So for some reason, I've felt the tug to dive back into DSLRs, and after picking up some nice EF glass and my 5D II, I wanted a more modern serious body to use, and I was thinking I'd eventually get a 5D IV. But after looking around for a while, it's quite hard to find low mileage bodies in excellent condition for reasonable prices. Every once in a while one pops up (like one that sold here before I had traded in a few older items to free up cash), but overall, it's a challenge.
But then I started looking at the 5Ds / 5DsR. I had dismissed these earlier because I remembered them as still being dynamic range challenged, which they are a bit compared to modern bodies, but I downloaded some RAW files that were taken in very high contrast situations (including the one used in the 'real world DR comparison' at DPReview here: https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-5ds-sr/11 ), where the shadows required probably 3-4 stops of pushing to balance the exposure - and while sure, there's a good bit of noise there when you do that, due to the high resolution, there's also still quite a lot of detail as well.
Processed with modern software and was extremely pleased to see that even the super challenging image above, it cleaned up beautifully with both DxO Photo Lab and Photoshop's denoise, yielding very detailed images with still good tonality in those shadows.
Here's that image from DPReview - Raw on Import and a quick process with DxO:
100% crop of shadow area after processing:
So I went around to my local shops, and Midwest Photo had a near mint 5DsR with just 27,000 clicks on it, for a reasonable price. I haven't had a chance to really put it through its paces yet, but in my shots around the house, the improvement over the 5D II is very evident, with much more flexibility in the files, and of course a lot of creature comforts. Since I won't be using this kit for action shooting, losing DPAF in live view wasn't a big deal vs. the 5D IV, and I think I'm really going to enjoy using this body. Not sure when I'll really get to stretch its legs, but I'm going to use it quite a bit.
My new (to me) 5DsR:
Jun 26, 2026 at 06:04 PM
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