Canon 5D Mark II master thread

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Archive 2008 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

R.H. Johnson
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p.208 #1 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

i wait patiently for 3 months 2 get 5D MKII comes in Tues. wife picks it up Wed ships same day over night early delivery next morning UPS. Some SOB steals camera from UPS high security area. they say sh.. happens. I hate Murphy........

Jan 15, 2009 at 04:28 PM

forestmage
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p.208 #2 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

Oh no! That's terrible

Jan 15, 2009 at 04:45 PM

forestmage
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p.208 #3 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

abam wrote:
the 17-40 is an aging workhorse, but it's still very much alive and kicking.

agreed. I was rather fond of it on the 5D and now the Mark II.

Jan 15, 2009 at 04:51 PM

Andi Dietrich
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p.208 #4 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

I agree with Richard, the 16-35ii is really a dog when it comes to corner sharpness. I dont have yet a 5Dii, but we can see the poor performance already on a 5D. Here is a sample I shot recently

full image, well this seems ok

This image is copyrighted by the owner

but at 100% its already clear that this lens cant give us the performance we really need urgently, as we all know, the most precious things in our images are always in the extreme corners

This image is copyrighted by the owner

when we move up to 400% we see the corner performance of this lens is a joke, imagine you make a photograph in the living room and you want to take a photograph of an insect which is sitting on a plant. I am only guessing here but surely you could not see the eyes of that little beast

This image is copyrighted by the owner

at 700% not worth talking about

Edited on Jan 15, 2009 at 05:21 PM · View previous versions

Jan 15, 2009 at 05:00 PM

GregM5
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p.208 #5 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

now that's pixel peeping! Great post Andi

Jan 15, 2009 at 05:16 PM

floris
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p.208 #6 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

brainiac wrote:
With the 16-35 mk2 corners on full frame that happens at around 3-5 megapixels. That lens never produces really clean detail in the extreme corners on a 5D1, in my experience (compared to a Zeiss 21). That matters a lot to some landscape shooters, for whom the corners are no less important than any other part of the frame.

I got loads of detail out of my 17-40, and my new 16-35 mkII is looking even better. It's certainly taking advantage of my 5DmkII. I'd post sample pics, but you see, I don't shoot test shots, I shoot real landscapes. The 20x30's I sell have beautiful details in the corners.. I, nor my customers, are complaining

What people may not be realizing is that the corners are sharp at a different focus setting than the center, even on a flat brick wall - because of the wide angle the distance is a lot greater. So that means you need to stop down to get sufficient depth of field, it's not that the lens is soft.

Jan 16, 2009 at 06:18 PM

AnthonyRhoades
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p.208 #7 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

Just checking in to state that I'm still error or mishap free with my body. Shot a total of 70 gigs of raw files thus far. Not a hiccup. BTW, I'm coming from a Contax 645/Phase One P30+ combo. (The files aren't MFDB files, but they're damn good).

I've not updated the firmware.

Jan 16, 2009 at 06:21 PM

R.H. Johnson
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p.208 #8 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

where to down load firmware? i don't see it on canon site. update UPS found my camera. it appears that it was taken from the high security area and placed on the plane shipped to Kentucky and not scanned properly i have it in my office at work.

Jan 16, 2009 at 07:34 PM

jerrykur
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p.208 #9 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

floris wrote:
What people may not be realizing is that the corners are sharp at a different focus setting than the center, even on a flat brick wall - because of the wide angle the distance is a lot greater. So that means you need to stop down to get sufficient depth of field, it's not that the lens is soft.

That does not sound correct. If the film/sensor plane is parallel to the plane of the subject (the brick wall in your example) shouldn't a perfect lens have in focus at the same time the bricks at the edges and the bricks in the center. The trick in lens design is achieving this goal.

Jan 16, 2009 at 09:05 PM

LynnP
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p.208 #10 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

jerrykur wrote:
floris wrote:
What people may not be realizing is that the corners are sharp at a different focus setting than the center, even on a flat brick wall - because of the wide angle the distance is a lot greater. So that means you need to stop down to get sufficient depth of field, it's not that the lens is soft.

That does not sound correct. If the film/sensor plane is parallel to the plane of the subject (the brick wall in your example) shouldn't a perfect lens have in focus at the same time the bricks at the edges and the bricks in the center. The trick in lens design is achieving this goal.

Yes it is correct. Take a WA lens and point it a a straight wall 10-12 feet away.
Measure the distance with a tape to make sure of your distance straight on.
Now check the viewfinder and see what is included in the frame. Have the lens set at it's widest f stop. Now check how far it is from the sensor plane to the far sides of the frame. You will find that it is further. The distance to the wall is from the center not to the edges of the picture. Therefore you must close down from fully open to have the edges in focus also. (Especially for pixel peepers)

Actually you can see it better illustrated with a compass and a piece of paper.
Draw a straight line on the paper, put the compass any distance away you want,
go to the closest point from the compass(90 degrees) now draw an arc. The arc represents what is in focus while the lens is wide open.

Lynn

Jan 16, 2009 at 10:04 PM

fourfa
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p.208 #11 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

according to standard lens design principles, a theoretically perfect lens would have a perfectly flat plane of focus. Most macro lenses come as close to that as is practical. Few other lenses, particularly wide angles and fast normal lenses, have flat focal planes. Indeed, letting the focus be non-planar ("field curvature") frees up some of the other design constraints and in some cases may give you better overall performance in the real world... except for test shots of charts and brick walls.

but what lynn is describing is a spherical focal field. this is not typical for any photographic lens except maybe something like a plastic single element Holga. Even with severe field curvature, it's much, much closer to a plane than a sphere.

Jan 16, 2009 at 10:28 PM

Erik Barzeski
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p.208 #12 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

fourfa wrote:
Even with severe field curvature, it's much, much closer to a plane than a sphere.

Yes. Lynn needs to re-think things a little.

It's difficult to keep a perfectly flat field, but that's the goal of the wide angle lenses, as you've stated fourfa.

Jan 17, 2009 at 11:54 PM

braddo_99
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p.208 #13 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

Just in case anyone else wants a 5D2 and has access to an airplane, there are three sitting on the shelf in Dixons Heathrow for 2600 GBP :-) They clearly don't know what these are - when I asked the price they checked and were incredulous... me too :-)

Jan 18, 2009 at 02:18 PM

Andi Dietrich
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p.208 #14 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

3 for 2600£! sounds like a great price ;-)

Jan 18, 2009 at 02:55 PM

jamato8
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p.208 #15 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

I know that different CF cards have been mentioned in this thread but I am now wondering with a little more trial and error, which CF cards appear to give the best price to performance?

I also notice that there are firewire readers, which would seem to speed things up.

Jan 18, 2009 at 04:31 PM

RDKirk
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p.208 #16 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

Erik Barzeski wrote:
fourfa wrote:
Even with severe field curvature, it's much, much closer to a plane than a sphere.

Yes. Lynn needs to re-think things a little.

It's difficult to keep a perfectly flat field, but that's the goal of the wide angle lenses, as you've stated fourfa.

And the unsharpness experienced at the corners of wide angle lenses is predominantly coma and chromatic aberration, not curvature of field.

Jan 18, 2009 at 08:34 PM

brainiac
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p.208 #17 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

Andi Dietrich wrote:
I agree with Richard, the 16-35ii is really a dog when it comes to corner sharpness.

;-) I didn't say it was a dog - I think it's a great lens, but it doesn't fill the corner pixels with detail on a 5D at any aperture. That matters a lot to some, and not others.

Jan 18, 2009 at 08:37 PM

David Baldwin
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p.208 #18 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

Hello Bobbytan,

Just a note to say that after all the hesitancy over price I have finally ordered my 5D2. Might be here with me late January, we will see.

I am wondering how my existing Canon lenses will perform with the more detailed sensor, I've been reluctantly wedded to crop cameras for a few years, and have no idea what to expect with such a high definition full frame. Anyone here advise me whether I will need to upgrade any lenses for the new camera?:

24L f1.4 Mk 1
35mm f2
50mm f1.4
85mm f1.8
135L f2

I'm keeping my 40D as a backup, and to use my much loved Tokina 12-24 at the wide end.

Cheers.

Jan 18, 2009 at 08:51 PM

RDKirk
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p.208 #19 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

I am wondering how my existing Canon lenses will perform with the more detailed sensor, I've been reluctantly wedded to crop cameras for a few years, and have no idea what to expect with such a high definition full frame. Anyone here advise me whether I will need to upgrade any lenses for the new camera?:

24L f1.4 Mk 1
35mm f2
50mm f1.4
85mm f1.8
135L f2

I still say, as an old film user, that this is a gearheaded issue that is totally overblown.

We had the same (and inferior) lenses with film sharper than a 21mp sensor decades ago, and we had the option of cropping away the corners even then--we even had APS cropped cameras--the original APS cropped cameras.

APS in film failed. It failed utterly. Nobody thought it had any kind of advantage in making lenses look better, nobody thought full 24x36mm had any kind of disadvantage. If someone had said then, "full frame puts too much stress on the lenses," he'd have been laughed away.

The only reason APS got a foothold in DSLRs was because it was cheaper, and after that people invented all kinds of rationale as to why it was actually better--the "if all you have is lemons, make lemonade" rationale.

If people actually get out and start taking and (for the love of Gene Smith), start printing pictures instead of having forum "thought debates" people would "get the picture" and half of these debates would go away.

Then we could start debating serious unresolved issues like whether H&W or Tech Pan produces greater resolution with the same dynamic range.

Jan 18, 2009 at 09:22 PM

jamato8
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p.208 #20 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

H&W for me. :^) Just worked better all the time.

Jan 18, 2009 at 10:20 PM

abam
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p.208 #21 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

i was more for technical pan.

seriously, though - good thoughts, kirk. but if more people would get out and worry about their photographic technique (from planning to printing), there would be less money to be made from people succumbing to gear forum advertisements.

Jan 18, 2009 at 10:40 PM

jamato8
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p.208 #22 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

Does anyone know of a 5D II that is available anywhere?

Jan 18, 2009 at 11:36 PM

RDKirk
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p.208 #23 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

jamato8 wrote:
Does anyone know of a 5D II that is available anywhere?

By the time anyone told you of a dealer, that dealer would likely be sold out.

Canon is distributing cameras broadly but thinly. Places that had them before will soon get them again, but always in small numbers. So it should pay to check a fairly large number of places in a logical periodic routine.

One method is to go online every three days and check Best Buy stores within whatever you consider reasonable driving distance (say, 50 miles). When one shows up, drive there immediately.

Jan 18, 2009 at 11:45 PM

Emindy Harris
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p.208 #24 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

jamato8 wrote:
Does anyone know of a 5D II that is available anywhere?

Also:

http://www.nowinstock.net/digitalcameras/canon5dmarkii/

I got ordered mine from Adorama on Friday, tracking says it will be here Tuesday!!

Jan 19, 2009 at 12:42 AM

jamato8
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p.208 #25 · Canon 5D Mark II master thread

I went to order it but then noticed that it said "on the way to warehouse" so even though it now says in stock it doesn't appear they really are.

What is the free shipping they use? Is it two day? Thank you for any information.

Jan 19, 2009 at 01:02 AM


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