Fashion photographer Ian Hippolyte is particularly smitten with the possibilities offered by the Canon EOS R5's Face/Eye Detection. "The thing that stands out to me is the eye and face tracking. It just makes my life so much easier." This picture of multidisciplinary dancer, artist and musician Tyrone Isaac-Stuart was taken on a Canon EOS R5 with a Canon Mount Adapter EF-EOS R and a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens at 1/4 sec, f/8 and ISO160. © Ian Hippolyte
There's a lot to be said for keeping up with technology. Maintaining a close eye on the latest innovations can provide creative possibilities that expand horizons and advance your techniques. A new piece of kit can help get you where you want to go quicker and make feasible something previously seen as impossible.
For London-based fashion photographer Ian Hippolyte, keeping things current is a constant throughout his career. As a child, he eagerly sought out the latest kit to improve his early videos. His preference for the contemporary served him well – over 80,000 YouTube followers will testify to that.
His biggest switch so far has been to migrate from Canon DSLRs to the mirrorless EOS R System but, he admits, it was far easier than he had originally imagined. "Coming from DSLR to mirrorless seemed like a big jump at first, but when I actually used the mirrorless camera, I found it wasn't," Ian says. "It felt very familiar. I've been using Canon for years, so it was natural for me to stick with Canon and move to mirrorless. The transition has been completely smooth."
Ian previously opted for the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV paired with a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens, but his recent experience of using the Canon EOS R5 with the Canon RF 28-70mm F2L USM left such an impression that the switch was made permanent.
"It feels like the future. It feels updated," he says. "The body is smaller, so it feels less cumbersome to hold. But there's also the image quality. I knew I was going to get great image quality and the colours were going to be strong, vibrant and true to life."