Travel & Humanitarian Photos
My good friend and fellow professional photographer Barry Mann is the proud new owner of a Canon EOS 5D MKII and has kindly given his first impressions of the new camera.
Barry runs a commercial and low-level aerial photography business in the UK and is also an accomplished travel photographer in his spare time (check out his images of Lesotho). He’s also, for the record, a thoroughly nice bloke.
Photographers who insist upon playing “mine’s bigger than yours” blanch when they see Barry turn up in his customised Mercedes van with its 22 metre mast on the roof.
As a working photographer, quality is crucial to Barry so I was keen to see how he felt the 5D MKII performed. Read on…
As the owner and user of two of the original Canon 5D cameras, I had been following the launch of the long awaited 5D Mk2 with great interest. If Canon had the ability to improve upon the original with upgraded features, I for one was keen to get my hands on one, even more so after reading the initial pre-production model reviews.
Having decided to take the plunge and put my name on a waiting list, my new camera finally arrived last Friday. A week later I’ve had a few opportunities to work with it and test out some of the key features.
Since I know a lot of people out there are desperate to know whether it is worth the hefty £2,300 price tag, here are my first impressions of the 5D Mk2
The 5D Mk2 feels more robust than the original, although size and weight are actually very similar, no doubt it’s the magnesium alloy coating which gives this feel. One thing I have found strange though has been shooting without a battery grip. I find with the 5D that this gives better balance and flexibility so I am looking forward to receiving this in due course. I am not sure why this, along with spare batteries, could not have been made available at the same time the camera itself was shipped. No doubt Canon’s desire to get their camera into the market place before Christmas played a part in this.
The 3” display on the back of camera is fantastic, providing crisp bright detailed images & an enhanced selection of information regarding the image. An automatic light meter adjusts the brightness of the display based on the ambient lighting conditions and this is a great help in checking images in bright conditions.
Another noticeable improvement is the brightness of the viewfinder and the inclusion of the battery status and ISO speed within it is a definite plus.
Now very much like its bigger brother’s the menu system is easy to navigate and I have very quickly adjusted to the different menu screens and settings.
One addition I personally like is the ability to turn off the 1/3 increments in the ISO settings, allowing me to only use 100, 200, 400 etc, which saves time rather than scrolling through the intermediate ISO settings that I never use.
There are many other custom function enhancements and no doubt I will get a chance to test these in due course.
Much has been said about the improved ISO settings of the 5D Mk2. Having carried out some initial testing I can say that the noise levels at higher ISO settings are much improved. Without the RAW converter in Lightroom being updated to include the 5D Mk2 Camera RAW files I have so far been limited to looking at the JPEG files but a quick comparison of these in low light conditions have been impressive.
If you look at the sample images, which incidentally have had no form of noise reduction at all, I think you are gaining around two stops. Previously 800 would have been the limit I would use, but now I think 3200 looks like it could be acceptable. Great for shooting without flash inside which I would imagine would be a great benefit to wedding photographers.
Would I use the higher expanded ISO settings? Probably not, although I will have another look at them once the Camera RAW files are updated in Lightroom to include the 5D Mk2 and see what noise reduction software does to them.
This was another of the big selling points for me. A 21mp camera producing files large enough for provision straight to image libraries. This will save the need for any upsizing of images and a quick conversion of some of those taken so far shows that it is giving 60mb tiff files well above 48-50mb required at the moment by image libraries.
As mentioned above, my initial reviews I have been of jpeg images as Canon’s Digital Photo Professional software just doesn’t do it for me. I am quite happy to wait until Lightroom is upgraded to take a look at the RAW files. JPEG images do appear quite contrasty even though I have been shooting in faithful mode, with no colour, sharpening or contrast adjustments in-camera. This may of course be more down to the subjects and conditions though and as is the way with Canon DSLRs, images do appear a touch soft and require some sharpening.
A small selection of images captured with the 5D Mk2 can be seen below with additional images at http://www.barrymannphotography.com/5dmk2.html.
I thought this was one area that was going to be a vast improvement over the original 5D and it may yet prove to be but, having used the camera for a week, there are already dust spots which are not removed when the automatic sensor cleaning takes place. Maybe I was expecting miracles here and I have to admit to it being rather windy when I was out shooting on a couple of days but as far as I am concerned the jury is definitely still out here.
I currently do a lot of remote shooting, using the Canon software to capture images directly on to my laptop, usually with the camera sat on top of a 22m mast! Now I know this won’t be relevant to many people but the additional flexibility of the new Canon EOS Utility capture software puts it streets ahead of that provided with the original 5D. Even with the increased file sizes, downloads from camera to computer are fast.
The Live View option is also an interesting addition, not high on my wish list but when it comes to architectural photography and even remote shooting, this could provide additional help in checking the focus of images from front to back. I am certainly looking forward to testing this out in more detail and seeing how this works with Canon’s TSE lenses.
I haven’t noticed any initial problems with the focusing, although a thorough technical examination hasn’t been done yet. I did manage a quick visit to the local railway station and tested it out on a couple of trains approaching at 90mph. The results were good, tracking the approaching train pretty well, as you can see from the examples below.
I have to admit that I would have bought the 5D Mk2 with or without the HD video capability and up until now haven’t really been too bothered about the extra feature. Yes, I have seen the fantastic quality videos produced by Vincent Laforet, amongst others, but I am not a film maker I am a photographer.
Having said that, after having had a very quick dabble using the Live View movie mode, I am actually really excited by this feature, so much so I have already been thinking of ways in which it can be used and can’t wait to get out there and test it further.
Apart from the sensor cleaning mentioned above, only a couple of things and neither relate to the camera itself.
First, the fact that Canon was so desperate to get the camera to market that they did so before any accessories were available. So if you are planning a long shoot or using the Live view mode regularly this could present problems. I am hoping it won’t be long before these are available though.
The second is the fact that Adobe are forcing users of CS3 to upgrade to CS4 by not updating the Camera RAW files in CS3 to include the 5D Mk2 RAW files. Not a problem for me as I process all my images through Lightroom and as I understand it the upgraded version of Lightroom, version 2.2, is due out in December which will include the new 5D Mk2 files. The problem is more for some of my clients who take the straight RAW files and process them in Photoshop. They will be forced into upgrading or will have to accept jpeg files instead which are less flexible.
ConclusionSo would I recommend the camera to those who can afford it? Well the answer is unequivocally yes I would. After my brief period of usage the 5D Mk2 looks like it will take image capture to the next level and personally, I am looking forward to working with it in new and creative ways.
I would say however that the original 5D is still a great camera and I will continue to use mine alongside the new one. No doubt there will be some fantastic deals on new and second hand 5D cameras out there as people trade up and these may well be worth considering.
Barry Mann
(This review is also available on Barry’s web site)
All text and images contained within this article are © Copyright Barry Mann Photography 2008 and may only be reproduced with permission.
Full technical specifications for the Canon EOS 5D MKII can be found on the Canon web site.
Always useful to have the view of real photographers on new kit so thanks to Barry for this (and to you Gavin for hosting it too).
My mk1 5D still does an amazing job but I admit the mk2 is on my list of wants for next year so good to read it can do a good job.
Assuming the sensor cleaning is the same system as on the other Canons I have to say it is a good system and does seem to reduce the time spent cloning out dust spots but it’s still not perfect. Is there yet an anti dust system that completely eliminates dust? I think not.
As for the raw files/CS4 upgrade issue, isn’t it possible just to get the DNG converter and then process the files in CS3 (or earlier)? It certainly has been possible to do this in the past although for the best colour reproduction one does have to construct a custom profile which is a bit of a pain but only needs doing once. Maybe this can’t be done any more, as another Lightroom user it’s no longer something I’m up to date on.
Thanks Gavin and Barry. I can’t wait to do my own review in a few weeks!
Thanks for those thoughts Nic, especially on the DNG converter solution, which seems to be a good idea.
I was rally interested in the high ISO results that Barry produced. Having noticeably less noise at ISO 800 could be a real benefit and the option to get potentially usable shots at ISO 3200 is a new thing for us Canon users.
Matt, I look forward to hearing your verdict too. Bet you can’t wait for the New Year and the arrival of your new camera.
Hi Nic,
Thanks for the feedback.
I totally agree that the 5D Mk1 is a fantastic camera and I certainly won’t be getting rid of mine in a hurry. It is good to know that I have a fantastic back up and I will probably end up using them in tandem to minimise lens changing in future, depending on client requirements. Time for the 10D to go as I can’t see I will have any further use for that now, although it served it’s purpose well!!
As for the sensor cleaning, maybe I was hoping for too much and am being a little over critical. You are right though no-one else, as far as I am aware, has solved this problem either. We shall see.
Not sure about the DNG option as it’s not something I have looked at but I’m quite happy waiting for LR at the moment.
I thought I would add that there has been some discussion on other forums and sites about the “black spot issue” on the 5D Mk2.
I automatically turned off all the additional settings such as noise reduction, highlight priority etc as I wanted to compare the original 5D with the replacement like for like (I also prefer shooting that way anyway). So I haven’t come across any such issues with my images as yet.
I know I took a few shots straight out of the box but even viewing these at 8:1 I couldn’t find any evidence of this.
Hi Guys,
Great review. I’ve got a 5D Mk II and your experiences match mine.
I would add that, on autofocus, the center point on the Mk II is as reliable as the center point on the original (which is a good thing, the AF on my 5D bodies, while slow, was spot on accurate) but the outer points, at least on my copy, are significantly faster and more reliable on the Mk II, which is a great thing. I can now use the outer points in low light, low contrast situations. Something I could never do with the original 5D.
Workflow related, I am using the DNG converter and turning my .cr2 files into .dng files and then importing them into Lightroom. It works fine, although I am looking forward to LR’s native support for the 5D Mark II. (This would also work for the lucky ones with a G10.)
thanks,
jack
(LR 2.2 and CR5.2 handle the 5d mkii raw images..)
I did some AF tests with the 5dmkii using panning shots of cars. The performance was improved when I used a 30mb/sec CF card.
However, the camera lost focus when the target was parallel with me, and this was consistant. Approaching and receeding shots were ok.
In comparison, my d200 practically NEVER lost sharp focus of the target!
I have used the dpreview samples to do some (simple minded) resolution comparisons between the d700 and 5dmkii, and the d700 needs on average a 50% larger crop for the same resolution (using acceptable print quality as the indicator, not “perfect”.. i.e. if I blew it up to that size and put it on a wall, would I feel Ok looking at it?). Using crop-image quality as an indicator, the 5dmkii averaged about 30% better, except for a single shot that was 3 times higher resolution (I think it was the exact point of focus and the middle of the range for the canon 70-200 f4L.
I am reluctant to but the MKii because of the AF issue.. But, the image quality is very seductive.. Again, my subjective tests give the d700 maybe a full stop on noise, but, the the 5dmkII produced perfectly usable images at 6400 iso, just not quite as “quiet” as the d700..