Quote Originally Posted by 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/...t&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.