Ok, here we go. All below pictures are taken with Canon 35mm 1.4 L and 70-200mm IS L lenses. this is not a scientific study, but to let you know how this camera (and these lenses) perform in a daily use. Pictures shown are taken with neutral settings (no picturestyle) and only little PS is performed. I will not go through every detailed function of the camera, as they can be read from e.g. dpreview.

If you want to see pictures of the camera itself, see my previous topic here:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/286357


CANON 5D USER REVIEW

Today, I got a call from my local store, telling they had my 5D waiting for me. Needless to say, my second lunch break from my job started immediately. This was my first time to get a new model so fast after it was announced.

When I inserted my 2Gb CF card into the camera and selected option for RAW+L fine, (to make sure image conversion for this review) my camera showed me total of 96 images with ISO 100, and total of 77 images with ISO 3200. Not much for a card this size. Good thing CF manufacturers bring all the time bigger cards available, as with 5D, I would not be very happy to use smaller cards.

If the image quality is lowered, it is possible to shoot contiunously until your CF card is full. This is quite nice!! I'm sorry not to have tried this myself, but the manual shows the following table. By it, if you set Fine Medium quality, you should be able to shoot contiunously 120 frames. Too bad the frame rate is only 3 frames/sec. Maybe there could be a firmware hack for this in near future

Fine L - 60 pics
Low L - 150 pics
Fine M - 120 pics
Low M - 319 pics (possible until CF card is full)
Fine S - 200 pics
Low S - 446 pics (possible until CF card is full)
RAW - 17 pics
RAW + JPG - 12 pics

Btw. RAW files takes (by manual) 12.9Mb each. My CR2 files ranged from 11.1Mb to 16.5Mb (ISO 200) !! Happy computer hardware upgrading.

Camera and it's buttons feel very nice. It's plain fun to use the camera. Altough after getting used to EOS 1 serie, this camera might feel a bit small to your hand. Never the less, if the size is just what appeals to you, this is the right camera. Program dial has a new mode "C" custom, where you can store different custom settings for different shooting situation. The most important custom setting here would be Mirror lock enable. After setting it here, just dial C and you'll have mirror lock on. Dial Av for e.g. and the camera returns to it's normal state. Nice! Too bad there's just one custom mode.

Viewfinder is nice and large. No complaining here. After getting used to 1.3X crop factor, this camera feels right as it should. Also FF makes lenses like 70-200mm act as they was intented. I myself found this zoom too long with 1.6X crop - I hated it. But now it fits on like a glove. You can choose from custom functions if you want to use default small AF areas or extented AF areas. But one will get used to small areas quite fast. IMO it's just better if the AF area is small, so it really focuses where it should.

Shutter release has a little high pitch on it, and you can feel when the mirror comes back down. Little bit more than with 1D I think, but it's not disturbing. More like a feel of real camera.

PictureStyle has 3 custom settings. Altough one can modify camera's 6 default settings to his/her liking, leaving custom settings unusable. Using PictureStyle is good if you're planning to buy a Pixma or Selphy direct printer, and shoot people on the street and earn some money from it. Or you could have your friend fitted in a clown suit and take photos & sell them for people in the park. Otherwice, I would suggest leaving these settings alone and do the job with RAW converter and Photoshop. You will have more possibilities to make different images afterwards. For e.g. if you shoot monochrome from camera, you will never have colours. But you can always convert a color picture to b&w with computer.

Image quality is pretty awesome with this camera. Let me introduce you some of my quick shot pictures (JPEG, Fine large):

35L f/8.0 ISO 200

Am I the only one who hated the two/three finger while looking up method of changing shooting mode on the 1Ds? One of the great things on the 5D in my opinion is that dial, I can change from Manual to AV in one click without looking and therefore fast and intuitively.

Are there a bunch of 1DSs buried under those crosses? Nice reporting.

Thanks for posting.

Which store did you get it from?

Might be. 1Ds is already what, 3 years old camera?

Thanks for posting up samples so quickly.

Your short review is also a bonus!

Bought if from www.verkkokauppa.com. They got 10 cameras today, and there's 2 of them available right away at the moment for 2898.90 eur inc. VAT!

Edited by Arhi Esansaari on Sep 27, 2005 at 07:02 PM GMT

Beni wrote:
Am I the only one who hated the two/three finger while looking up method of changing shooting mode on the 1Ds? One of the great things on the 5D in my opinion is that dial, I can change from Manual to AV in one click without looking and therefore fast and intuitively.

If you can memorize the dial position, you can memorize how many clicks for the different modes without pulling the camera from your face. I too wish they put the three button control system on the 5D, but they had to try to separate it from the 1 series.

Wow, thanks for the quick review, that must have been a long second lunch!

jeff

John Power wrote:
Are there a bunch of 1DSs buried under those crosses? Nice reporting.

oh, sure, make fun of the old cameras...   i'm sure there are film cameras buried there as well since they can no longer take photos, either.

-erik

Ben, you got me wrong, I HATED the button system on my 1Ds, The press buttons, dial 3 times while looking up or trusting your memory (it only needs one screw up....) whereas the 5D dial where I shift one click clockwise from manual to AV without looking is for me far preferrable. Now if only they would make a switch from 'one shot' to AI Servo like the Nikon's do. I found all the settings accessed by the 3 button system to be counter intuitive, slow (how many times where you trying to press two buttons for ISO and changed the shooting mode by mistake?) and very fiddly. Good riddance.

Thanks for the user's report!

Cheers!

Beni wrote:
Ben, you got me wrong, I HATED the button system on my 1Ds, The press buttons, dial 3 times while looking up or trusting your memory (it only needs one screw up....) whereas the 5D dial where I shift one click clockwise from manual to AV without looking is for me far preferrable. Now if only they would make a switch from 'one shot' to AI Servo like the Nikon's do. I found all the settings accessed by the 3 button system to be counter intuitive, slow (how many times where you trying to press two buttons for ISO and changed the shooting mode by mistake?) and very fiddly. Good riddance.

Mmmm, I use 1D mkII and I can switch from Manual to Av wihtout looking. And From One Shot to AI Servo is even easier. Changing the ISO isn't a problem at all either. I do like the 3 button system a lot. I wouldn't say it's slow and counter intuitive. I guess it's just a personal thing.

Thanks for the good report.

Edited by Gemm on Sep 27, 2005 at 07:55 PM GMT

Edited by Gemm on Sep 27, 2005 at 08:08 PM GMT

Thanks Great reporting.. I find your sample shots at the church yard a very good place to check DOF.
Dan

Thanks for posting your experiences and images! It'll be nice to see the 5d rolling out in the US, soon.

Thanks for the review.

Are these images unsharpened?

Thanks for posting Arhi... a good read/look

I assume to use the raw + L jpg at 3fps one needs the Sandisk extreme III cards??

Sweet! I'm struck by the tombstone picture, it seems to have very film-like appearance.

Wow fancy that, someone who gets one of the hottest new cameras, AND posts some shots taken with the camera. Thanks for your efforts.
Rob

Thank you for spending time to report out of the busy exciting hours !

I thought I wasn't interested in the 5D. I thought the lack of weathersealing was a big dealbreaker on a $3k+ camera for me. I thought maybe the buffer is going to seem so slow next to my 1D2. I thought I hated that tiny obnoxious focus point selector pad.

I think mine arrives next wednesday.

Thanks for the mini-review. Images look good. ...But is that vignetting in the graveyard picture? Probably just a shadow... anyway, wish I had loads of money :-) congrats on your new camera.

Oh baby, what a Camera. I'm glad I switched to Nikon. When I get mine, I'm going to borrow a D2X and do a comparison.

Daniel.

hauxon wrote:
Thanks for the mini-review. Images look good. ...But is that vignetting in the graveyard picture? Probably just a shadow... anyway, wish I had loads of money :-) congrats on your new camera.


I was wondering the same thing, i attributed it to the wide aperture. Does the camera show vignetting , if so at what apertures/ focal lengths?