I have recently received the 5D-II and put it through the required setup and testing. On the whole, this seems to be a pretty fine little camera - however does not live up to the initial hype that seems to pervade this forum.
The initial setup was rather quick and easily done. The configuration follows more closely the 1D-III which is nice in terms of consistency. My dozen or so lenses were setup with a single -5 micro-adjustment.
The only SERIOUS PROBLEM from an operation point of view is Canon's choice to reverse the meaning of the main dial and quick control dial when setting ISO. On the 5D and 1D-III, ISO is dialed in with the quick control dial whereas the 5D-II uses the main dial. This makes it difficult when working in conditions where setting ISO and using multiple cameras - for example, when I shoot theatre and dance. To me, this is a serious human interface design mistake.
Of course, the video and live view mode work well and are easy to use. But, for me, these are useless features for the type of subject material I shoot. YMMV.
The LCD display is excellent, to say the least.
Focus speed with the centre point only is slightly faster than the older 5D. Focus on low contrast subjects is substantially better - when shooting a low texture wall, the 5D-II would easily lock focus whereas the 5D would hunt forever. This is a great improvement for my work - particularly for dance where contrast can be rather miserable at times.
On the whole, the off-centre focus points seem almost as useless as on the 5D (well, slightly better - but not enough of an improvement to really make these extra points useful in my shooting condtions.... thank heaven for my 1D-III's).
Image quality quite fine. I did, however, hope that the 21 mpix would result in "much" higher quality images than the older cameras. In the final analysis, the extra megapixels, although visibily useful, are merely an incremental improvement in resolution. To test this, I shot my static model with flash, used the 100mm F2.8 macro lens at F8 and set the camera to ISO 100 in RAW mode. Conversion was done in ACR. Images from the 5D and 1D-III were upresed to match the 3744 pixel width of the 5D-II.
Here is the comparison of the 5D-II, 5D, and 1D-III. Although the 5D-II is superior to either the 5D and 1D-III, the differences is less than I hoped for. It really illustrates that even the 10mp 1D-III is a useful studio camera :-) In a sense, I am happy I got the 5D-II rather than the 1Ds-III - at least from a price / resolution point of view:
Noise comparison was approximately what I expected. The 5D-II seems to have about a one stop noise advantage over the 5D and about 1/2 stop advantage over the 1D-III. The ISO 12800 is possibly useful in a pinch. The ISO 25600 is purely last resort. As far as I am concerned the truly useful ISO range is ISO 50-6400 - which, as far as I am concerned, excellent for a 21mpix camera and my intended shooting conditions.
As with the previous image, the 5D and 1D-III images were upresed to match the 3744 pixel width of the 5D-II.
While doing these test, I noticed that the flash system often resulted in over-exposed frames when shooting the 5D-II while never resulted in this problem with the 5D nor 1D-III. About 1 image in 20 shot with the 5D-II resulted in over-exposure.
I assume by main dial you mean the dial on top, near the shutter button? IIRC- the ISO adjustment on the 5d utilized the wheel on the back of the camera- opposite from the 1d3, which uses the top dial.
orangefirefish wrote:
I assume by main dial you mean the dial on top, near the shutter button? IIRC- the ISO adjustment on the 5d utilized the wheel on the back of the camera- opposite from the 1d3, which uses the top dial.
On my 1D-III's, the top or the rear dials function to set the ISO.
tonyfield wrote:
Here is the comparison of the 5D-II, 5D, and 1D-III. Although the 5D-II is superior to either the 5D and 1D-III, the differences is less than I hoped for.
Hmmm... on the contrary, I think the sample you provided seems like a significant argument in favor of the 21 Megapixel resolution. The stark difference in resolution makes me wonder if the 5D and 1Dmk3 samples were even in focus.
Rubber Soul wrote:
Hmmm... on the contrary, I think the sample you provided seems like a significant argument in favor of the 21 Megapixel resolution. The stark difference in resolution makes me wonder if the 5D and 1Dmk3 samples were even in focus.
Hmmm... on the contrary, I think the sample you provided seems like a significant argument in favor of the 21 Megapixel resolution. The stark difference in resolution makes me wonder if the 5D and 1Dmk3 samples were even in focus.
When one looks through a microscope one can often see things not evident to the naked eye. I am going to guess that what you see at a 100% crop on the screen is simply not visible in most if not all but the insanely largest prints.
DaveKone and IreWeasel - yes, the print results on large prints is visible - but not in an impressive or serious way. I need some time out of doors to try scenics - and don't want to freeze my knickers in the current weather. Maybe the finer detail in a landscape will show the 5D-II in a better light.
Rubber Soul wrote:Hmmm... on the contrary, I think the sample you provided seems like a significant argument in favor of the 21 Megapixel resolution. The stark difference in resolution makes me wonder if the 5D and 1Dmk3 samples were even in focus.
tonyfield, thank you for your thread and resolution samples. I think your pictures show exactly what I saw when I was shooting wildlife with a 1D2 and 5D side by side in Yellowstone for 3 months. I was trying to resolve individual hairs on bighorn sheep and on elk at perhaps 100 feet with a 500 F4L IS on a very solid 12 pound Gitzo tripod with full Wimberly head:
There is a point, a certain distance from the animal, where a higher megapixel Canon can resolve the hair clearly and easily, but the lower resolution Canon simply couldn't do it. It almost seems to be a step function. It could well be at farther distance, neither camera could resolve it, and a closer distance, both cameras could resolve it.
But as luck or my framing choice would have it, I was very often at exactly the distance where one Canon could and the other couldn't. So I made the unusual wildlife personal choice that a Canon model with relatively poor frame rate and supposedly inferior auto-focus, could resolve for me, what the machine gun model couldn't.
I think you're seeing the exact same effect here, in going from 10MP to 21MP.
tonyfield wrote:
While doing these test, I noticed that the flash system often resulted in over-exposed frames when shooting the 5D-II while never resulted in this problem with the 5D nor 1D-III. About 1 image in 20 shot with the 5D-II resulted in over-exposure.
On my trip over the holidays, I've had the same thing occur with my 5DmkII, with 430ex (only a shot or two did this). I had assumed it was user error (which it probably still is and I haven't figured out what I did wrong). It never happened again, though. Even when I varied the exposure settings drastically (to catch action against black, for example).
Rubber Soul wrote:
Hmmm... on the contrary, I think the sample you provided seems like a significant argument in favor of the 21 Megapixel resolution. The stark difference in resolution makes me wonder if the 5D and 1Dmk3 samples were even in focus.
They are in focus - maybe I should have been more careful in choosing the exact image crop for comparison.
I agree with the others... Your contention that the resolution differences aren't as much as you hoped for is countered by the actual images you supply. I see a significant superiority in the 5D Mark II's ability to resolve the fine strands of hair in your test images. And, frankly, I can't imagine any camera ever looking better than what your test image demonstrates for the 5D Mark II.
Rubber Soul wrote:
Hmmm... on the contrary, I think the sample you provided seems like a significant argument in favor of the 21 Megapixel resolution. The stark difference in resolution makes me wonder if the 5D and 1Dmk3 samples were even in focus.
exactly, seems pretty huge to me, almost more than expected
davekone wrote:
When one looks through a microscope one can often see things not evident to the naked eye. I am going to guess that what you see at a 100% crop on the screen is simply not visible in most if not all but the insanely largest prints.
or try to shoot a bird or sports (without running onto the field and getting real close like and then getting tackled and then chucked in jail )
also, FWIW, if you set your printer to max DPI, I find it pretty easy to see even with just 6x9" prints (one of my friend's also saw it right away without any prompting, two saw it after it was pointed out, and one claimed to not be able to see it even when it was pointed out and trying to look for it)
Images look nice though, definitely more resolution and cleaner images with the 5D2. Thanks for sharing!
