about the brand and the specific system weigh heavily. (They also play into the motivated reasoning about other factors.) What you and your friends/cohorts are familiar with makes a difference.
Fortunately, in the end, you'll find that there are outstanding photographers producing excellent work of all sorts using every one of these systems in all sorts of variations of mirrorless/DSLR, format, and more...
... and if you waked into a gallery full of large prints from all of them you would be completely unable to tell which came from which of them.
The 5DsR is a very competent camera, and it produces excellent image quality. This is also true of the excellent comparable cameras from Nikon. If you are already comfortable with one of these brands, and especially if you are already invested in lenses and other accessories, stick with the brand you have. Worry less about brands and specs, and focus more on the visual aspects of your photography.
cpe1991 wrote:
The D850 has excellent DR - one of the best sensors. The shadow recovery is also far superior - I know both from experience and you can see both of these facts very easily from the Photons to Photons site.
gdanmitchell wrote:
There are almost no situations in which the either camera's slight differences in performance will "save the day."
As a person who uses multiple brands, systems, and formats I can tell you that either of these cameras is going to have plenty of DR, and that the other differences are really minimal. (I have not had to do an exposure blend since I've had the 5DsR.)
When it comes to DR, you'll find yourself in one of three situations with a given photograph:
1. The dynamic range of the subject is well within the capabilities of virtually any camera. This is the most typical situation.
2. The dynamic range is larger than that of essentially any modern camera that we're likely to have. This is the second most likely scenario. No matter what camera you use, you'll need to find ways to deal with this situation.
3. The dynamic range of the subject is too great for one camera that you might use but another otherwise equivalent alternative has just enough extra DR to make the shot work. This is the outlier of the bunch. It happens, but it is quite rare.
Regarding #3, also keep in mind that DR ranges do not provide hard limits on what you and cannot do. It isn't like (to make up an example) the camera will work with 10 stops of DR but fail with 10.5. There is essentially a roll-off in performance that manifests as perhaps a bit more noise in the frame (and a slightly increased amount of NR in post) in some areas of the frame, but the difference is typically so small that you would not be able to notice it.
There's a lot of mythology built up about these things, and "motivated reasoning" often plays a pretty big role in how it is perceived. If it were really the case that system A was miles beyond system B, we'd see this clearly in the photographs made with the two systems — e.g. you'd walk into a gallery, look at the images, and exclaim, "Ah! Obviously THAT one was done with System A!"
But it doesn't work that way.
System choice involves a whole bunch of parameters, not just a single soft datapoint about something like DR. Your feelings about the brand and the specific system weigh heavily. (They also play into the motivated reasoning about other factors.) What you and your friends/cohorts are familiar with makes a difference.
Fortunately, in the end, you'll find that there are outstanding photographers producing excellent work of all sorts using every one of these systems in all sorts of variations of mirrorless/DSLR, format, and more...
... and if you waked into a gallery full of large prints from all of them you would be completely unable to tell which came from which of them.
The 5DsR is a very competent camera, and it produces excellent image quality. This is also true of the excellent comparable cameras from Nikon. If you are already comfortable with one of these brands, and especially if you are already invested in lenses and other accessories, stick with the brand you have. Worry less about brands and specs, and focus more on the visual aspects of your photography.
What modern Nikon/Sony do you have extended first hand experience with if I may ask?
As far as I recall all the excellent images I saw you publish were all captured with Canon bodies and very much felt like you were concentrating on situations were DR would not be an issue.
Concentrating on one's photography is certainly an excellent piece of advise but it is IMHO simply misleading to claim that DR isn’t relevant or that all cameras perform the same. All my friends shooting Sony come from Canon and they all left because of insufficient DR.
The issue is so real that Canon themselves decided to bake in NR in the low ISO raw files of their mirrorless bodies.
Frankly the only reasonable advice at this point in time is to guide people towards the better performing camera and that is clearly the D850.
The 5DS/R has plenty of DR, the only downside is, without RAW histograms, it isn't easy to maximize the DR of any camera given a specific scene exposure. If you just rely on JPEG blinkies, the D850 will let you to recover from a "sub-optimal" exposure much easier than the 5DSR. You could probably go down the Unity WB route, but most people don't seem to enjoy pink casts on their image previews.
Daniel Smith wrote:
Am looking at getting a higher MP camera for some work. At times I do need to adjust shadow detail more than I like.
Both of these cameras are good with the Nikon being newer.
Looking mainly at lower ISO settings - other than night Northern Light photos at 1600 ISO.
Will the Nikon do a cleaner job for this than the 5DsR?
No going to be enlarging to 30 inches and bigger so not really a consideration. Just whether one will give me cleaner images than the other.
For shadow lifting, the 5DsR is at a disadvantage to the D850. You can use the comparison widget herehttps://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-5ds-sr/10 to see if this disadvantage is relevant to your requirements.
The 5DsR's disadvantage in shadow lifting comes courtesy of it's older sensor design (off-chip AD conversion). The Sony sensor of the D850, and indeed its predecessors starting at the D800, enjoyed on-chip column AD conversion technology which Sony acquired from Aptina in a patent swap in the early twenty tens IIRC.
What modern Nikon/Sony do you have extended first hand experience with if I may ask?
As far as I recall all the excellent images I saw you publish were all captured with Canon bodies and very much felt like you were concentrating on situations were DR would not be an issue.
Concentrating on one's photography is certainly an excellent piece of advise but it is IMHO simply misleading to claim that DR isn’t relevant or that all cameras perform the same. All my friends shooting Sony come from Canon and they all left because of insufficient DR.
The issue is so real that Canon themselves decided to bake in NR in the low ISO raw files of their mirrorless bodies.
Frankly the only reasonable advice at this point in time is to guide people towards the better performing camera and that is clearly the D850.
I know. We're all supposed to keep the ISO below 400 (since that's apparently where you get the DR advantage) and ignore the glaring holes in Sony like an apparently mediocre 70-200/2.8 until recently. Canon's excellent v2 came out in 2010, long before the A7 series even existed. Nikon probably similar. Not to mention the lack 300/2.8 & 500/4, among others. People got so excited about Sony 400/2.8. Nikon's came out in 1985.
I have a term for high DR conditions, in general. Bad light. The golden hour became the golden hour in part because it didn't require DR. You could get much better photos on film. I shoot plenty mid day, but I feel like I'm probably going to get better stuff in the golden hour and try to shoot landscapes then. But if your friends are interested in shooting mid day, and sitting in front of a computer, I can't really stop them.
Haven't used either but D850 is supposed to have the low is DR everyone has been obsessing over on here in recent years it seems. Might not be too different past 400 iso though.