Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Barely worth it!

This is probably this forum's first controversial post. I wrote a little about the new 5D Mark II on the link below. I'm interested to know your opinions. Most people seem to like the 5D2. Are they blind to the issues, ignoring them, or am I smoking crack?

http://www.kareldonk.com/karel/2008/12/22/canon-eos-5d-mark-ii-barely-worth-it

I've been using mine for about a month and couldn't be happier with it.

FWIW, I've shot well over 1000 frames in all sorts of conditions, and I've yet to have a black dot ruin even a single photo.  If I was an astrophotographer, maybe I'd be more concerned, but it's a complete non-issue for me.

I myself do not appreciate people who use someone else's forum to promote there own blogs. 

I won't get into is the Nikon D700 or Sony A900 better than the 5DII - while some folks will change brands for most the investment in lenses makes that a decision not made easily. But is it better than the 5D? I have to say yes - it has better resolving power and equivalent ISO performance.

One thing that I don't see mentioned in all the strident comparisons is a huge but simple thing: Autofocus Microadjustment. If you haven't tried it on your own lenses, it alone is worth the upgrade whether you're talking 40D to 50D or 5D to 5dII. I hear people saying "I won't bother with that", but the people who actually take the time to calibrate their lenses to their camera seem to all find at least one or two of their lenses are markedly improved.  

Karel and I had a chat about this post as I was uncomfortable with it. Karel is a Canon user - and is intent on making Canon give us better gear. I'll give it a try - give your thoughts.

I know I haven't finished the overdue 5D II review, buy my personal opinion to this point is that this is a great camera. It's not perfect, but the image quality is excellent - and it doesn't cost $8k. I think it is a great upgrade from the 5D or any of the xxD or xxxD bodies. Sports shooters may want to move to the 1D series bodies.

I'd still prefer to see a movement away from  such on objective critiques, I would rather see a very well laid out and constructive request  or story of ones own experience rather than  just all out bashing.  

Noted David.

I've had my 5D Mk II for just under 3 weeks and I am truly impressed with the improved image quality and low light performance compared with the 5D. This is a GREAT camera and I've only begun to start using all the other nice features.

As for the AF, I think it's better with the new Digic IV but I won't know until summer. The 5D use to have problems focusing on fast moving objects in the foreground when there is an irregular background. This is probably a job for the 1D3 but all the same, the 5D gave satisfactory results.

KarelDonk:

Are they blind to the issues, ignoring them, or am I smoking crack?

I'm aware of the issues, but for my purposes the 5d2 is still the best option available. I need fast, wide lenses for the angle of view and depth of field that I want, and I want as much light gathering power and sensitivity as I can get with a low read noise in underexposure.

I would have switched to Nikon 18 months ago because of their superior autofocus and higher sensitivity of the sensor. But Nikon lacks a 24mm f/1.4, clips black in RAW above the mean read noise signal, does long-exposure noise reduction in RAW (that can't be disabled), and the 35mm f/1.4 does not even autofocus. Plus, the camera throws the mirror for every exposure in live view, which causes lots of vibration in a mount. It also lacks "electronic first curtain", which reduces vibration from the focal plane shutter (not mirror) significantly. Therefore it is suboptimal for my purposes.

I also looked at the A900 very closely, but the lack of liveview is a dealbreaker.
 
I agree that the 5d2 autofocus is not as good as equivalently priced AF from Nikon, and it would be nice if Canon tries to compete in that area in the future. I'm displeased with several issues on the 5d2. The limitation of HTP for ISO over 3200, the lack of true raw RGB histograms, no Auto ISO in manual, a variety of problems in the video feature, and the horizontal variable pattern noise are the ones that come to mind most readily.

Having discussed some of these things with Karel already, I will just summarize the areas where we disagree. One is the idea that the 5d2 would have had better S/N (signal to noise ratio) and dynamic range if it had fewer megapixels (e.g. 12 MP). I think that noise scales with resolution, so that for a given sensor size, a camera with higher resolution can always reproduce the same image (same noise) as a camera with lower resolution. Emil Martinec demonstrates in this post:

http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=29801&view=findpost&p=241562

Karel, I understand that your point of view is that "more megapixels are for doing larger prints with better quality", so you think that it's not enough to provide the same quality (e.g. noise at high ISO) at the same print size, but the higher-resolution camera must also provide the same (or better) quality in a larger print. I don't think that's a fair or useful standard for the comparison of cameras, and that it's better to evaluate based on the degree of flexibility that a camera offers. The 5d2 has flexibility to be used at full resolution, even in high ISO, where it will show a lot of noise, or it can be resampled to low resolution (e.g. 12 MP) and it will show less noise, so it provides all the benefits of a 12 MP camera, but the option, for those that desire it, to use much higher resolutions.

I am really enjoying my 5d2 a lot, despite its shortcomings.

After exchanging some emails with Bryan, I was able to explain to him the purpose of my “anti-Canon” posts and he has agreed to restore my original post back on the forum. Basically I told him I am a Canon user and that the purpose of all this is not just to bash Canon, but to make it absolutely clear we’re not very satisfied with how things are going right now and to stimulate Canon to improve in the future. If that happens, it will benefit all of us. It is important to be critical of Canon, otherwise those of us who have invested in Canon gear will be forced to look for alternatives in the future.

If anyone has a 5D M2 that they don't want, I will gladly take it off their hands with no complaints.  I guess I am just a nice guy like that. :)

I think the 5dmk2 is absolutely flipping awesome.  I loved the 5d and this model improves in every way.  Plus it serves a very important need for me - simplicity.  I tested out a 1dsmk3 a few weeks ago.  No doubt someone really, truly NEEDS all the functionality of the 1-series camera but it just ain't me.  There was too much stuff on that camera that got in the way of taking great photos.  I do earn my entire living from photography and I photograph entirely on-location and I find the 5d line to be great - you can put it in Manual and it produces a huge, gorgeous file and I only need to worry about a few buttons.  What more can I ask for - oh, and its cheaper than the mark1 was!

Really, I understand that everyone is different and we all like different things in our equipment.  But are most pros really thinking about switching to whatever brand provides .02% better performance every month or so?  Canon has always produced great stuff and whatever Nikon or Sony puts out doesn't change that.  Certainly, folks can and should do what they like but I for one am blown away by the 5dmk2 and have no intereste or compelling reason to worry about what the other (admittedly great) companies are doing.  I'd rather worry about growing my business!

If the d700, d3, 1dsmk3 and 5dmk2 all cost the same amount I'd personally go for the 5dmk2.

- trr

I read your blog. I, too, lament the quality issues around the black dots and banding, but am confident enough that Canon will fix them that I put in my order for the 5d2 early this week.

That said, I think you're worries about resolution and noise are misplaced. As Daniel points out in his response, it's the combination of resolution and noise that are important, not one or the other in isolation. You get a lot more flexibility with high resolution as an option. With the 5d2 you have so much resolution that you don't even need to rotate the camera to shoot 10 MP verticals! That's amazing and something I look forward to coming from the 30D. I frequently crop to 4:3 or square format. Having more resolution gives me more canvas.

When you compare the 5D and 5D2, you need to compare at the same resolution, not at 100%. That's comparing apples and oranges. If you compare the up-rezed and down-rezed images, you see that the 5D2 is better than the 5D by almost a full stop. Since the 5D put the bar so high, it's amazing to me that Canon could achieve so much.

I'll worry about Canon if they start giving us less for more. They've been giving us more for less for a long time now, although Nikon has been catching up fast and can finally match Canon but not at anything close to this price. If I were starting all over I'd still go with Canon for the lens selection if nothing else. Plus, there is no The-Digital-Picture for Nikon!

 

I will say in agreement of Karel's blog post that the 50D is a pretty clearly uninspiring camera and pretty unrevolutionary in the most negative way.

- trr

Todd Reichman:

I would like to know if the AF of the 5D2 is affecting you negatively at all. How do you use it? Only center point? In what shooting conditions? What kind of shoots? What is your opinion on the example of the fashion shooter and wedding shooter who got a lot of out of focus shots with the 5D2?