The annual Royal easter show is a long standing Sydney institution bringing the country to the city for a grand two week spectacle.
This year I took my Canon EOS R5 with just two lenses, the RF 50mm f1.8 and the RF 16mm f2.8. Both these lenses have been panned by some reviewers and some contributors to user forums who are more concerned with theoretical minutiae than with actual results in real world settings.
Either of these lenses (they appear to use the same outer housing) on the R5 provides a very light, compact package which is no more conspicuous than a smartphone but delivers excellent results if used thoughtfully.
Reviewers have pointed out (correctly) that neither of these lenses delivers high peripheral resolution at the widest aperture and neither allows backgrounds to be rendered very soft when compared to lenses with a wider base aperture.
But for documentary style photographs neither of these considerations is important. Most of the time I want everything in the frame sharp. This usually means closing down the aperture to f11 on the 50mm and f5.6-f8 on the 16mm.
At these apertures both lenses deliver impressive sharpness and resolution across the frame, except for the extreme corners in the case of the 16mm.
The R5 is an ideal body as it can render unto the files a huge amount of information yet is compact, fast and a pleasure to use. When set up properly it allows the user to switch rapidly from Av to Tv to M as required by the moment and to rapidly control all aspects of exposure and focus for consistently optimal results.
With many of the shots reproduced here I “pre-framed” the shot in my mind then lifted the camera up like a smartphone and made a few exposures in a second or two, mostly looking at the subject rather than the camera. The final result can be a bit of a lottery but that comes with this type of photography.
I have tried to make pictures which convey the crowds, the noise and the sensory overload of the occasion. Something like “The garden of earthly delights” by Hieronymous Bosch but without the more explicit sexual elements.
