Canon's new 21 million pixel (more affordable) 5Dmk2

Not having placed a back order for the Canon 5D2 I had settled down to the fact that it was going to be more like February or March before I was going to be able to buy a camera off of the shelf. A few days before Christmas one of my favourite retailers rang to say that if I wanted a body only there was one going begging as he had had a cancellation. Oh No! I hope the wife is full of Christmas spirit :-)
Anyway, on opening the box, the first thing that hits you is the size of the LCD screen and to me, having been a 5Dmk1 owner a few years ago, I got the impression that the build and feel of the new camera was a step up on the original, and having now used the camera for a month or so I am pleased to say that my first impressions are now confirmed. Waiting for the battery to charge up gave me a chance to load the new software and have a glance at the instruction manual that I am pleased to say comes both on disk and as a small well laid book that is small enough to carry around in your camera bag till you get to grips with the many new features that the camera has. The 5D2 has a completely new battery so any of your old spare batteries will not fit this new camera which has a much higher rating and some electronic wizardry within to talk to the camera and add some nice extra features that was lacking in the original.
I`d like at this stage to point out that at the age of 64 my main reason for purchasing this camera was to lighten the load whilst still maintaining the file size and image quality for my stock submission work that requires a minimum 50Mb 8bit J peg files. The new camera gives me a native 8bit file size of just over 60Mb which allows for some cropping if required.
So! now the battery was charged and I turned it on for the very first time, went outside and shot the obligatory first images around the garden of subjects that I know well and am familiar with just how they should look. Chimping through those first images and viewing them on the new high resolution screen was one of the most exciting moments of the new camera. Magnifying the images up to 10x and scrolling around gave me the ability to actually see what was and wasn`t sharp for the very first time with any DSLR camera. Even the screen on my 1dsmk3, although good, cannot compete in any way with this new screen, it is a very fine way to view your images whilst out and about and could well be for a lot of people the single thing that would attract them to the upgrade. I find the noise made by the shutter and mirror returning to be quieter than the mk1 with a more engineered sound to it, so no problems there then. The viewfinder doesn`t give a full 100% view of the scene that will be captured, but is close enough that makes no difference, but boy what a lovely bright viewfinder, a real step up on the original and certainly brighter than my 1dsmk3 - although to be fair I have fitted a split image screen in the Mk3 and that does tend to dim the view somewhat. I was a bit surprised to find just one card slot for CF and a very similar array of the AF points to the original 5D and after testing those AF points I find the centre cross sensor to be roughly as sensitive as my 1 series cameras, and the outer points to be very similar in their operation to the original 5d1.
In use, those outer points will be fine for general photography but I note that some sports photographers and dim light wedding work has seen the outer points lacking a touch over the 1dsmk3, which at almost a third of the 1dsmk3 launch price is not that surprising really. Of course a one series camera can be used to bang the occasional nail in , whereas the 5D2 would probably not survive that use :-) .. and don`t forget the excellent weather proofing that all 1 series cameras have. So yes, you have the resolution of the 1dsmk3 but not the build quality and weather proofing, but let's be perfectly honest, how many of us stand out in the rain for any length of time without some sort of cover (my wife wealds a super umbrella).
Everything about the 5D2 for me is a big jump up over the original without even considering the increased resolution. With a 5.30am outing to be in place for sunrise at a local fishing port, and staying around in sub zero temperatures for a few hours afterwards with a count of 350 images, saw the battery level still up near 75% left. I have ordered a spare battery but in general use in reasonable temperatures I reckon the battery should be safe for between 800-1000 images inc AF and review set to 'on', so no problems about battery power as far as I can see.
Users of earlier Canon DSLR cameras will quickly be familiar with the new camera and make full use of the many added features in the menu like the last item where users can have half a dozen or so features normally hidden in the custom functions available with a single touch, or the three positions on the main dial to the left where you can set the camera up for various shooting conditions at a single turn of the dial.
I won`t go into much depth on the ergonomics of the camera, but suffice to say that I really don`t see any problems using the camera and finding just what I need very quickly. My advice as always would be to handle one in your local store but if you can`t wait till they become freely available and have average sized hands then you should be fine, even my wife holds the camera and feels very much at home with it. When you look at the weight difference between the 5D2 and a 1 series camera, you really wouldn`t imagine the 5d2 feeling that much lighter, but trust me it really does (the last straw syndrome perhaps).
So now we get to perhaps the most important side of any new camera and that is the one on image quality, I`ve used cameras that were terrible to handle, heavy and cumbersome etc. if the image quality was good enough, but this must be a breakthrough, a camera that a child can hold that produces image quality to rival the mighty Canon 1dsmk3 ?? Does it ? You bet your life it does. Shooting identical images on the same tripod, same lighting and same lenses produces, (shot in raw mode BTW), images that myself and my eagle eyed wife cannot tell apart, and in fact I think I`m seeing slightly better dynamic with the 5d2.
So, you might ask, am I seeing results where the AF system of either camera is being given an advantage because the AF in the cameras aren`t working exactly the same ? No, I`m not at all ! Being a photographer who uses some of the old style manual focus Contax lenses from the 80`s via an adapter to convert the Contax mount to Canon mount, and using my lenses manually focussed via the live view option at 10x magnification gives me the perfect platform to be able to judge just what those sensors are capable of, and as I said above the images are more or less the same, honestly.
To be sure, the file size of the new camera might well tax an older computer and put a strain on storage, but it will be worth it for the file size generated. One word of caution though, if you are used to viewing your older lower resolution images on a decent sized computer screen at 100%, you might well be a bit disappointed at the fine detail that you are seeing, don`t be dismayed because this is the way digital images look when they fill the size of a wall and you stick your nose up against them, but I must also add that it really does take your very best lenses to be able to resolve the amazing amount of detail that this chip can resolve. This is where the manual focus lenses from the likes of Zeiss, Nikon and Leica can make so much difference to the look of your images. When I submitted my first shots from my 1dsmk3 to my stock library they were turned down because at 100% they didn`t look detailed enough, since then I`ve tightened up my technique and use only my best lenses and have purchased a number of old manual focus lenses, combined with this the stock libraries have now realised that 21million pixel camera images viewed at 100% unsharpened don`t look anywhere near as good as 12 million pixel images at the same level, however when processed and printed correctly the 21 million pixel images print to the same degree of quality as the original 5D images but to a much larger size. If you don`t need larger images and in general print up to A3+ or web sized then you probably won`t gain much from the higher resolution other than a massive amount of cropping flexibility and a much better camera feature-wise. If, on the other hand you need to print large, or crop a lot and submit to stock libraries then you are gonna absolutely fall in love with this camera and might well be able to afford the quality images that in the past only pros could aspire to. If you want to see some 5d2 images at web resolution from an enthusiastic photographer , then visit my pbase site and select the last few pages of my "Latest Images" gallery here www.pbase.com/davechilvers and feel free to leave comments



5D2 Video Performance.


Just touching on one of the other main features that people might buy this camera for I have to say that I will probably only use this feature on a few occasions so it wasn`t a buying point for me. However being a new feature and having just purchased a new HD ready plasma tv I felt compelled to try it out. I then noticed that the camera didn`t come supplied with an HDMI cable and thought it a bit cheapskate but after a brief visit to E bay I managed to get a 2Mtr HDMi cable (mini one end for the camera and standard the other end for the TV for a massive £3.99 post free:-)
So before the HDMi cable arrived I connected the supplied video cable to the video in phono sockets on the front of the TV and picture quality was OK but nothing special (similar to when connecting your average camcorder to the TV) Two days later and the HDMi cable arrived, I rushed out and shot a small burst of video on a tripod around the garden and with baited breath plug into the HDMi cable and voila!! so good I thought I was watching TV (keep in mind that this new TV tuned into the UK`s new freesat service is simply superb) So! from camcorders I`ve had in the past inc a couple of high end ones this 5D2 seems to beat the pants off of anything I`ve used and should satisfy the most ardent video buffs. I think I read somewhere on the net that Canon has chosen a slightly unusual video format or codec but more reading revealed that software is available on the internet that converts everything to a more user friendly format so no problems there then. When you think of the cost of a half decent video camera and the ability to be able to use your favourite lenses plus (and it`s a big plus as far as I`m concerned) if you press the shutter release whilst videoing the videoing pauses and the camera takes a 21million pixel still image just the same as you have it set up for stills in raw or j peg. Now that is a superb added bonus and I reckon it might encourage many of us to shoot more video knowing that our normal still imaging is just one button push away and then with another button push we can return to video mode.



Thanks for reading.



Dave Chilvers