The following is a review of the new
5D Mark II based on my personal experience using the camera for 2 weeks in
Rwanda and Kenya. I
also include photos from my trip to give you examples from the 5D Mark II,
as well as to share some of the things I experienced on my trip. I made
a very significant upgrade from the Canon 10D which I purchased in April of
2003. I also
have some experience with the Canon Rebel XTi, which I borrow from time to
time from my wife. For about 25 years before going digital with the Canon
10D I had been using an old Minolta SLR purchased by my father in 1971 and
given to me when I was 6 years old.
I decided to start this review a little
differently, beginning with what I think are the most important conclusions.
A large percentage of people just skip to the bottom anyway, so I thought I’d
save you a bit of scrolling. The
following are the four main discussions I have heard surrounding the 5D Mark
II: Do I really need a camera that can shoot at ISO 25000, Do I really need
a camera with 21 megapixels, Do I really need these fancy “extras” that come
with these more expensive cameras, Should I buy Canon or Nikon?
Nikon vs Canon Lets start with the last question. I am a
Canon owner and have never used a Nikon. I have no idea which is better. I
assume neither is perfect and some things are better when it comes to certain
Canon cameras and some things are better when it comes to certain Nikon cameras. Since
I will not be comparing Nikons to Canons in this article you probably will
not get an answer to this question. What I do hope you come away with
is a perspective of the Canon 5D Mark II given by a life long camera hobbyist
who especially enjoys taking travel photos.
High ISO shooting To me the number one reason to purchase the 5D Mark
II is it’s ability to take fantastic looking photos at high ISO. In my
opinion shots at ISO 6400 are outstanding and it is even possible with some
Photoshop work to get usable 12600 ISO shots. ISO 25200 is also fun,
who isn’t amazed at taking photos in the dark and then looking on the back
of the camera and seeing things your eyes have no chance at making out. Take
a look at the photo below.. This gorilla was shot at ISO 6400. I
personally am still floored when I look at the quality of this photo at ISO
6400.
I have heard some people say that they do not need a camera with amazing high
ISO functionality, because they like to shoot at closer to 100 ISO and/or use
flash. I’m sure this is true for some specialty photographers, but for
your average user, especially for those who love to shoot travel photos as
I do, there are often times and places where you have no choice but to either
use high ISO or lose the shot. When shooting the gorillas in Rwanda flash
was not allowed; gorillas move around making it necessary to shoot at higher
shutter speeds; and the gorillas we visited happen to be in an area that had
incredibly thick foliage. Even though it was a nice clear day, it was
quite dark where the gorillas were. Many of my shots were taken at ISO
6400, 1/80, F.2.8. My choice was either to use ISO 6400 or not get any
useable photos of the gorillas. My wife was using her Canon XTi on the
trip and set her camera to ISO 1600 since she knows that photos taken at higher
ISO on that camera don’t look very good. She ended up getting virtually
no usable shots. Others on the trek were using point and shoots. They
had no way to get a usable photo in the conditions that presented. Most
of the people with point and shoots ended up shooting video the whole time
in hopes of getting something to take away with them. The 5D Mark II
allows you to capture images in situation where virtually any other camera
on the market would not.
21 megapixel What do 22,000 megapixels give you? They give
you the ability to either print photos very large (above 13”x16”), or the ability
to crop the heck out of photos, thereby “enhancing” the focal length of lens
you are using. Personally, I am excited at the prospect of seeing what
a larger print will look like with the Canon 5D Mark II. As of writing
this article I haven’t made any prints from photos taken with the 5D Mark II. When
it comes to cropping, I have had the chance to crop the heck out of some photos
taken on Safari in Kenya. My most powerful lens combination is my Canon
70-200mm 2.8 IS used with Canon’s 1.4x extender, bringing the maximum focal
length to 280mm. This is really less then ideal for a safari, but I have
never been willing to invest in a bigger piece of glass, because how often
will I really need it? I don’t go on safari’s everyday. I was hoping
the 22mpixels of the Canon 5D Mark II would compensate for my less then ideal
lens selection and I was not let down. The
photo below was taken at 280mm and the lions were more than 200 yards/meters
away. It's heavily cropped and is actually show at 100% view. Even
with a 400mm lens the photo would have needed significant cropping. The
22megapixels allowed me to significantly crop this image and retain an interesting
(though gruesome) photo that I would not have otherwise been able to show off. You
may not want to have to crop this much, but sometimes you have no choice. The
5D Mark II again allows you to capture an image that would be unusable if captured
with most other camera on the market, if you are focal length limited.
Extra’s: When I talk about extra’s I’m referring to conveniences
that the Canon 5D Mark II offers over lower model cameras or older model cameras. The
conveniences are things such as, permanent ISO listing in the viewfinder, a
top and rear LCD, large/bright viewfinder with 98% coverage, rear control dial,
Multi-controler joystick, customizable control on the command dial, customizable
menu, custom functions, etc. I call these extras because their purpose
is more to make the experience of using the camera more pleasant rather then
to allow you to take a photo that no other camera can take. People will
have to make their own decision as to if these extras are worth the added cost. A
lot will have to do with how often you use your camera and how important the
whole experience of usability is to you. Below I will give you my personal
feelings on some of these extras, as well as some of the other functions and
features of the Canon 5D Mark II.
Viewfinder The Canon 5D Mark II’s large bright viewfinder with
98% coverage is a pleasure to use. Looking through the 5D Mark II viewfinder
and then my wife’s XTi viewfinder, there is no comparison. I rarely use
manual focus and the viewfinder will likely play a very small role in determining
the quality of my photos, but the increased pleasure when looking at the world
through a very nice viewfinder does have some value. I don’t know what
the price is, but I am personally willing to pay something extra for the pleasure.
Permanent ISO in Viewfinder This may seem like a minor feature
for some, but to me it is major. I can not count the number of times,
when using my 10D, that I was shooting away not realizing the ISO was set to
a high level, when it was completely unnecessary. This lead to shots
that were grainer then they had to be. Over the years I instinctively
began to realize when something was aerie, when I noticed my shutter speed
and/or aperture settings were much higher then I expected, but this wasn’t
full proof. Unwanted high ISO shots are less of a big deal with the Canon
5D Mark II because of it’s superb ability, but I still prefer to shoot at lower
ISO if I can, or to at least make an informed decision. Having the ISO
on display in the viewfinder leads to far fewer errors of this type.
Rear Quick Control Dial When using my wife’s Canon XTi, my biggest
complaint is the awkward way you must hold in one button and turn the top dial
when you want to enable exposure compensation. The rear control wheel
is a much nicer solution, and it works very nicely when scrolling through photos. I
use exposure compensation and full manual control quite often, and it’s a pain
in the neck if you don’t have separate control wheels for exposure and shutter
speed control. I am definitely willing to pay some increased cost for
the addition of this extra control wheel.
Rear LCD Who could not love the rear LCD on this camera with it’s
large 3” size and 920,000 pixels. The clarity is amazing. The auto LCD
brightness control seems to work great as the photos are easily viewable in
bright light and reflection is not a big problem on this LCD. The rear
LCD has many functions. As a screen to preview photos the LCD image quality
is superb. When zooming 10X the detail is remarkable and the screen can
truly be used to let you know if a photo is sharp. This feature is a must have
because you will immediately know when you need to reshoot or not. The
LCD is also used to play back movies. Movie playback on the LCD is rich
and smooth and wonderful to watch. The added speakers in the camera also
add to the movie playback experience. The rear display is also where the main
menus are set on the camera. Again everything is bright and clear and
easy to read even in bright light. The rear LCD is also used for Live View
and for shooting movies. I’ll talk a bit about this later.
Quick Control Screen The LCD is also used for another incredibly
useful feature found on some of Canon’s recent cameras, but is new to the 5D
and new to me. This is the Quick Control Screen. Important parameters
such as aperture, shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation, auto-focus point
selection, picture style, white balance, light metering, battery life, number
of remaining photos, and image quality are displayed and can be changed when
viewing this screen. I found it very useful to use this display to view many
parameters quickly, but I usually changed most standard parameters such as
ISO, shutter speed, and aperture, using the standard camera buttons and the
top or rear control wheel, while looking through the viewfinder which is much
quicker when you’re about to take a shot. When not looking through the
viewfinder, or needing to view information not found in the viewfinder such
as metering mode or focusing mode I still usually used the top LCD to make
these changes. I’m not sure if it was out of habit, since this is how my 10D
worked, or it’s just more natural for me. I have consciously tried to
use the rear display and a combination of the quick control dial and multi-control
joystick to view and make the same changes and it seems equally effective. Overtime
it may become my primary method. There was one point where modifying
parameters using the rear LCD came in very handy for me. I went out at 5AM
to shoot some long exposures in the dark. At first I used the Top LCD with
the light button so I could change my settings, as I did with my 10D, and then
remembered the Rear LCD's ability. In the dark it was so much easier to use
the rear LCD as the light keeps going out when using the top display and it
is just so much easier to see the rear display and all your settings at once
in the dark, make changes, and recheck. Even if light levels are just
low as opposed to complete darkness, the rear LCD is optimal for viewing settings
as it is much brighter and easier to see compared to the top LCD, and you never
have to utilize that light button on the top LCD that only turns on for a few
seconds. There seem to be so many nice features in this camera that make
it a pleasure to use.
Multi-Controller Joystick The multi-controller joystick has multiple
uses as well, and custom functions allows it to be set in a variety of ways
giving it great flexibility. In image playback it is used to move around an
image when previewing a photo at higher magnifications. When shooting, by default
the joystick is programmed to activate the quick control screen and enable
changes to the various parameters. Custom Function III-3 when set to
option 1 changes the function of this joystick. When utilizing this custom
function the joystick takes over the function of the auto focus selection button
and is used to quickly select auto focus points. Pressing it in the center
chooses the center only auto focus point, and pressing the original auto focus
selection button will now only enable automatic AF points. I find this
combination an incredibly fast way to switch between auto focus points, especially
when going between automatic AF selection and center AF point only. The joystick
works great in my opinion and again is one more nice feature that makes the
camera a pleasure to use.
Custom Functions I’m not going to go through every custom function,
but I’ll tell you which parameters I changed from the default settings and
why.
CFI-2 ISO Speed Setting Increments – I set it to 1 stop because I’m always
suspicious as to how 1/3 stop is achieved.
CFI-3 ISO Expansion – I set it to enable ISO 12800 and 25600. Why not? ISO
is now permanently displayed in the viewfinder, so it is much harder to make
a silly error.
CFII-1 Long Exposure Noise Reduction – I set it to Auto. The manual says
this setting is the most effective, so why not.
CFIII-3 AF Point Selection Method – As I said above I find the Multi-Controller
joystick to be the most effective method for controlling auto focus points.
CFIII-7 AF Point Area Expansion – This enables the 6 (invisible) assist AF
points when AI Servo AF and the Center Only AF point is selected. I use
the center AF point 90% of the time, because often objects closer to the camera
will be the focus point when automatic AF selection is selected. But
if I’m in servo mode, I’m probably trying to track something, so I prefer to
have the added benefit of the 6 (invisible) assist AF points.
CFIV-1 Shutter Button/AF-ON Button – I set this to Metering + AF Start/AF Stop. There
have been times where I have achieved perfect focus, but needed to press the
shutter button half way to keep the exposure metering going. This feature
allows me to do this without having the focus change.
CFIV-3 Assign SET Button – I set this to enable the Quick Control Screen. By
default the SET button is disabled. This seems like a waste. When
CFIII-3 is changed from default, the Multi-Controller joystick loses its ability
to quickly activate the quick control screen. This makes the quick control
screen more difficult to activate. Reassigning the SET Button to activate
this function allows the quick control screen to once again be easily activated
and used.
Customizable My Menu At first I thought this menu was a waste
of time, but as I used the camera I noticed I was often using functions that
were buried in the menu structure and it got a bit annoying. I then began
to add these functions to My Menu for quick access. It worked great. Now
I really love this feature; again, little things that make the camera
a pleasure to use. Here is how I have My Menu set up on my camera and
why.
Format – This is something I do all the time and I keep it as my first
function. It is now very quickly accessed. It is by default located
in SetUp Screen 1 as the third item, but heck if I can ever remember that
when I’m out shooting.
Mirror Lockup – Can’t remember where it is located by default and I’m not
even going to look. It is easily accessible in the second position
of My Menu.
Highlight Alert – I always turning this off because it’s annoying to see
those blinking highlights when you’re just trying to enjoy reviewing your
photos. On the other hand I’m constantly turning it back on to review
shots right after I took them too see what highlights are blown. It’s
nice to have it in an easy to remember location. It’s easier then remembering
it’s located in Playback screen two.
AF Point Display – Same reasons as Highlight Alert above.
Highlight Tone Priority – I have this off by default because I’m not 100%
sure of any negative impacts on the image and I’m a bit concerned that I
can accomplish the same thing with better results in Photoshop. I put
it in My Menu because I plan on testing it out and doing some comparisons. I
have a feeling I will eventually use it. If it wasn’t in My Menu, I’d
likely forget it was an option and end up never using a possibly very useful
feature.
Beep – Every once in a while I want to turn the auto focus confirm beep
off, but it I do it so rarely I always forget where it’s located. I
usually end up not turning it off and taking the shot because I’m worried
I’ll miss the moment while fumbling around. It is nice to have this
in my menu so I don’t need to fumble around and can actually quickly do what
I want to.
Custom Control on Command Dial I only started using this feature
towards the end of my trip. As I started getting an excessive number
of shots of elephants and zebras, I started becoming interested in taking some
cool looking birds that were flying around. What kept happening is that
I kept my camera set at lower ISO, one shot focus, evaluative metering, etc.
in the hopes of capturing that amazing lion shot, but when I noticed a bird
I wanted to shoot, it took a bit of time to change the settings to focus tracking,
center point only, spot metering, and high ISO, fast shutter speed, which is
a more appropriate setup to take birds in flight. By the time I was done
fiddling with the camera I lost the shot. Alternatively, in my rush to
change the settings, I forgot one. There was even a time where I had
mirror lockup enabled because of some early morning shooting, and this didn’t
work out well when trying to shoot some quick moving objects. Taking
the time to think about what settings I wanted to shoot a bird in flight, setting
them, as well as ensuring some settings were turned off (mirror lockup) and
saving them to Custom Control 1 on the command dial was a great solution. I
notice an interesting bird, switch to custom 1 and adjust shutter speed to
allow enough light if necessary. When I was done, switched back to Shutter
Priority and all my settings were as I left them. It worked out very
nicely, though I must admit I didn’t capture any great photos of birds in flight
as I didn’t have a long enough lens, and the 5D Mark II auto focus tracking
may not be ideal for this type of work. It was fun though. Below
is my best bird in flight photo from the trip. I set Custom Control 2 on the
command dial for settings I thought would be useful when shooting macros, such
as ISO 100, f10, mirror lockup, etc. This
is convenient, but probably not very critical since when shooting macros on
a tripod I usually have a lot of time to contemplate my settings and retake
a photo if I realized I forgot to change a specific setting.
Light Metering I don’t have a lot to say regarding the light
metering on this camera. It worked great. I used both evaluative
and spot metering and they both seem to work great. Spot metering was
incredibly useful for shooting the animals, especially at long distances. The
animals could have easily been underexposed, as evaluative metering will expose
for the scene, but the spot metering worked great and achieved the exposure
I was looking for. Check out the photo below, though I did open it up even
more in Photoshop. Evaluative metering worked just as well when used for the
appropriate situation.
Live View I did not get a chance to really use live view to shoot
pictures. I plan on utilizing it for macro shooting on a tripod, as it
seems like a great way to manually focus and frame the photo. I also
believe the two grid display options will be highly useful. I did use
the live view in a more unconventional way. When on safari there were
times things were going on way out in the distance. Sometimes it was
difficult to let my wife know exactly where an animal was so she could spot
them with her binoculars. Also, because we only had one pair of binoculars
it was hard to share in the vision and discuss it. I ended up using Live
View and 10X magnification as a live view video screen of the action way in
the distance. It wasn’t as powerful as our binoculars but it was a great
way for us to both view something off in the distance and discuss it as we
watch the screen. It’s certainly no substitute for binoculars, but it
was a cool way to view far away action together.
Movie Mode I didn’t take very many movies on this trip, but after
viewing the videos I did shoot I discovered just how bad I suck at shooting
movies, and it wasn’t the cameras fault. I had never shot a movie in my life
before this trip, never owned anything that could shoot video. I obviously
had no concept of the techniques needed to shoot a good video. I fussed around
with zoom too much and panning, and panning too quickly. I suggest a lot of
practice if you have no experience. I surely need the practice. The video shooting
was fun, and I hope to get better. The microphone is useless if there is any
wind as it easily picks it up, and if you plan on focusing or zooming, it picks
up every movement of the lens rings, so your sound will be ruined if you don't
buy an external mic I suppose. Movies will not play back properly on my old
Powerbook 1.67GHZ with 1.5 GB RAM. I need to use my wife’s MacBook to
view the movies. I guess this camera may force me to purchase a new computer.
Battery Life Battery life was amazing. I never once used my second battery
on the whole trip, even though I used Live View a lot, shot movies, and shot
hundreds of pictures a day.
Camera Feel I loved the feel in my hand, though it got a bit heavy after
long use with the 70-200 2.8 and 1.4x extender.
Auto Focus I am hesitant to say a lot about the auto focus abilities
of the 5D Mark II as I have no experience with a pro auto focus system so I
don’t really have a good frame of reference. Auto focus seemed fast and
accurate in One Shoot mode. I used AI Servo mode to shoot birds flying
and none of my pictures were tack sharp. I am not an expert bird photographer,
I don’t have the appropriate high-powered lenses, and I have never used a pro
camera, so I have nothing to compare my experience with. All I can do
is report what I observed. I had some trouble getting auto focus to lock
onto the even black matte hair of the gorillas when shooting in very low light
(ISO 6400, F2.8, 1/80) I estimate auto focus could not achieve focus lock under
these conditions about 4% of the time. It was quite annoying when it
happened as I will likely never visit the silverbacks again, and I wanted ever
press of the shutter to count, but I have no idea if any other camera on the
market would have performed better. When I attempted to focus on the gorillas
face, which had varying contrast and texture I never once had a problem. Overall,
I was satisfied but not blown away by the 5D Mark II’s auto focus capabilities.
Other things
1) Picture Style – I always left set to Standard
2) Program, Auto, and Creative Auto Modes – I never use them
3) Peripheral Illumination Correction – I always have this set to on. Why
not? Makes it that much nicer when utilizing jpegs.
4) Weather sealing - Weather sealing has never a big thing for me personally.
I don't shoot professionally, and if I purchased a $5000 plus pro camera with
full weather sealing, I'd still be too nervous to push my luck more then I
have with my 10D or 5D MII. Professionals I assume sometimes have no
choice except to shoot or risk losing a paycheck so for them the extra security
the full weather sealing provides is more of selling point then for me.
I can tell you my personal experience with weather and my cameras. We
did have a bit of rain in Rwanda on the hike down from seeing the gorillas.
It was a moderate to light rain that lasted only 10 minutes or so. I personally
was not in the mood to push my luck. I walked for a few minutes with the camera
out in the rain, but tucked it under my fleece. I took a couple of shots while
it was lightly raining. When the rain got a bit heavier I put the camera away
into my bag. There was a second day when I was shooting a "cultural show" again
in light rain. I kept shooting, but tucked the camera under my fleece when
I wasn't shooting to protect it. Haven’t had problems as of today. For perspective
my wife was using her XTi and did the exact same thing in both situations and
also hasn't had a problem. The Kenya safari was quite dusty. The camera
was coated a few times in dust. I wiped it off once, and then gave up, as it
is just very dusty out there. The camera is functioning fine. Again,
my wife used her XTi under the same conditions and is also not having any problems.
I'm not sure you can draw much conclusions from this. I had taken my
10D on safari in Tanzania 4 years ago. I shot some pictures in the rain, and
the camera was coated with dust. I had the 10D from the time it was released,
I would guess getting close to 6 years now? I used it here and there in light
rain, and I bunch of times in dusty conditions, like the desert, beaches, etc.
I brought it to many countries over the years, rain and dust on many trips,
you can check out my travel section on my website, to see how many. I would
say many beaches for sure. Anyway, the 10D held up until now with no weather
sealing, with the exception of the popup flash, which stopped popping up about
18 months ago. The popup flash on the 10D was rather useless for me, as it
didn't pop up high enough and cast a shadow from some of my lenses when shooting
wide, so I didn't really care. (The pop up flash height was extended starting
with the 20D to solve this shadow problem.)
5) User Interfaces and Menu Setup - Very well done and easy to use.
6) Supplied Software – I never use it. I use Photoshop for photos and
plan on using iMovie for movies, though I haven’t tried editing my movies yet.
7) FPS – 3.9 is good enough for me. More is always better, but it’s not
my primary concern.
8) IrPort - I like the addition of the IrPort on the front of the camera so
the inexpensive remote shutters can be used to take family photos easily.
9) Battery Life - Battery life was amazing. I never once used my second battery
on the whole trip, even though I used Live View a lot, shot movies, and shot
hundreds of pictures a day. Kind of a waste of the $80 I spent on the
backup battery.
10) I shot everything Full Raw + Large JPEG. Most images are so perfect out
of the camera, I will not need the RAW as no manipulation is needed except
cropping. This is a huge changed from my old 10D.
11) I loved the feel of the camera in my hand, though it got a bit heavy after
long use with the 70-200 2.8 and 1.4x extender.
12) Minor Bug - On two occasions photos stopped showing up for preview automatically
after shooting. I had to turn the camera off and on again to get it to show
up automatically again. I have seen this bug reported by one other person.
Don't know if it has been addressed in the recent firmware upgrade. Anyway,
this bug is very minor to me.
Final Summary - Well I think I pretty much said it all. I think the combination
of the feature set, build quality, usability, and 22 megapixel sensor at the
current price point makes for the perfect camera choice if it's within your
price range and you can benefit from all, or most, of the above. Check below
for a few other photos shot with the 5D Mark II.
