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 p.6 #8 · 5D classic, please help me decide. | |
Matt Ward wrote:
... is the 5Dc able to compete with the 7D in available light or would I be better off to give up FF this summer and save for a 5DII? I am purely looking for opinions, I am sure that there are many good ones and many other folks who shoot like I do.
After not posting in this thread since I left a message earlier last week, I thought I'd return and loop back to the OP's question. It seems like there are sort of two fundamental questions implicit in what he writes, perhaps along with an presumption about the 7D versus full frame.
Does the 5D compete with the 7D in available light, and...
Should he move quickly to get the 5D now or wait a bit and get a 5D2 later?
First, available light is not the same thing as low light, and even with low light the question could be "how low?" In my experience, "available light" simply means "no flash or other electronic lighting" - most landscape photography is "available light" photography.
(Photographer John Sexton tells a joke on himself about available light photography. To paraphrase: He has a beautiful black and white photograph of a rock/boulder above a canyon landscape, and that foreground rock certainly looks rather bright given the low ambient light levels. Some wonder if he, seemingly out of character, might have "cheated" and used flash. He has been know to say, more or less, to the question of "did you shoot that with available light?": "It was very dark, and I realized that I had a small flash in my bag, so since it was available I used it!" ;-)
In that context, all three cameras are going to perform roughly equally. I suppose that we might agree that, of the three, the full frame cameras might have a bit more dynamic range and that this could be useful in some marginal higher dynamic range situations, but in reality that is a pretty trivial (going on meaningless) difference in the real world of "available light" photography.
(If the OP is also very passionate about long exposure night photography - not generally thought of as typical available light photography, though - the more modern the camera and the larger the sensor, the more likely that the performance can be at least a bit better. I've done substantial long exposure night photography with the 5D and the 5D2 and I would never choose the 5D over the 5D2 for that, for IQ issues and for functional features that are useful in night photography.)
So, in terms of the subjects he mentions and the idea of shooting in "available light," how likely is it that the 5D would offer advantages in that, uh, light - and do so without losing functionality in other areas? Pretty much not likely at all. By the normal meaning of "natural light," there will be essentially no improvement in so-called natural light photographs. And, clearly, the 7D brings a number of other features that may well be useful to a photographer shooting the subjects he mentions and which are not available or available only in a less developed form in the 5D.
Then he asks, "would I be better off to give up FF this summer and save for a 5DII?"
Unless there is something this summer than demands the use of full frame in his work - and there is absolutely no indication of any such thing that cannot continue to be accomplished quite well with the 7D in the immediate future - I fail to see the need to rush into the older and less capable 5D when even he is happy to consider saving up a bit for a 5D2.
Let me also point out that if the "differences" between the 7D and the 5D seems significant to him, it is extremely unlikely that he will be happy for long with the differences between the 5D and the subsequent full frame camera from Canon, so this is not a long term issue but one of "this summer" only in all likelihood.
The 5D was an outstanding camera when it came out. There was literally nothing quite like it at that time. Before the 5D, the cost for acquiring a full frame DSLR was essentially out of the range of the vast majority of photographers, and very few people were shooting full frame for this reason. At that time a very basic 12MP full frame body seemed like an almost revolutionary thing to those who needed it - mostly folks doing non-action photography and working towards very large, high quality prints.
If you are unable to wait and if you cannot afford more and if you need full frame but none of the newer features of more recent cameras, a good copy of the 5D can be a decent choice. I still keep mine as my second body and backup camera, and it works fine.
However, if you don't need to buy right now (and our OP doesn't need to) and already have a camera that works quite well already (our OP again) and you can contemplate saving up for something a bit more advanced (our OP's suggestion...), then I do not recommend the 5D.
I've made tens of thousands of exposures on the 5D and tens of thousands of exposures on a 5D2, and have made fairly large prints from both. Although I have my favored subjects, I've also used both to shoot a wide variety of other subjects, too.
To cut to the chase, the 5D2 does everything at least as well as the 5D and in a number of significant areas it is better or offers functionality that is not present on the 5D. Aside from the photographer who cannot afford the difference between used prices on good copies of either (and I concede that there may be, no doubt, a few such buyers), the value of those additional features is almost certainly worth the added cost: 21MP rather than 12MP, live view, video, sensor dust cleaning system, 1-2 stops better high ISO performance (which seems to concern our OP), and more.
There is nothing "wrong" with a 5D. I used one for years and still have mine. But the differences between it and the 5D2 are real and in all cases where the cameras are not equal, the advantage goes to the 5D2.
Good luck with your choice.
Dan
Edited on May 19, 2013 at 12:39 PM · View previous versions
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. I very rarely shoot high ISO. 