A little bit of sunshine to brighten your day.
Well, it's been a week with the 5DmkII and to keep it brief, the camera is amazing, especially when compared to the 40D/50D. When you first pick it up, you can feel the extra weight and heft in the body, and the larger size over the 40D and 50D make it much nicer to hold, even without a battery grip (which would be my preferred method of use). The camera just feels more solid.
The thing I really love about it though (physically speaking), is the "ka-chunk" and the feel of the mirror-slap/shutter.
Image wise, it is superb, straight away I could spot the difference when I compared shots with the 50D. Both the DOF and bokeh are both a substantial improvement over the 50D. The DOF is more shallow and pronounced by the full frame sensor. The shots seem 'smoother' and the high ISO noise handling is definitely a lot better. The first outing this camera had was to shoot a wedding on the Friday just gone, and I've many a usable shot taken at ISO3200.
The only let down (and this is the general vibe I get from the community, as well as personal opinion) is in the Auto-Focus system. It's old. The centre point is accurate and sensitive in extreme low-light situations, but the surrounding 8 leave a lot to be desired.
But enough of that silly talk, here's one of my favourites from the wedding.
Gear: Canon 5DmkII+Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L+Canon 580exIICamera Settings: 1/60s, ISO800, f/4.0 @ 63mm
Bride: Chloe Newton (about to become Chloe Blanchard)
Hair and Make-up: Andrea Bartlet of www.completetreat.com.au
J.P.
everything i've heard about the AF of the 5D compared to say a 40D is that the 40D > 5D
ReplyDeletebut do you know what it's like in the 7D?
Hey Mate, I dunno about that, in what I've seen so far, the AF of the centre point in the 5DmkII is far superior to that of both the 40D and 50D. The response and critical focus time is definitely faster on the 5DmkII. Which is great, because you can get focus in mega low light situations.
ReplyDeleteFor example, at the wedding, the ambient light on the dance floor at the reception was an exposure of around f/3.2-ISO6400-1/30s, which is dark, very, very dark, and still the centre focus dot of 5DmkII could grab critical focus where ever I pointed it. The outer focus points hunted a bit much in that environment, but over high contrasty subjects (brides white dress and groom dark suit, a perfect contrast for attaining focus from) the outer point did lock in, but not quickly, and with a fair bit of hunting.
As for the 7D, I really don't know. Without having one to test with and not having had any time with one I really can't comment. My reading around the internet has seemed to indicate that the centre point of the 5DmkII is more sensitive (read: better in extreme low light) than even the 1DmkIV...
interesting.
ReplyDeletei'm not really in the market for a new body at the moment, but i like to stay in touch =]
if i did upgrade, i would be aiming for the 7D
but yeh, thanks for the reply!