Steve Brazill from Behind The Shot had a chance to interview our favourite Olympic photographer, Jeff Cable. If you remember, Jeff was one of the most active shooters on the web using the Canon EOS R3 at the Tokyo Games.
The discussion about the Canon EOS R3 begins around the 9:58 mark, which is where I have queued up on the video.
Jeff gives us some great insight into Canon's secrecy with pre-release cameras, as well as how the camera performed… A camera he ended up using for 99% of everything he shot at the Olympics. Jeff brought a couple of EOS R5s to shoot with, but the EOS R3 outperformed the EOS R5 for his workflow.
Connect with Jeff Cable:
- Website: https://www.jeffcable.com/
- Blog: https://blog.jeffcable.com/
- Instagram – https://instagram.com/jeffcablephotog…
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeffcablephoto
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/jcable12
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/jcable1234
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This is the internet where we debate over the opinions of YouTubers who never touched the camera.
I can turn around 20 images from a 3,000 shot event in a hour (not the 14 minutes Jeff can but thats why he is successful and I am here) using Lightroom. I can also spend two days processing a single 'hero' shot for a discerning client.
Stupid influencers....
It’s a long video, but I’d urge anyone remotely interested in either the R3 or in sports, action or wildlife photography to take the time to watch and listen.
Amazing photography and fascinating insights from multi-talented Jeff Cable, and great interviewing by Steve Brazill.
Plus his comments are very positive towards the camera. He went to the Olympics figuring he would use it some of the time along with his R5, but ended up using it 99% of the time. When asked to compare the R3 and the actual flagship DSLR, he could come up with only one thing he liked better in the 1DX III - the two CF express cards. He considered the R3 and mirrorless essentially better in every other way. His need for fast turnaround only reinforced the reality that most sports shooters are quite happy with 24 MP. So, up against real-life experience, all the whiners would look pretty foolish with their constant negativity.
....no buzzterm is used like "RF aps-c body", "24mp" or R1. ;)
Different photographers have different needs. Everything Jeff Cable said made perfect sense from the point of view of a successful (and reasonably wealthy) professional photographer.
Professional sports and wildlife photographers will usually have access to ultra-expensive long primes such as 600mm F4 or 800mm F5.6. Combined with their need to process and transmit images rapidly, it makes sense the have a relatively low MP camera.
But for most amateurs, unless they are very wealthy, the reality is that they can’t afford these long primes - they are generally using shorter and more affordable lenses such as 100-400mm zooms, which necessitate the need for heavier cropping. Also amateurs in most cases just don’t have the close access that a press pass provides. So many would argue that more MP and more cropping is often the only solution.
My point was that we all have different needs, and that when choosing kit we should avoid being misled by advertising hype, and instead carefully analyse what we actually *need* and can afford for our own particular subject types and styles of operation.
It’s probably true that most photographers need no more than 15-20MP. But there are many including myself who genuinely need high MP for at least some of our work. I could easily get away with 20MP for 90% of my work, but I need higher resolution for the other 10%.
Another way of looking at it is that it’s better to have too much than too little, both in terms of megapixels and overall specification. We might be getting absolutely satisfactory photographs with a relatively low res machine, but it’s good to have something “in reserve” for those occasions when more is needed.
The only issue I have with high MP cameras, as Jeff Cable also pointed out, is that it would be extremely useful if the user could select different FF resolutions on any particular camera. A camera that could switch between 24, 48 and 96 MP would be rather nice.
:)