|
After months of anticipation,
I finally had the camera in my hands. Would it's 21
megapixels live up to the hype? Would it deliver the
stunning 30”x40” prints that I have craved since the
day I gave up my large format camera and switched to
digital? Would it delivery superior noise
performance compared to digital cameras I have used
in the past? The answer to all of these questions is
simply: yes! In fact, I am so impressed with the
Mark II that I just can’t stop myself from
saying—and I can’t believe I am about to do
this—this camera takes real good pictures! Seriously
though, the Mark II is a powerful and robust tool to
help unleash your inner creative beast.
Many other reviewers have
conducted quasi-scientific resolution and noise
tests, and posted their thorough and extensive
results online already. I do not intend to bore you
with a repeat performance. Besides, I have never
felt that controlled, indoor test images of
resolution charts and stuffed animals really tell
you how a camera will handle in real-world
situations. Nature photography is conducted in
conditions that are often far from ideal, and my own
particular style of shooting often has me working at
the edge of light, where a camera’s hidden defects
will rise to the surface. So instead of an objective
review of the camera, I present here what will
likely be viewed as a somewhat more subjective
review—just one working stiff’s reaction to this
camera’s features and capabilities, tested not in a
controlled environment at home, but rather in the
chaos of the field.
I have owned many Canon
digital cameras over the years—including the
original Digital Rebel, Canon 20D, 1Ds Mark II, and
Canon 50D—and even destroyed a camera or two in my
time (the 1Ds Mark II makes a great $8000
paperweight, by the way). Shooting a variety of
nature subjects, ranging from landscapes to
wildlife, I suspect that many of the features and
performance characteristics that are important to me
will be important to you too, so I hope you will
find my subjective reactions to this camera useful.
Unfortunately, I have owned the 5D Mark II for only
a short period of time, so my conclusions are
necessarily provisional in nature, subject to
further evaluation with more field use. Furthermore,
I was unable to make any trips to grand scenic
locations in time for this review, so you’ll just
have to accept my humble offering of a few images
made locally, the best I could do on short notice!
Note that all
images in this review have been shot using raw,
converted in Adobe Raw Converter, and edited in
Adobe Photoshop CS4. I have only applied default
sharpening and noise reduction in Adobe Raw
Converter, and have not applied any sharpening or
noise reduction in Photoshop.
Great Falls of the Potomac, Virginia
Resolution
Let’s start here—after all,
resolution is all that matters, right? Well, maybe
not . . . but it is important. Simply put,
image files from this camera exceed the quality of
medium format films and are beginning to encroach
into large format film territory. Stunning 30”x45”
prints are attainable with this camera. Don’t
believe me? Well, let’s look at some image samples,
and you can judge for yourself.
At first glance, there is
nothing particularly special about this beaver
image—it is, after all, just an oversized rodent,
sufficiently cute and fuzzy that we forget for a
moment that it is a close cousin to the rat. But the
devil is in the details, as they say, so let’s take
a close look at a portion of this file, at its
native resolution, viewed at 100%:
Not so bad for a rat, eh? This
100% crop actually tells us a lot about how well the
file will hold up to enlargement: it fairly closely
approximates how well the image would look enlarged
and printed at 30”x45”. Pretty stunning if you ask
me! This image would make a wonderfully detailed
wall-sized print after sharpening is applied—except
for the fact that I do not want any wall-sized
prints of rats in my house!
Let’s take a look at another
image, this one of a mallard drake:
And, once again, a 100% crop:
So what are my conclusions
about resolution? Mated with good lenses, and shot
in optimum conditions, the Canon 5D Mark II is
capable of producing stunning large prints. But
let’s take a look at less than optimum conditions.
When shooting in contrasty light, how well does the
Mark II handle the dreaded noise monster?
Noise
I am very impressed with the
way this camera handles noise at low ISOs. Properly
exposed test shots at 100, 200, and 400 ISO are very
clean with little or no discernable noise. But let’s
face it, nature photography doesn’t always lend
itself to proper exposure! So let’s take a look at
some real world shooting conditions, which are less
than ideal.
The image above is about as
punishing on a file, noise-wise, as you can get. The
cattails are back-lit by the setting sun, so there
is a lot of contrast in the image. In order to
prevent the highlights from being overexposed, I was
forced to drop my exposure quite a bit, resulting in
a histogram that was bunched up on the left. As many
of you know, digital cameras generate noise in tones
that live on the left side of the histogram. With an
exposure like this, I was forced to not only push my
histogram to this very noisy place, but then later
increase exposure in these shadow areas (using a
Photoshop curves adjustment) to get them back to a
proper exposure. To add insult to injury, the wind
was blowing pretty hard, forcing me to use a higher
ISO than I typically would like for difficult
lighting conditions, in this case ISO 400. All
together, these are less than ideal circumstances
for a digital camera, and any noise hiding in the
shadows will be revealed as clear as the light of
day. With previous cameras I have owned, this sort
of shot would be a nightmare in post processing.
Well, enough talk, let’s look at a 100% crop and see
the results:
Indeed, there is some noise in
the tones that I raised with the curves adjustment,
but the noise is very manageable and can be easily
removed with a noise reduction filter. With other
cameras I have used, trying to raise the exposure of
these shadow areas would have generated a lot
more noise. Overall, I say not bad, especially
considering the circumstances!
In more optimum shooting
conditions, I have tested the Mark II at a maximum
ISO of 800. Note that although this image was
backlit, I used flash to create fill light in the
shadows, thus moving the image’s shadow pixels back
into the “safe zone” of the histogram.
As you can see from the 100%
crop below, the file is amazingly clean. I expect
that if I had not used fill flash, however, the
noise generated in the shadow areas of this image
would have been more significant than what we saw at
400 ISO.
Speed & Autofocus
Okay, this is where the camera
is relatively weak. At less than four frames per
second, and with a noticeable shutter lag, this
camera is not going to excel at fast action
photography. The autofocus is not as good as Canon’s
1 series camera, but does reasonably well.
Accordingly, I suspect I will not be pulling this
camera out of the bag first and foremost when
shooting wildlife. But nonetheless, with its
stunning 21 megapixels, I’m sure I will be using it
for stationary wildlife shots and slower moving
subjects. So far, I have not been disappointed:
This image, shot at ISO 400,
makes a stunning large print, rich in color and
detail—in fact, I have already made one!
Battery Power
Canon has increased the 5D’s
battery size and improved its life for the Mark II.
These improvements are necessary for the battery to
keep up with the power demands of Live View and
video. If you use Live View sparingly, the extra
power can be a real bonus, especially when shooting
in cold temperatures or using long exposures. To
test the batteries, I took a long night exposure in
below freezing temperatures (sorry, it was on my
back porch—my two attempts to take star trail
photographs with the Mark II from the summit of Old
Rag Mountain, my favorite “local” star location,
were thwarted first by wickedly icy trails, and
second by 40 mile-an-hour winds). After one hour of
continuous exposure, I still had plenty of battery
power left: the camera’s battery monitor (which is
purportedly fairly accurate) showed at least half
power remaining. My guess is that one battery alone
has enough juice to power the camera for a two to
three hour exposure, even in below freezing weather.
Using two batteries in the optional vertical grip, I
think that four to five hour continuous exposures
are possible. Simply amazing! Of course, if you use
Live View a lot, battery capacity will be much less.
Live View
It stuns me to still hear some
photographers scoff at Live View, deriding it as a
useless bell-and-whistle feature. Live View is an
amazing tool. I use it for critical focusing, to
determine exposure before I make the shot, and for
awkward setups where it is not possible to get my
eye to the viewfinder. The Mark II’s generously
large LCD screen is perfect for zooming in to 100%
to check focus throughout the scene, even when the
depth-of-field preview button is pressed, allowing
me to verify depth of field.
Sensor Cleaning
The Mark II comes with an
internal sensor cleaner that vibrates the sensor
when you power the camera on or off. In theory this
is a great idea, which should help keep the camera
sensor free of dust. In practice, after using the
camera for only a few weeks, I already have a large
dust fiber embedded on the sensor. Other users have
reported similar dust accumulation, but note that
most dust spots that appear are eventually removed
after the camera has been turned on and off a few
times. Only time will tell how useful the internal
sensor cleaner really is.
Video
The Mark II also allows you to
shoot stunning high-definition (HD) video using your
full complement of lenses. This may not be a
critical feature for most photographers, but if you
are interested in dabbling in multimedia, then you
will find this bonus feature to be incredibly
useful. It seems really cool to me that I can shoot
video using my 500mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter!
Or, if I am so inclined, to shoot using a super-wide
angle lens, using any of the filters I own. The
versatility of having HD video built in to a DSLR
system is incredible.
Durability
I have only owned the camera
for a short while, so I cannot speak with any
authority about the Mark II’s long-term durability.
According to Canon, they beefed up their weather
sealing compared to the original 5D. Although not
are rugged as the 1 Series cameras, I found the
original 5D to be adequately protected from the many
punishing elements I often find myself working in—it
even once survived a short dunk in some oozing wet
mud on the shores of salty Mono Lake. So I hope that
the Mark II will be able to handle anything I throw
at it! I should note that some early Mark II users
have reported anecdotal failures of the camera in
cold or wet weather. Once again, only time will tell
if these problems are systemic rather than the
result of user error (c’mon folks, if it starts to
rain, cover your camera!). So far, I have not had
any problems.
"Black Dots"
The so-called “black dots”
problem reported by early users has been fixed.
Basically, some users reported finding small black
dots in high contrast areas of their images. Canon
now offers a firmware upgrade to fix the black dot
phenomenon. I have seen no black dots in any of the
images I have taken. Other users have similarly
reported that the firmware upgrade works as
intended. Problem solved!
Conclusion
The 5D Mark II is
an amazing camera, perfect for landscape shooters
and adequate for a lot of wildlife work. While it
may not be for anyone, I’m very pleased that I
now own one. Its excellent noise characteristics and
high resolution files, coupled with an affordable
price (compared to 1 Series cameras, that is),
ensure that
it will be a classic in the making.
|
Interested in purchasing the Canon
5D Mark II? Support this site by making your purchases
through Amazon using the link provided to the right. Amazon offers some of
the best deals around on both new and used books and equipment. Can't find what you're looking for here?
Use the Amazon search link provided below.
|
|
|
About the
Author
