09.02.09
Canon EOS 5D MkII Review
It’s a difficult time at Canon. Recently overtaken by Nikon in terms of market share, the big wigs at the previously unassailable chateau EOS must be shaking their heads in bewilderment and wondering what’s happened. Internal discussions have, no doubt, pointed the fingers at the DIGIC III processor.
In many areas, the processor that adorns most of the company’s existing models excels, but in one area – sharpness – it can’t compete with Nikon. For consumers wanting great results straight out of the camera, DIGIC III fails to deliver the goods. At last year’s Photokina show, Canon showed two new models, both sporting a new DIGIC 4 processor.
I tested the first model of this duo, the EOS 50D, last month.Very good it is too. The inherent softness of the DIGIC III processor had gone, replaced by crisp,well-exposed images with tightly controlled noise. But, in truth, fine camera such that it is, the 50D is just the warm-up act.This month I’m delighted to have got my hands on the main event; the EOS 5D Mark II.
Back in 2005 when rear LCDs were comfortably under three inches and talk of a 12-megapixel resolution prompted a sharp intake of breath, Canon introduced the original EOS 5D.DIGIC 4 may have been a mere twinkle in the eye of Canon’s R&D department, but the 5D’s introduction created tsunami-like ripples in the market. Sporting a full-frame sensor delivering a 12.8-megapixel resolution, the 5D soon found favour among both professionals and discerning enthusiasts.
The Mark II is unlikely to have quite so much initial impact, given that it pitches into a market that, comparatively speaking, is awash with full frame sensor models. But its headline features are no less impressive. This time, the 36x24mm CMOS sensor packs in a healthy 21.1 million effective pixels,which is almost twice that of its closest Nikon competitor, the D700, but falls a few million short of the Sony Alpha 900, replete with 24.5 million.
Even so, 21.1-megapixels is not to be sniffed at, creating, as it does, a JPEG that opens to 60.2MB every time you press the shutter. At 300dpi, you’ll have to reduce the 5616x3744 pixel file size to print out at A3 and,with some minor interpolation, you’ll be heading into A2 territory. Big enough for you? Thought so.
There is a point in SLR manufacture where a model stops being all about features and starts being about serious picture taking. I first came across it when I bought a Nikon F3. Moving, as I was at the time, from an F-501 I was initially disappointed by the fact that I was trading five exposure modes, autofocus and two metering patterns for aperture-priority, manual and centre-weighted metering, but then I soon realised that judging an F3 on its feature set was akin to measuring a Ferrari by its paint colour.
The same is true with the Mark II. While the 5D’s features could never be described as limited, there are fewer trinkets than the 50D. Instead, the 5D assumes that you already know how to take a decent picture and so only gives you serious picture-taking options.The top-plate exposure mode dial is a three-dimensional affirmation of this fact.
Granted, there’s a green square point-andsquirt mode, plus P, but then there’s just aperture-priority, shutter-priority and manual, along with three custom settings, where you can set up specific combinations for a certain type of shooting. So, for example, if you like to shoot Raw files using the manual exposure mode, spot metering, ISO 3200 and tungsten white-balance, you can set it into one of the custom modes and access it quickly.
The Creative Auto mode (which affords quick control over depth-of-field or exposure without having to change aperture or shutter speed) from the 50D also appears on the 5D, but that’s as close as you get to scene modes. There are other cosmetic clues to the Mark II’s serious picture-taking intent.
There’s no integral flash (although with ISO sensitivity up to 25,600 you could argue that you don’t need one), but there is a PC socket for studio use – one of a number of input sockets hidden under rubber covers on the left edge of the body – plus there’s a depth-of-field preview button, which shouldn’t be confused with the lens release button above it.
Around the back, there’s the now prerequisite three-inch LCD, which is flanked by control buttons to the left and the main control dial to the right.The LCD itself uses 920,000 pixels to display images, so relatively accurate exposure measurement is possible. That said if you’re going to do this, make sure that the LCD brightness isn’t set to Auto.
In this mode, the camera uses a light sensor (just to the left of the main power switch) to assess ambient lighting conditions and set LCD brightness accordingly. On the plus side, this makes the LCD image easy to view, even in
bright light.On the downside I thought the Mark II was consistently overexposing, until I used the menu system to select LCD brightness manually.
Generally, however, the LCD and its menu system are excellent, while the back of the 5D is very clean.There aren’t too many buttons, and the controls that are there are well sized and easy to use. I approve of the inclusion of the Picture Styles button, which enables you to quickly flick between preset or custom styles, each one of which has different settings for Sharpness, Contrast, Saturation and Color Tone.Trust me, you can lose a lot of time playing around with these to optimise the camera’s performance.
The right of the top-plate has a design very similar to that on the 50D,which is a good thing. The well-sized – illuminable – LCD displays plenty of information and includes super-sized digits for aperture and shutter speed. In front of it sit three dual-function buttons to quickly access regularly-used controls.There’s no wading through menus to access white-balance, ISO or metering pattern; just press the relevant button once and then use either front or rear input dials to set the desired control. It’s a great system.My only gripe is that you have to remember to put the On/Off switch into position three to ensure the rear input dial is functional.
While undeniably solid, the Mark II never feels cumbersome out in the field. Its physical bulk may not be on a par with its 1D brethren, but I have no doubt that its knock-in-nails ability isn’t compromised as a result. Plus, if you do want to increase the Mark II’s in-hand presence, the optional BG-E6 battery grip can be added. As a pure imaging machine, the Mark II is impressive.
As I’ve already intimated, the layout and general design of the camera are excellent, never hampering picture-taking progress.The metering system, which gives four patterns to choose from, is accurate and the focusing system, complete with nine userselectable points, is fast and unerring.The area covered by the focusing points could be larger, but with cross-type-sensors at each point, there are very few focusing situations that are likely to cause any bother.
Employing a sensor cleaner means viewfinder coverage is compromised, but I never found this to cause any practical problems.The viewfinder image itself is bright, although I feel it would benefit from a larger and brighter LCD readout. So, at this stage, it’s all looking rather peachy for the 5D, but there is an issue. A 21.1-megapixel sensor is an unforgiving beast. Put anything other than a stunning lens in front of it and optical shortcomings will be magnified. This issue is not exclusive to Canon. Sony, Nikon and any other manufacturer who produces models sporting highly-pixelled fullframe sensors in the future will have to cross this optical bridge.
In short, producing a DSLR with a whopping sensor is one thing, but having the lenses to match is another. In the case of the 5D, when I processed my first set of results I initially thought the Canon softness problem had reared its ugly head once more. But given that it uses the same processor as the 50D,whose performance was impeccable, I couldn’t understand why. During the test, I used only Canon L series optics; two zooms, two primes.
This first set of images were taken using zooms, but a subsequent set of shots, taken using the primes, were markedly sharper. The zoom-originated images are not poor and require only the faintest whiff of Unsharp Mask to lift them, but the fact remains that if you want to get the best from the 5D Mark II if you may have to reassess your lenses too.
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