DSLR Reviews

The hot topic for serious shooters going into the New Year: Should you stick with the traditional DSLR system that has served you splendidly, or opt for one of the latest mirrorless compact system cameras that promises to deliver the full interchangeable lens shooting experience in a smaller, lighter package?

On face value, this would seem to be a silly challenge and in many ways, it is. But silly is good and Jim Goldstein of All Things Photo offers this fun and interesting video comparison between the then cutting edge Canon D2000 from 1998 and today’s Canon 5DS R, a modern 50-megapixel full frame monster.

The Pentax K-S2 offers a more classical handling and design concept than its predecessor with a standard mode dial on the top and two setup dials for exposure parameters (one near the shutter release button, the second on the back of the camera). For menu navigation, it offers a standard control field, which uses four buttons to navigate or to select functions such as white balance, ISO speed, and shooting mode.

The new Canon EOS 5DS DSLR offers the first full-frame sensor camera with image resolution higher than 50MP. The camera is the successor of the Canon EOS 5D Mark III, which uses a 22MP sensor and was introduced in 2012. Canon offers the new EOS 5D series in two versions: the 5DS uses a standard low-pass filter to prevent moiré effects while the 5DS R uses a “low-pass filter cancellation” system, which means it doesn’t remove the filter from in front of the sensor but uses a filter system without a low-pass effect. We tested the “standard” EOS 5DS version.

Shutterbug was fortunate enough to secure a loan of a pre-production version of the much-anticipated EOS 5DS R DSLR for testing and we were off and running with it as soon as it arrived. You’ve no doubt read our earlier report about this camera and its nearly identical twin the 5DS, each boasting a whopping 50.6MP full-frame sensor, which makes them the world’s highest resolution full-frame DSLRs

The new 24.2-megapixel Nikon D7200 replaces the D7100, which came out in 2013, and offers several upgrades and modernizations to that popular APS-C-sensor-based enthusiast DSLR.

The Sony A77 II is the replacement for the A77, which made its debut in 2011. The A77 II uses a new image sensor with 6000x4000 pixels (same resolution as the A77) that, while sharing the same resolution as its forerunner, does have a new micro lens system that captures more light on each single pixel/diode of the sensor. This helps raise the maximum ISO to 25,600 and to 51,200 as a “push.” In contrast to some other new advanced cameras, the APS-C sensor in the Sony A77 II uses a low-pass filter to prevent moiré effects.