Pixel Perfect wrote:
.....I'd love to see a 16-17MP 7D, with most 5D II features, except 6fps, no video, 50D/5D II hybrid AF, better VF (ala Sony a900), improved contrast detect AF for LV.
orangefirefish wrote:
I like the 5D files better as well when I used both side by side. Other than in resolution and high ISO performance, the 5D just has a more balanced looking file, with amazing sharpness and also very realistic and convincing colors.
Sorry, I use both cameras and I simply don't buy the notion that that 5D is somehow better than the 5D II. I still have both cameras and I only use the 5D as a second or backup.
I'm not saying the the 5D is not a very fine camera - it is. I'm saying that there is no way that the image quality from the 5D II is not as good. Well, OK, I'm actually saying that it is better... The only questions are how much better and whether this betterness will make any difference in your photography.
Two more things perhaps not directly related to the quote above.
First, some people who compare the two cameras forget that when they compare 100% crops that they are looking much more "closely" at the 5DII sample. A 100 x 100 pixel sample from a 5D II comprise a smaller portion of the image than a 100 x 100 sample from a 5D. The best real comparison is to make prints at the same size.
Second, I find almost all comments that assert that any given camera or lens has "magical qualities" to be pretty much laughable. Yes, there are sometimes objective differences between different types of gear but they are simply performance characteristics, not some sort of magic, mystical, ineffable wonderfulness.
Some reviews claim that the 5D has lower noise at low ISO (big pixels). THose reviews also state that the anti aliasing filter on the 5D is weaker than the Mk2 giving sharper files straight up.
After viewing thousands of files from my friends 5D and Mk2 I tend to agree that the Mk1 files seem to be more "solid" than the Mk2.
OK, gdan, the 5D One had magical, ineffably wonderful performance characteristics. You have to leave a little room for subjectivity where art and science meet in your own experience of using the material tool. Seriously, I think that pixel size has got to make for some difference, just a difference, not necessarily better or worse, between the imaging produced by the 5D One's 8.2 and the II's itsy bitsy 6.4 micrometer pixels together with its other, compensating improvements. It's something interesting to try to characterize. But I'm really just blathering because I haven't used the new camera enough yet to judge very far. I do know that I'm excited about the possibilities that the 5D II provides.
gdanmitchell wrote:
Since the "poll" questions don't make a ton of senseDan
Thanks for this amazing writing! But if you check very first post after poll questions you might found some items you are explained in such good amount of words, even if they don't have lot of sense to you ...
I leave a ton or room for subjectivity - but that doesn't include the "magical technology" business. For me the subjectivity comes in the photograph, not in the hardware. For the most part, the capabilities of the hardware are an objective sort of thing. In the end I don't care a bit about whether I use a 5D II or a 27 X L-11 or a P&S - I care, deeply, about the photograph that I can create using whatever technical means I happen to prefer to use.
That is where "magic" can happen. On good days. ;-)
Dan
pjbishop wrote:
OK, gdan, the 5D One had magical, ineffably wonderful performance characteristics. You have to leave a little room for subjectivity where art and science meet in your own experience of using the material tool. Seriously, I think that pixel size has got to make for some difference, just a difference, not necessarily better or worse, between the imaging produced by the 5D One's 8.2 and the II's itsy bitsy 6.4 micrometer pixels together with its other, compensating improvements. It's something interesting to try to characterize. But I'm really just blathering because I haven't used the new camera enough yet to judge very far. I do know that I'm excited about the possibilities that the 5D II provides....Show more →
I've owned 3 5D's and am just back from holiday where I shot about a thousand RAW files with my 5D2.
Before I went I tried to buy another 5D because I didn't really want to take such an expensive camera where I was going but now I can say with some authority that much as I loved all my 5D's the 5D2 is better in every single way.
Screen, speed, focusing, files, liveview, viewfinder, sensor cleaning etc etc. It's just a very good update to an already very good camera
gdanmitchell wrote:
For the most part, the capabilities of the hardware are an objective sort of thing.
If all cameras generated the exact same output, I would agree with your statement... But they don't. Which makes it "subjective" which camera (or output/IQ) you like best. Of course, these days output can be made pretty similair in PP, but that is another discussion... concerning software and not hardware
gdanmitchell wrote:
I find almost all comments that assert that any given camera or lens has "magical qualities" to be pretty much laughable.
All cameras are magic. If you showed any one of 'em to Leonardo Da Vinci his eyes would pop out. I never want to forget how surreal is this voodoo that we call photography. You press a button and a view of a moment in time is recorded for posterity. Magick.
Fred Relaix wrote:
Focus recompose is not a good idea with fast glass, you shift the plane of focus when you do it.
It is either that or risking the outer AF points miss their target (and the 5D2's outer AF points are basically useless with larger apertures)... Though choice
brainiac wrote:
All cameras are magic. If you showed any one of 'em to Leonardo Da Vinci his eyes would pop out. I never want to forget how surreal is this voodoo that we call photography. You press a button and a view of a moment in time is recorded for posterity. Magick.
For once we agree.
We are very very lucky. Which is why minor quibbles about gear really aren't important IMHO
THose reviews also state that the anti aliasing filter on the 5D is weaker than the Mk2 giving sharper files straight up.
Hmmm. Must be why I had so danged much trouble with hair aliasing on the 5D in full-length portraits... and don't have that problem on the 5D2. Yet, those reviews are demostrably wrong--the 5D2 produces "sharper" prints.
brainiac wrote:
All cameras are magic. If you showed any one of 'em to Leonardo Da Vinci his eyes would pop out. I never want to forget how surreal is this voodoo that we call photography. You press a button and a view of a moment in time is recorded for posterity. Magick.
Inasmuch as the science is beyond the genuine understanding of most of us, if it's not magic, it is "indistinguishable from magic."
BTW, the pixels are the same size on the 5D and 5D2. They are closer together on the 5D2. The dimension Canon gives is the distance between pixel centers.
Live View: I'll make this short, since I've written a longer article at my blog about this.
Dan, I disagree with your blog comment about Live View not being useful for portraits. Portraits are what I do, and I now use Live View nearly 100% of the time--any time the camera is on a tripod, and with Live View I make that any time I can possibly put the camera on the tripod. Live View works so well, I'll tripod the camera even if it's not necessary just to use Live View.
Even your point about getting from behind the camera to look at the subject directly is more applicable to Live View than to the viewfinder. It's certainly easier to glance briefly down at the LCD while otherwise interacting directly with the subject.
Perhaps counterintuitively--something you have to try to understand--putting the camera on a tripod with Live View is actually more liberating than being the tripod and thus being attached to the back of the camera.
I've just gotten a radio trigger for the camera so that I don't even have to stay in physical contact with the camera after I've set up the shot. I can move toward the subject, staying just outside the frame, and fully interact. This is working wonders for photography of children.
