gdanmitchell
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 p.1 #20 · To owners of both 5D and 5D2 | |
Since the "poll" questions don't make a ton of sense - basically none of the options accurately represent my experience - I'll offer a text response.
I used the 5D for several years and still have it. I've used a 5D II for something like eight months now. I shoot extensively. Much of my work is urban/natural landscape, but I also shoot other subjects including some sports, some "people" photography, and so forth.
First, I can dismiss any notion that the 5D II is poorer than the 5D in any way. With the exception of the now-fixed "black dot problem," the 5D II is at least as good as the 5D in every way and better (more on that below) in many others. If you would like a 5D and find it a fine camera for your photography, then you would find the 5D II to be at least as useful and satisfying. (I'm intimately familiar with the IQ from both cameras since I am a careful post-processor of my images and I print.)
Second, any notion of "betterness" is, to some extent, relative to your own photographic needs and practices. While a feature of one camera may be objectively "better" (for example, the fps burst rate on the 5DII is slightly faster than on the 5D), the important thing is the extent to which the difference is or is not noticeable or even relevant to your work. (The frame rate difference is almost certainly irrelevant.)
Third, some differences...
- 21MP v. 12MP: If you regularly print at large sizes and if you shoot with very careful and precise technique and if you understand and employ reasonably sophisticated post-processing techniques, I find that there can be visible improvements in the IQ of large prints. Some additional detail can be produced and I feel that there are smoother tonal variations in photos made on the higher MP camera. That said, the differences are of "degree" and not of "orders of magnitude" and very definitely depend on your shooting skills and post-processing/printing skills. If you never print larger than, say, 12" x 18" or if you generally just share electronic versions of your photographs you are unlikely to see any IQ differences. (Frankly, a fine cropped sensor camera can do those things with excellent results - and at a lower cost.)
- Movie mode: If you really would use this a lot, this is clearly a differentiating feature between the two cameras. But there are a few warnings. If your idea of video production involves putting the camera on a tripod and acquiring and using high quality audio recording equipment and then editing in a sophisticated post-processing environment... the 5D II can produce really, really wonderful results for certain types of work. If your idea of video shooting is more casual - hand held, vacation shots, and so forth - you would be better of with a small, dedicated video recorder.
- Dust reduction system: It works. With my 5D I had gotten used to doing a brush/blower cleaning every month or so - sometimes more often - and doing cleanup in post during the interim. After shooting the 5D II for 8 months I have not yet felt compelling to clean the sensor glass. I occasionally see a few small spots when I shoot a small apertures, but I can quickly and effectively remove them in post. In addition, many of them only appear for a few frames and then disappear on the following shots made after the camera is cycled on/off.
- Live View: I'll make this short, since I've written a longer article at my blog about this. The short story is that for certain types of photography Live View is a tremendously powerful feature. Night photography and landscape/architecture photography are two that come to mind. When I do night photography I can get manual focus with live view in situations where the AF system of any DSLR would fail to work and I would otherwise have to resort to a variety of tricks. When I use a 9-stop ND filter for certain types of landscape I can still manually focus and recompose with the filter in place! I can also manually check focus throughout the frame at small apertures and zoomed in to 10X.
- Better LCD: It is larger and offers some additional features.
- Other stuff if I wanted to go on...
So, bottom line:
If you are a very careful photographer who works with excellent technique (e.g. tripod, great lenses, careful composition/focus, remote release, MLU) and produces large, high quality prints, the 5D II can make a noticeable difference. If the particular set of video features of the 5D II are exactly what you need in your video work, it can make a lot of sense. If you are certain that you need full frame and cost is no object, get a 5D II.
If your shooting is less rigorous (e.g. - mostly hand held), you don't print really large (large enough to push the boundaries of the 12 MP FF source - say larger than 16 x 24), and cost is an issue you will be very satisfied with the results from the 5D. It is truly a fine camera for many types of use.
If you mostly go to electronic versions of your photographs and share online... either camera's IQ will far exceed what you need. There will be essentially NO visible difference between the images.
Dan
Edited on Aug 10, 2009 at 10:30 PM · View previous versions
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