The Maeda House with the Canon EOS R5

Maeda house
The Maeda house entrance.

The Maeda House is one of my (many) favorite places in Tokyo. Do you need some proof? Well, this is the third time I’ve featured it on the blog. The first two times were with a Fujifilm camera. I had to do it again now that I have a Canon EOS R5! How would it work inside a historic building? I wanted that answer. Here we go.

marquise's purple room
Toshinari's favorite color was purple?

Have you seen my older article about the Maeda House? With those monochrome pictures, you couldn’t see the true interior. You could only guess or assume.  In my first color shots, some of the rooms are quite vivid.

I bet the house looked incredible during the pre-War period. Toshinari Maeda’s wealth would have been filled with beautiful furniture and fittings. You can still see some of them. The dining room has cutlery and crockery.

luxury dining room crockery in display case
Some of the Marquis's crockery.
dining room fireplace
The dining room fireplace.

How did the Canon EOS R5 perform at the Maeda House?

It was amazing. That’s all I can say. The way it renders colors is spot on. I get why people like Canon colors. They are pleasing.

Maeda House drawing room
The drawing room.
maeda house study
The study.

The ISO performance was also good. Previously if it got anywhere near 2500 I’d get nervous. Getting too much noise in my photos was anathema. At the Maeda house, I went to 4000 and got good results. I’ll need to push it higher soon. Hopefully, I can find a night festival before the end of the year.

The only problem I had was the lens. The 24-105 mm was too long. For indoor architecture, wider is needed. That’s okay. I’ll get something like a 10-18 mm which I’m sure would be perfect.

Is the house worth visiting?

If you are into architectural photography or history, it is. Why?

  • It is one of the few Tudor-style buildings in Tokyo, which alone gives it value. 
  • The man who created it, Toshinari Maeda served important roles in Japan until he died in 1943. In fact, his clan played a huge part in Japanese history.
  • The house is beautiful. It is an awesome piece of architecture from pre-WW2 Japan.
guest room with fireplace
Guest room with fireplace.

Conclusion

The Canon EOS R5 performed well. By that I mean it was perfect. It’s a first-class camera. The only thing holding me back is the lack of lenses. It’ll take time to get those, but that’ll happen.

To learn more about the Maeda House, look at:

External related websites:

2 thoughts on “The Maeda House with the Canon EOS R5”

  1. Nice work with the Canon R5! I wouldn’t say this unless it were true, but these newer photo sets are demonstrably better. That said, I’m betting your next camera will be a Pentax → Fuji → Canon → Nikon!

    1. Thanks for the kind words David, they were much appreciated. The R5 is a star performer, it’s head and shoulders above the Fujifilm X-T3 in most departments. Image quality is incredible. The only thing where Fujfilm can’t be beaten is “ease of use”. You do everything with dials which makes using it so fast. It’s so tactile. Muscle memory takes over and your hands know where to go. Your eyes never leave the subject. Canon is all menus which slows things down (or maybe I don’t know how to use it properly yet!). And as for Nikon … I can’t see that happening!

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