Be Careful What You Wish For

Canon 5DS, Canon 24-70mm f/4L IS USM at 24mm, 1/8sec at f/11, ISO 800

The problem with a full time job is it leaves only the weekends to indulge our hobby at this time of year. With the last two weekends having bad weather and the good one prior to that being otherwise engaged, the trigger finger is in danger of seizing up. So I was glad I took the opportunity to take an afternoon off and spend it at Kimmeridge Bay in company with David Noton and fourteen other F11 members. Also along was Rob Cook from Canon UK with a boot full of cameras and lenses for us to try out.
The main cameras on offer were the Canon 5DS and 5DS R, along with a selection of lenses. My preference was to try the 5DS with both the 24-70 f2.8 and 24-70 f4 L series lenses. All I had to provide was a tripod and memory cards.
Both of these cameras boast 50 megapixel sensors and consequently record amazing detail, something we all want. But apart from the financial side of owning one of these, there are a number of costs to bear in mind. First and foremost is an absolute need to be spot on with focussing, anything slightly off will be readily seen. For that reason, it is a good plan to use high shutter speeds too and that is a luxury that we don't always have.
Supposing we have that aspect nailed, when we get back in front of the computer, the next set of costs hit home. The resulting file sizes are obviously huge and that extends the time it takes to download the images, to deal with them once you have them in your software of choice and finally it massively increases the amount of storage required.
The quality that can be achieved is beyond doubt, but is the price worth paying?