Canon 5D Mark II
21MP, 3.9 FPS, Full-Frame
3" LCD, 1080 HD. $2,699.
© 2008 KenRockwell.com. All rights reserved.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II and 50mm f/1.4. enlarge. I got mine at Adorama (body only, kit with 24-105 IS or all possible configurations). It helps me keep adding to this site when you get yours from these links, thanks! Ken.

December 2008      More Canon Reviews

NEW: Nikon D3X, D3, D40, and Canon 5D Mark II, 5D and SD700 Sharpness Comparison 13 January 2009

NEW: Nikon D3X, D3, and Canon 5D and 5D Mark II ISO 3,200 Comparison 09 January 2009

NEW: Nikon D3X, D3, and Canon 5D Mark II ISO 6,400 Comparison 09 January 2009

NEW: Nikon D3 and Canon 5D Mark II ISO 25,600 Comparison 09 January 2009

NEW: Nikon D3X versus Canon 5D Mark II Sharpness Comparison 08 January 2009

07 January 2009 update: Canon's firmware version 1.0.7 (direct download for for Mac and windows) claims to have fixed the black rings around Uranus.

NEW: Canon 5D Mark II Black Pixels Around Uranus 12 December 2008

NEW: Canon 5D Mark II High ISO examples 10 December 2008

Introduction

To quote Canon, "The EOS 5D Mark II achieves the highest level of image quality of any EOS Digital SLR released to date."

Even without all the extra pixels, the new LCD and better usability more than makes the 5D Mark II worth the upgrade from the old 5D.

Now that I've had my 5D Mark II for the past ten days, it's easy to proclaim it as Canon's best digital camera ever, along with the SD880. Since the 5D MArk II has the same or better image quality, the old $8,000 1Ds Mark III can be tossed out, saying sayonara to its hideous little LCD and too much weight. (Of course if your a sports or bird pro, you'll live with it for the frame rate.)

Battery life? You mean the 5D Mark II has a battery? I've made 1,600 shots on it so far, and the battery is still 20% full.

The 5D Mark II has such excruciatingly high resolution that you will need extraordinary lenses to use this to its fullest. Canon's pro fixed f/2.8 super teles are great, but the state-of-the-art in Canon wide zooms isn't there yet.

It's always better than the old 5D, but I mention this for you tweakers out there who, instead of taking pictures and loving what's right, zoom into your files at 300% and start whining about the two pixels that are wrong. If you're a tweaker, the 5D Mark II will let you see errors in your technique, subject motion blur, limited depth-of-field, and lens limitations more clearly than any camera I've ever used.

For normal use you can ignore this, but if you're a tweaker who spends more time looking at your images at 100% than looking at your pictures, you're going to need to be very careful with your selection of aperture. Diffraction becomes obvious at f/11 and smaller. For instance, with the sharpest zoom I've ever used, the 70-200 f/4 IS L, it's obvious, shooting at infinity, that the optimum aperture is f/8 at al focal lengths. Use a so-so lens, like the plastic EF 70-300 f/4-5.6 III, and you'd better stop it down to f/8 ~ 11 and not use it at longer than 135mm.

The 50 1.4 USM is great, but again, optimum at f/8 and f/11.

The 28-135mm IS is OK at 50mm at f/8-f/11. At 28mm you have a lot of lateral color fringes, and it gets softer much longer than 70mm.

The original EF 14mm f/2.8 L has loads of lateral color, and is optimum at f/11. This will be greatly improved if DxO makes a module for it. Don't buy a 5D Mark II for the original 14mm; it's not sharp enough to make it worth your while.

The excellent 15mm fisheye is very good. It has some lateral color, and is optimum at f/8.

The 16-35mm II can look awful, since it, like the 14mm lens, has never been as sharp as normal and long lenses. It's best at f/11. I discovered that I get much better results using just the one center AF sensor, since using all the AF sensors at the same time giver poorer results. This had me chasing the forbidden AF tweak controls, until I realized that I probably was chasing a field curvature issue instead.

The 17-40mm is as good as the 16-35mm II. It's not pretty if you're looking too close. Best aperture is f/8~11.

It just might be time to shoot Nikon (or Zeiss) manual focus lenses on the 5D Mark II if you're a tweaker. I popped on a Nikon 105mm f/4 AI-s Micro-NIKKOR with a kludge adapter, and it worked great, without any of the alignment issues of AF lenses caused by mechanical slop.

Just the new LCD alone is worth the extra price over the old 5D. The old 5D's LCD was horrible!

What's really new over the old 5D:

Decent LCD

Nice LCD with auto-adjusting backlight.

This alone is reason enough for me to dump my old 5D in favor of the new 5D Mark II.

The auto-adjusting backlight really works. It looks great in daylight, and doesn't burn out your eyes at night. This means, for the first time I can use my LCD at night to evaluate exposure, and not have to add a stop as I do on Nikons with their fixed brightness levels.Yay!

You can fix the level of the backlight if you prefer. It can be weird having the LCD get brighter and darker as you try to shade it to see it better from daylight!

The LCD is covered with anti-reflection coated glass, but sadly, it picks up fingerprints like a magnet. By comparison, the screen coating of the SD880 point-and-shoot seems to repel fingerprints.

Auto ISO

This new feature alone is also enough to make me love the new 5D Mark II over my old 5D.

Auto ISO is on by default, and not hidden deep inside menus as it is on Nikon.

Canon's Auto ISO is far smarter than any Nikon Auto ISO.

Canon is making use of my invention disclosure, and Canon's Auto ISO automatically takes focal length into effect. On my Nikons I need to reset the lowest shutter speed in the Auto ISO menu as I change lenses, while Canon just knows at what focal length I'm shooting and adjusts accordingly.

The bad news is that although Canon's Auto ISO is way smarter than Nikons, Canon's Auto ISO cannot be adjusted. You either shoot it as Canon has it set, or choose your ISOs manually. Tough.

Again in Canon's favor, Auto ISO is smarter than Nikon's because it also has a "smart soft landing."

With Nikon, ISO bumps up as soon as the shutter speed hits a preset lowest speed, which is after the lens hits its maximum aperture in Pro exposure mode (P, previously called Program). As it gets darker, Nikons open up the lens, then slow the shutter to the set speed, and only then does Nikon start to increase the ISO. Nikons keep increasing the ISO to the preset maximum, and only then do they lengthen the shutter speed after running out of ISOs.

In the 5D Mark II, as it gets darker, the 5D Mark II starts increasing the ISO before you get to the slow limit, and before you wind up at full aperture. It does even closer to what I want than Nikon does, so long as it's choosing the slow limit I prefer.

Canon's inviolate slow speed limits in Auto ISO are those you'd pick for still subjects. They counter hand motion, but not subject motion.

With a 50mm lens, Canon's Auto ISO tries to keep you at 1/40 or faster.

At 70mm, it's 1/80, and at 200mm, it's 1/160.

At 35mm it's 1/30, and at 16mm, it's 1/15.

Canon's Auto ISO is brilliant for shooting still subjects, as I usually do with a 5D Mark II, but since Canon's Auto ISO can't be altered, it's useless for shooting motion with wide and normal lenses. unless you shoot in Tv mode.

Canon's Auto ISO still isn't smart enough to know if you have Image Stabilization switched ON or OFF. Canon's point-and-shoots are smart enough. Drats!

Auto ISO works even with Highlight Tone Priority ON, although of course it starts at ISO 200 instead of ISO 100.

Shooting Control

Another huge improvement is the new rear info panel. It's the best way to make changes to settings. You can still use the crappy old way, which is to press the illegible little row of buttons along the top of the top LCD, or just set C.Fn. IV: 3 (assign SET button) to 5: Quick COntrol Screen. Now tap the SET button, and you can set everything with it.

You use the little rear thumb nubbin to select what to set, then just spin the big rear knob and you're done. There's no need to hit OK or SET again as on Nikon; when you've changed something, you're done.

This is way better than menus, because the thumb nubbin lets you move in four directions instead of just up and down in menus.

There are three total recall settings, C1, C1 and C3. You set any of them to recall everything about the camera any time you turn to them. This is far better than Nikon's dorky Setting Bank, which only store some of the camera parameters, and require too much menu jerking to set.

In the 5D Mark II, save a camera state into C1, C2 or C3, and when an airliner bursts unexpectedly into flame above you while you're in the middle of a swimsuit shoot, spin the dial to C3 and point the camera at the falling wreckage, and you just bagged the front page shot worldwide with exactly the contrast, WB, AF and every setting you saved months ago.

In all seriousness, I save C1 for landscapes (high rez, high saturation, AWB, etc.) and save C3 for kid shots indoors: low rez, tungsten WB, rational saturation, etc. Everything, including WB trim settings, is saved in each of these three settings.

I'd gladly trade the toy-store settings, [AUTO] and [CA] to be C4 and C5.

Playback

Now also reads Picture contrast, saturation, AF offset and etc. settings.

More Pixels

Yes, more pixels, but you had better have some real Perkin-Elmer spy-satelite grade optics to make good use of them. For most people, all the more pixels of the 5D Mark II is going to show you are the limits of your Canon L-series lenses and your technique.

What still sucks in the 5D Mark II

Canon calls this the 5D Mark II because it's mostly just a 5D with the improvements I just mentioned.

Here's what should have been fixed after three years of the 5D, but wasn't:

1.) You still have to hit play after making a shot in order to be able to zoom, or to go to other shots. If this wasn't a family website, I'd use expletives like *$$)*m'th'rf''ck'ng'ss'l'ck'ng'sh't! to express my disappointment here. Can you say boycott?

2.) Just like Canon's very first DSLR, the 3MP Canon D30 of 2000, even after you press Play to be able to talk to the LCD, it still responds too slowly. Zoom in or change images, and you only get a fuzzy image at first, followed eventually by the sharp image you wanted a second later. I think the Italians say something like vaffanculo to this.

3.) The menu action isn't any faster either. The menus of the 5D Mark II now fade slowly into each other instead of just going. Crap; I have pictures to make. I think Ill see if I can trade the 5D Mark II for an SD880, whose menus just go.

Crap! How do these Japanese waste all the processing power in these cameras? Why in God's good name do I have to wait for the camera to respond to button inputs, or anything on playback? Why does today's 5D Mark II seem just as slow as Canon's first attempt from 2000, while Nikons have had this figured out for years? My kid's toys sit around for weeks, and when he touches them, they just play.

Call me crazy, but the 5D Mark II is the only electronic SLR I've ever used that takes any perceptible amount of time to respond to dial inputs. In Av mode, it can take a fraction of a second for the finder display to update your set aperture!

4.) You can never fill the LCD with an image. You always have a black bar at the top with data, even when zoomed. Nikon doesn't have this problem. Oh, pardon me: this isn't a problem left unrectified since the 5D; this was fine in the old 5D. This problem is new in the 5D Mark II!

5.) You still can't set the 5D Mark II to adjust exposure in full stops. It's halves or thirds, and that's it.

6.) The viewfinder display is still too dim to read easily, and the numbers are too thin. Even Nikon's cheapest D40 is far, far superior here. There is more stuff in the 5D Mark II finder over the old 5D, but you still can't see it very well. The bar graph display is small, and for I know, maybe smaller than in the old 5D. This is an important display; a pro camera would put the bar graph big, bold and vertically along the side of the finder.

7.) The 5D Mark II's shutter still sounds like the old 5D, which sounds like a klunky old Graflex. At least the after-click whine went away.

8.) There is still no practical way to set manual gray-card white balances. (You can do it, but it takes a few hands.)

9.) The same crappy, defectively designed power switch is still there. I still have to take the 5D Mark II away from my face in order to turn it back on when the switch gets knocked carrying the 5D Mark II around my neck. Even Nikon's crappiest cameras have had power switches concentric to the shutter release for over ten years, and on all of them, I can turn them with my shutter finger without taking the camera away from my eye. I think our German friends say something like Scheißdreck to this.

10.) Canon still can't figure out how to move a decimal point. If you have more than 999 shots left on your memory card, the 5D Mark II still gets stuck at 999, while even the Nikon D40 is smart enough to say "2.7k" if that's how many shots you have left. This is straight out of the 1970s! Even Canon's point-and-shoots show four digits for shots left. (Hint: hit the INFO button while the 5D Mark II is resting, and the tech data display will use four digits to real all the remaining exposures)

11.) Still wont read back focal length when playing back.

12.) No indication of exposure mode in finder. You have to divert your creative energies away from the finder and look on top as you spin the mode knob.

13.) The front control dial is still in the wrong place, at the wrong angle, and made of the wrong material. It's a hard, thin knob that you have to turn using the inside of your pointer finger, right on the side of your joint. It hurts if you shoot with it for a while.

By comparison, Nikons that cost one-third as much have nice, big, soft, perfect-feeling dials right where my fingers naturally land. They feel good, they are at the right angle, they are in the right place, and I can spin them with the pad of my fingertip, not the side of my finger, right on the joint, as with the 5D Mark II.

14.) Still can't see what button does what in the dark, although the new INFO panel greatly helps. If it's dark enough to need the top LCD illuminator, it's too dark to find the illuminator button. (Nikons have the illuminator switch concentric with the shutter, so it's always at your fingertip.)

15.) No countdown on top LCD during long exposures. Hum de dum; all it does is blink the remaining exposures number instead. Of course that number is an embarrassment, since it's usually stuck at 999 instead of the actual value.

16.) Still a plastic camera, with a plastic outer body, knobs and buttons. It has a metal top plate, but that's just to save Canon the expense of adding a built-in flash.

17.) AF system not for action. The AF system of the Nikon D3 or D700 is far better for moving things.

18.) No facial recognition. AF rarely gets the correct focus on a subject's eyes unless you're either lucky, or put the subject directly under one of the AF sensors. The Nikon D3 and D700 are far superior here, magically nailing almost every people shot.

Trying to photograph my wiggly toddler in low light with a 50mm f1.4 lens, the 5D Mark II and EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens combo rarely gives me an in-focus shot at f/1.4 and f/2, while the Nikon D3 and D700 and old 50mm f/1.4 AF-D lens nail it perfectly almost every time. The Nikons have some sort of magic facial recognition, which comes from knowing 1.) the focused distance, 2.) having a color meter which reads 1,005 segments and 3.) having 51 AF segments, and 4.) knowing what to do with all this information, while the Canon 5D Mark II is clueless. The 5D Mark II has only a 35 segment, back-and-white meter, only 9 AF sensors, and no clue about subject distance.

I'm serious: the 5D Mark stinks for kid photography, while the Nikons rule. Of course even the old 5D is better or nature and landscapes that hold still. If you're photographing things that won't hold still for you, the Nikon D700 is worlds better.

19.) Still designed for amateurs. For instance, if you shift the program, it resets itself as soon as the camera turns off a minute later, or as soon as you make the first shot. The C1 C2 and C3 settings are fantastic, but if you change any setting while in the C1, C2 or C3 position on the top knob, as soon as the camera turns off in a minute, the 5D Mark II resets to the C1, C2 or C3 setting as it was saved.

20.) Still feels crappy in-hand. The 5D feels like an Oriental consumer electronics product, not a camera. It's not comfortable to hold for hours, and it's covered in some sort of hard plastic just like Nikon's cheapest D40. Cheaper Nikons, like the D300 and up, are mostly metal covered in much nicer rubber, and much better sculpted to my hands.

The 5D Mark II still doesn't have its grip figured out. Either the (built-in) grip is too small, or the body is too thick. My big American hands can't grip the small grip well, because my fingertips knock against the camera body on the front surface between the grip and the lens.

Pardon me for being very disappointed at how the 5D Mark II carries so much of the old 5D's baggage, but overall, I much prefer the new 5D Mark II to my old 5D. As I said, a decent LCD and Auto ISO make all the difference in the world to me, and I loved my old 5D as it was. There is no perfect camera, except for the old Mamiya 6 and today's Mamiya 7.

Much of the following is old stuff, but do see the new Canon 5D Mark II performance section under construction. I'll be rewriting all of this as I get more stick time with my 5D Mark II.

This means that the 5D Mark II, with the same resolution as last year's 1Ds Mk III, is better than last year's 1Ds Mk III, if you don't need the durability or speed.

I've already ordered a 5D Mark II for myself an hour after I heard about it! Why? Simple: I prefer the way my Nikons handle for fast shooting, but I prefer the color rendition and fine detail of my old 5D over anything from Nikon for shooting landscapes. On my old 5D, the colors I get in JPGs with +3 and +4 saturation straight out of the camera just look incredible; see the example galleries linked from the old 5D review. My Nikons, in VIVID and +3 saturation look punchy, but they just don't have the delicate finesse along with the punchy colors I get from my Canons when cranked. My D3 isn't going back in its box for people and action shots, but the newspaper-bred D3 and D700 have probably just gotten knocked into the can by the 5D Mark II for serious landscape shooters.

I no longer have any interest in the 1Ds Mk III, because 5D Mark II also adds a far superior LCD. The LCD of the 1Ds Mk III has been an embarrassment. The 5D Mk II also adds some more of my favorite dial settings, and now has three complete camera-state memories which are called up instantly by the C1, C2 and C3 positions of the top dial. The Mark II adds an infra-red remote control, and a four-segment battery gauge. The Mark II adds a speaker, a microphone, and a light sensor to control the brightness of the rear LCD. The Mark II adds a critical dedicated Picture Style button, so I can free up my SET button for other things. The Mark II adds an AF ON button, which isn't too exciting to me unless I can program it to do other things. The Mark II adds a battery gauge, full-time ISO readout, and B&W and Highlight Control mode warnings in the finder.

This means, that unless you're a sports pro, it's time for all the landscape shooters to get their 1Ds Mk IIIs up on eBay before the market for them at yesterday's price dries up. It will be fun to watch the values drop by the hour in the next few days.

Top. enlarge.

Canon 5D Mark II. enlarge.

Nikon has nothing competitive for landscape shooting, if resolution is important to you. Nikon's best as of this week, the D700 and D3, have only half the area resolution. The Nikons may or may not have better abilities to tame messy dynamic ranges, and you will prefer the color rendition and settability of one or the other according to your on personal style, but the 5D Mk II and 1Ds Mk III completely swamp Nikon as far as resolution for huge (3 feet/1 meter wide) prints goes. As always, I expect that the Nikons are far faster and easier to use in the field, and that this inexpensive 5D Mk II just became the must-have camera for outdoor shooters who need the most resolution for huge digital prints.

The original 5D now tops the pile in the digital dumpster of history. I won't shed any tears when mine drops into the blue collection bin at my local Goodwill. The images from the original 5D are extraordinary, especially for color, cleanliness and detail, but the old LCD was atrocious. Shooting the old 5D was like shooting film: the results are awesome, but you can't use the LCD to help see what you got before you get home.

The AF system seems the same as the old 5D, which was excellent. The old 5D was super-fast and usually accurate. Remember, the 5D is a camera for still subjects, not for news or sports. Precision is more important than speed or a zillion sensors on the 5D Mark II. When I shoot my old 5D, I set it to All Sensors, shoot, and get great results.

Finder displays.

Specifications with Comments

Finder: 98% coverage, 0.71x magnification at 50mm. 21mm eyepoint.

AF Points: 9, just like 50D and 5D. There are 6 hidden AF points as well, just like the other cameras. There's fine-tuning for AF offset, new to the Mark II version of the 5D. Here are Canon's guides to what sensor is doing what. Remember, we only see and can control nine of them; the other six in red below are invisible to us.

And here are which points are sensitive in what directions and with lenses of what minimum speed:

Meter: 35-zone evaluative, center-weighted, 9% loose spot and 3.5% spot. Like all Canons, the 5D Mark II's meter can't see color or distance.

Shutter: 1/8,000 to 30 sec., Bulb.

Maximum Shutter Speed with Flash (sync): 1/200. (probably faster in trick modes).

Sensor: 24.0 x 36.0 mm, 21.1 MP. It's the same size and resolution as the 1Ds Mk III. A new output amplifier and a "more advanced color filter that improves light transmission while retaining excellent color reproduction" allows faster ISOs

Those are Canon's words. I'm scared by the "while retaining"" weasel words. This means that color reproduction is not improved, and could be very slightly worse. What Canon is saying is that they reduced the ability of the color filter to reject and select among colors as does the original 5D so that more light forces its way through the R, G and B filters of the sensor. Letting more light barge through improves noise and ISO, but the precise selective abilities of that filter are what define the subtle ways that real colors colors are rendered into R, G and B space, and any lack of performance of this filter can not be replaced by color profiles and color matrices. If Canon compromised the filter's selectivity, and therefore the color rendition and beauty that the 5D has always had just to get some bragging rights for high ISO that real 5D users don't need anyway, this could mean that the 5D Mk II could make worse images than the 5D. I doubt it, but I'll be making some very careful comparisons.

Image Size: 5,616 x 3,744 pixels, native. Also 4,080 x 3,744 and 2,784 x 1,856 pixels in JPG, and 3,861 x 2,574 and 2,784 x 1,856 in raw.

Color Spaces: sRGB, the world's standard, and Adobe RGB.

ISO: 50 to ISO 25,600. ISO 100 through ISO 6,400 come up in 1/3-stops, and the crazy ISOs come up as L1 (ISO 50), H1 (ISO 12,800) and H2 (ISO 25,600). The biggest news may be the presence of an AUTO position in the ISO menu. This feature has kept Canon in the dark ages compared to Nikon.

I'm predicting that the super high ISOs will be soft and nasty. When I get my hands on a 5D Mark II, I expect that the D700 will outdo it. I predict the D700 handles much better for shooting moving subjects in the dark, as well as being a little cleaner. We'll see.

ISO Comparison among 5D, 5D Mark II and 1Ds Mark II.

Frame Rate: 3.9 FPS.

Buffer Depth: Unlimited in JPG. Only 14 raw, using a UDMA CF card.

Shutter Death: 150,000 cycle "durability." Canon does not define their use of the word durability.

LCD: 3.0," 640x480 resolution (920,000 RGB dots).

LP-B6 Battery.

LC-E6 Charger.

Power: LP-E6 battery (CR1616 for clock backup) and LC-E6 charger. They are not interchangeable with the BP-511A battery and charger of the original 5D.

Storage: CF card, one slot.

Data: USB.

Size: 6.0 x 4.5 x 3.0" (152.0 x 113.5 x 75.0mm).

Weight: 28.6 oz. (810g), stripped like it was left out in the Bronx overnight.

Announced: 17 September 2008.

Available: End of November 2008.

Canon Item Number: 2764B003.

Price: $2,699 at introduction. Also look for it in a kit with the 24-105mm f/4L IS for $3,499.

Canon 5D Mark II Finder Readouts.

Guide to the front of the 5D Mark II.

Guide to the rear of the 5D Mark II.

Performance

Finder

The finder seems just like the old 5D. It's bright and sharp and clear.

The standard screen is optimized for lenses of f/2.8. Faster lenses are no brighter, and you can't see the actual narrower depth of field of faster lenses. For that, you need optional screens.

Technical Image Quality

General

The 5D Mark II, as I write this, is the world's highest-image-qualty 35mm-based DSLR.

Any image defects you see are most likely due to your own lack of expertise, and you had better have some extraordinarily good lenses to take advantage of the resolution.

Few lenses are as good as the 5D Mark II.

For example, Canon's state-of-the-art 16-35mm f/2.8 L II is the best lens of its kind, and on the 5D Mark II, you'll see every one of its optical limitations in excruciating detail.

Auto WB

Like most DSLRs, its too orange under most tungsten.

Mysterious Occlusive Black Pixels

Tweakers managed to break a 5D Mark II and get some blacker pixels on the edges of blown-out highlights.

I can't get mine to do it unless I really push it .

See my page on Canon 5D Mark II Black Pixels.

Lateral Color Fringes

The 5D Mark II has no ability to correct these.

Unlike current Nikon cameras, which do this automatically, most Canon lenses will show color fringes in the corners. Nikons correct this magically.

Sharpness of smaller image sizes

Bravo! As hoped, lower resolution files get sharper because Bayer Interpolation is no longer needed.

Unlike Nikons, which don't get any sharper at 100% when set to smaller resolution files, M and L files form the 5D mark II are super, duper sharp.

AF Fine Tuning

It works, but don't touch it unless you really know what you're doing.

Good news: the files record this in the EXIF, and the 5D Mark II displays the set values on playback.

Peripheral Illumination (Vignetting) Correction

Unlike in Nikon, this feature works in the 5D Mark II.

The results are obvious with the 50mm f/1.4 USM at f/1.4. With the correction turned on, which it is by default, the frame is evenly lit, instead of highlighted in the center.

Data

Files and Folders

File Size

Shot at LARGE NORMAL, files are about 6 MB. They'll be 8MB if you've got something really sharp, and 5MB or less if not, or if part of the frame is the sky or a white cyc.

Most people shoot at LARGE FINE, which is the default. These files will be larger, but since I can't see any difference, I shoot in NORMAL and save hard drive and CF space.

File Numbering

The 5D Mark II is fairly stupid when it comes to sticking a card in it shot on another cameras.

Poke in a card that's been shot on Nikon, and the 5D Mark II starts recording into the last Nikon folder, numbering its files just after the last Nikon shot!

If the 5D Marl II were smarter, it would create a new folder for itself, and number from wherever it last left off.

For instance, I took a card out of my well-worn Nikon D3 and popped it into a brand-new 5D. The last Nikon shot on the card was as DSC_4175.jpg.

The virginal 5D Mark II started at IMG_4176.jpg, in the same folder.

Duh.

I had to format the card, make one shot, put the card in my Mac, renumber the one file back to IMG_0001.JPG, and stick it back in the 5D Mark II to get the 5D Mark II back on track.

JPG Compression

As usual, it uses smart compression to vary file size as each image needs it.

Default JPG DPI

JPGs come out of the Canon 5D Mark II set at 72 DPI. I love this, since it means all my fonts come out the right size for Internet use.

Auto Rotation

AR isn't that smart. My shots are erroneously rotated to vertical half the time I shoot looking straight down.

No camera actually rotates the images. Most cameras, including this one, just set a flag but don't rotate vertical images.

I then have to rotate the actual pixels in iView's lossless rotate, so that the images read correctly in every possible application. It won't matter when you print, but if you use your images as many places as I do, you must make sure that they don't come out crooked on anyone's computer or TV.

The 5D Mark II comes one step closer to correct: it's the first camera I've seen that does rotate its embedded thumbnails automatically.

Unfortunately, this still isn't good enough. I still have to rotate the actual JPGs, and when I do, iView dutifully rotates the embedded thumbnails back to crooked. Oh well; at least iView can do lossless rotation; amateur programs like Lightroom don't have that ability; they leave your files unrotated and leave you dependant on using smart software like Adobe which knows to read the flags.

What is dumb software that can't read these flags? Your Internet browser. Post a camera-original JPG online, and it usually reads crooked in a browser, for instance.

EXIF Data

The 5D Mark II doesn't encode the EXIF in a way that iView can read in Auto ISO. They all read ISO255.

Manually set ISOs read fine. Even ISOs too obscene to print in-camera, like H1 and H2, read as ISO 12,800 and ISO 25,600 in iView.

Usage

Resolution

No one needs 21MP. All it does is slow everything and clog your hard drive.

Try shooting your 5D Mark II at it's M (11MP) or S (5MP) settings. If you look at your images at 100%, you'll see that the lower resolution shots are sharper!

Why? Because they use less, or no, Bayer interpolation. No digital camera really resolves its rated resolution; they cheat and interpolate up, so at 100% at its rated resolution, no digital camera image is as sharp as a true scan from film.

At the 5MP setting, you have 100% R, G and B pixels, exactly as if you were using a Sigma Foveon sensor. If Sigma was selling this, they'd sell the 5MP (S) setting as if it were 15MP (also a lie).

What this means is that the lower resolution settings actually pack away lot more detail than you think. The S (5MP) setting of the 5D Mark II is a lot sharper than any 5MP camera.

When I'm photographing family and friends, I shot at S!

Likewise, there may be very little extra real definition gains by shooting at L, as opposed to M. M many be all anyone needs for any size enlargement.

If you're testing lenses, sure, shoot at L, but for everything else, try the settings for yourself, You'll probably get what you need at the smaller settings. For instance, the 11MP setting of the 5D Mark II has way more detail than any of the 12MP (native) Nikon cameras.

The resolution advantage of the 5D Mark II is obvious, even at lower settings. Try them.

JPG Compression

Canon defaults to the FINE (quarter circle icon) setting.

I prefer the NORMAL (stair-step icon) setting. It gives me files which look the sam as at FINE, but take up half the file space.

Canon cameras are extremely smart; much smarter than Nikons. The file sizes are all automatically optimizes for each shot, using more or less bits as needed to retain quality based on the detail content of the image.

Video and HD — Who Cares? (not me)

1920 x 1080 (16:9 HD) at 30 FPS, and 640 x 480 pixels (VGA) at 30 FPS. Warning: broadcast TV is not 640x480; that's a computer standard. NTSC broadcast TV, when digitized, is 720 x 483 non-square pixels at 59.94 interlaced fields per second, not 30 sequential frames per second.

The Nikon D90's 24 FPS rate is ideal for theatrical release; the Canon's 30-frame rate will look more like video while the D90's 24-frame rate will look more like film.

Video capture is part of Live View. You can choose the Picture Style set for Live View to adjust sharpness, contrast, color saturation and white balance.

The rear LCD can be matted with a semi-transparent border to match the aspect ratio you've chosen.

Maximum video clip size is 4GB. The file sizes vary with subject detail, and Canon says 4GB will get you about 12 minutes in HD or 24 minutes of regular definition. If you have less detail in your subject, you can run as long as 29 minutes and 59 seconds if you can do it without hitting 4GB first.

HDMI output.

.MOV format, MPEG-4 video compression.

Sound is recorded using linear PCM with no compression.

A mono mic is built in right below the "5D" label on the front, and there's an external stereo input!

Cutaway 5D Mark II. see everything.

Sales Fluff

Sensor

Sensor Cleaner, and fluorine coating on the low-pass filter for better dust resistance.

Math

DIGIC 4 Imaging Processor. 14-bit analog-to-digital conversion.

Live View

Quick, Live and Face Detection Live modes. In Live View, you can change AF mode (Quick, Live, Face Detection Live mode), drive mode, ISO speed, Picture style, White Balance, and more.

Quick mode automatically sets One-Shot AF using the regular AF system. It also allows users to select the AF point, even while the Live View image is displayed. Although the camera’s reflex mirror must be lowered briefly to take an AF measurement in Quick mode, it is the fastest way to set focus automatically when the 5D Mark II camera is set for Live View.

Live mode autofocuses from video off the sensor, just like point-and-shoots. Like Quick mode, you can change the AF point using the Multi-controller.

Face Detection Live mode is like Live mode, and recognizes human faces. When multiple faces are detected, the largest face closest to the center of the frame is targeted as the AF point.

Creative Auto Mode

New with the EOS 50D, Canon’s “CA” Creative Full Auto setting allows making adjustments like aperture and shutter speed through an easy-to-understand navigation screen on the camera’s LCD menu, with more sensible names like “blur the background” or “lighten or darken the image.”

Two Small Raw Formats - who cares?

You'd have to be a real idiot to care about smaller pixel size raw files. These give you lower resolution with larger file sizes than JPG!

Canon calls these dopey things "sRAW," and in the 5D Mark II, sRAW1 and sRAW2.

sRAW1 is 10 megapixels with a file size that is still at least 75% the size of a bloated regular raw image.

In sRAW2, resolution is piddly 5.2 megapixels, but still half the file size of a huge raw image.

Peripheral Illumination Correction

New in the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, it automatically fixes darkened corners when shooting JPG. Darkened corners are usually invisible unless you're shooting the sky at full aperture.

Adaptive Dynamic Range Optimization

Called "Auto Lighting Optimizer" by Canon, this is common in the newest generation of cameras from Nikon and Canon. It is a subtle and extremely important way to improve almost all images. It lightens shadows that get too dark, while holding the highlights.

High Tone Priority, which preserves highlights, only works between ISO 200 and ISO 1,600.

Sadly, Canon doesn't seem to have as all-encompassing a solution as Nikon's ADR, which handles highlights, shadows and everything all at once at all settings.

Stealth Modes

There are two Silent Shooting modes in Live View. This lets you shoot without appearing or sounding like you're taking pictures!

In Mode 1, the mechanical shutter is open at the beginning of the exposure, and instead uses the electronic 1st-curtain function of the CMOS sensor and a reduced shutter-cocking noise, allowing multiple shots to be taken with minimal noise.

In Mode 2, to minimize shutter noise during single frame photography, shutter cocking does not occur until the shutter button returns to the half-way position after shooting.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II and 50mm f/1.4. enlarge.

Recommendations

I love my original 5D. It's far clunkier to use than anything from Nikon, but its color rendition and detail have always been extraordinary.

New versions of the 5D come but once every three years, so I've already ordered my Mark II at Adorama. With any luck, it might be here in time for my October Workshops, but I doubt it.

The right time to order a new digital camera is when it's still new.

Seeing how the original 5D isn't much less expensive than the new 5D Mark II, I'd forget about the original 5D, and if you have an original 5D, get it up on while you still can.

More Information

Canon's teaser: The new 5D.

Canon USA's page on the 5D Mark II.

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I support my growing family through this website, as crazy as it might seem.

If you find this as helpful as a book you might have had to buy or a workshop you may have had to take, feel free to help me continue helping everyone.

If you've gotten your gear through one of my links or helped otherwise, you're family. It's great people like you who allow me to keep adding to this site full-time. Thanks!

If you haven't helped yet, please do, and consider helping me with a gift of $5.00.

The biggest help is to use the links to Adorama when you get your goodies. It costs you nothing and is a huge help. Adorama has the best prices and service, which is why I've used and recommended Adorama since the 1970s!

Thanks for reading!

Ken

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Locks exposure shutter
No autorotate in playnack
Info gets you3095 left expsires
Body too fat or grip too small
Print button does nothing
Two hands;can't hit play
At grabs mf
Change C1: change and save
No need for top LCD
Plastic body
Btty In finder is mice
No face recognition
Chrome hot shoe
C1 resets itself after 60 secs
Lighter than d700
Vignette correction works
DOF still in wrong place

Can't see what button does what in dark

No countdown on top LCD during time Exposures

Where is the 2 second self timer

Rear info LCD is nice

Reads back satch settings

Comp bar in finder too small

If it's dark enough to need the LCD finder, too dark to find the illum button!