Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Let’s answer the big question on everyone’s mind:

This is the best camera Canon has every built. Jim Rose

I got the opportunity to play with the 5D Mark II and photograph with it. Long story short: it is very much worth the wait. It may seem arrogant and perhaps even premature to say, but I do believe the new 5D Mark II will reestablish Canon as the market leader. This couldn’t have come at a better time after the focus issues with the 1D Mark III and 1Ds Mark III has caused a lot of headache and bad blood between Canon and Canon loyalists, but the 5D Mark II brings some light to what has been a very dark tunnel of despair.

On paper, the 5D Mark II sounds very impressive: 21.1 MP, UDMA support, 1080p HD video, ISO up to 25,600, a 3 inch LCD with 922,000 pixel resolution for about the same price as the 5D Mark I when it was first introduced. In my hands, it is very well constructed and feels quite solid, but not quite the same build quality and durability as the 1D/1Ds series bodies as others have mentioned.

Jim Rose was discussing how low noise is at ISO 6400 and when the staff photographers at San Francisco Chronicle (they have two on order BTW) saw the images at ISO 6400, their jaws dropped. Jim was discussing how even George Lepp (of the famous Lepp Institute of Digital Imaging) was very impressed and said that ISO 6400 on the 5D Mark II is very usable. That’s a very nice seal of approval. At ISO 12,800 things start getting a bit noisy, but not terribly bad. By ISO 25,600, things are quite noticeable noisy, but if this is the only way to get a shot, it is still usable. According to Jim (not Canon’s official stance), ISO 3200 on the 5D Mark II is comparable to ISO 800 on the 5D. I was allowed to fire off some shots on my memory card with the 5D Mark II and the images are very nice with very low noise. Unfortunately, despite being a production camera and not a prototype, I am not able to publicly post the pictures at the time (they are posted but password protected but I’ll remove the password after the 5D Mark II starts shipping).

The 1080p HD video feature of the 5D Mark II is very, very nice. You can record up to 12 minutes of video and take stills while recording. How that works is while you are recording, you just press the shutter button as you would if you were taking a picture and it will pause the recording, take the picture (or pictures) and then resume recording. You lose half a second of video for each photo taken during recording. So if you are recording a video and three minutes into recording, you snap a picture, half a second later the recording will resume resulting in a single file, and not split video files with the thirty second skip where the photograph was taken. Very cool! Also Canon recommends that you prefocus before you start recording although you can auto focus while recording (by pressing the AF-On button), it is very slow because it uses the Live View contrast detection auto focus. Another thing to note is that you can only record videos in Aperture priority mode. You select the aperture, the camera will select a shutter speed and auto set the ISO to maintain a constant consistent shutter speed. You can also dial exposure two stops up or down. You also need a UDMA card to take full advantage of the HD video recording.

The back LCD is stunning and breath taking. At 3.0 inches with 922,000 pixel resolution, checking for sharpness has become so much easier. The images displayed on the LCD are very stunning. Also the viewfinder has been redesigned and is definitely brighter than my Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II viewfinder.

Jim has been with Canon for more than eight years, since the start of megapixels (i.e. Canon D30) and this is the first camera that he is really excited about and believes that it is “going to re-energize Canon”. Jim also speculated on the 1D/1Ds line as it was asked about it’s future considering that Nikon has moved in full frame, which I won’t post as it is all speculation. Jim also mentioned the 5D Mark II should sell very, very well considering how many people want the ultimate in megapixels but couldn’t afford or justify the cost of the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III. This is certainly a good thing because I think the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, while is a spectacular SLR, it is not worth $8,000. It’s worth $5,000 and that is where they are selling used for now (and in some cases even less). Once the new Nikon D3x is released and priced around $5,000, I’m sure Canon will no longer be able to justify pricing the 1Ds at $8,000.

So is it worth it? Yes. Am I getting one? No. I’m waiting for the the new Canon EOS 1Ds Mark IV. I love the ruggedness, durability, and auto focus. Adam Tow is thinking of downgrading from his Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II and Canon EOS 1D Mark II to two Canon EOS 5D Mark II because of the size and the HD video options.

Other little tidbits: there are seventy eight Explorers of Light and Printmasters, of which Vincent LaForet, Joe Buissink and George Lepp are members. Jim Rose does in fact read DPReview.com.

I also forgot to mention:

Adobe CS3 DOES NOT support Canon EOS 5D Mark II RAW files. It also appears that there will NOT be an update for CS3 to fix this and you have to either buy CS4 or convert the Canon RAW to DNG.

The shutter on the 5D Mark II is very, very quiet. I was quite shocked, it sounded almost 25% quieter than my 1Ds Mark II.

Political Photography Part II: Jared Polis

Adam and his wife, Rae, went to Colorado to photograph the last week of his high school friend’s campaign for Congressional seat in Colorado District 2 before the elections. Jared Polis is an internet entrepreneur having started Blue Mountain, ProFlowers, and Fuser which he sold all off during the height of the dot com boom making millions. Jared is also founder of the New America Charter Schools. Jared has been campaigning for a year and half for this two year term. Adam spent a week following Jared around as he campaigned at Park-N-Rides, Honk and Waves, Meetings, Halloween and Farmer’s Market, Canvassing, and finally Election Day.

Adam packed his Canon EOS 1D Mark II and Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II with the following other items: Canon EF 28-70mm f/2.8L USM, Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM, Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L USM, Canon 1.4x Extender, Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM, Canon Speedlite 550EX, and a Gary Fong Lightsphere. He found he was primarily using the 28-70mm on his 1Ds Mark II and 135mm on his 1D Mark II.

Adam’s daily workflow:

1. Shoot in the morning
2. Select, rate, process in Apple Aperture 2 and upload photos to SmugMug
3. Recharge batteries
4. Shoot in the evening
5. Repeat steps 2 and 3

Reason Adam does the post processing in the afternoon rather than the evening is he figured he wouldn’t do it in the evening.

Jared Polis won the Congressional District 2 seat with 60% of the vote. To see Adam’s pictures, you can visit his SmugMug here.

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Canon EOS 1D Mark III with Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM

The Canon L Series Lenses

The class started off with Jim Rose discussing about what makes Canon “L” lenses so special from the normal consumer level lenses. He also confirmed that the “L” does, in fact, stand for Luxury. What defines a L lenses is the existence of:

• Two or more Ultra-Low Dispersion (UD) elements (and/or)
• Fluorite Element (and/or)
• Ground and polished aspherical elements

Fluorite is a natural occurring element, but usually not enough in quantity to be useful, so Canon has developed a method to “grow” them. It takes at least two ultra-low dispersion to equal one fluorite element. The fluorite element eliminates almost all chromatic aberrations.

Wide angle lenses and “fast” lenses (f/1, f/1.2, f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2) experience spherical aberrations which causes the images not to be as sharp until they are stopped down to apertures of f/5.6 or f/8. By using aspherical elements, this counter-acts the spherical aberration effect and can also make zoom lenses smaller in size. There are three types of aspherical elements:

• Molded aspherical element: round glass is super heated until near melting and is poured into a molding and allowed to cool thus making a molded aspherical element. This process makes creating aspherical elements cheaper, but not as good quality.
• Replicated aspherical element: a piece of specially created resin is glued to the round glass to create an aspherical element. This types of aspherical element tends to appear in the consumer grade Canon lenses
• Ground and polished aspherical: glass is grounded and polished until they meet the aspherical criteria. Very expensive and appears exclusively in the L line.

The Canon L lenses are designed to be durable withstanding: torrential down pour rain, extreme temperatures, snow, grueling wear and tear. All the L lenses use ring type Ultra Sonic Motor (USM) focus motors. This is the fastest type of auto focus that Canon has. Jim also spoke of the f/4 zooms (17-40mm, 24-105mm, and 70-200mm) and offering customers a choice in lighter weight equipment at a lower price with the same L quality. Jim also spoke briefly of Canon’s “S” line, the EF-S mount lenses specially designed for the crop sensors.

Jim also spoke of the tilt-shift lens and it’s uniqueness in the Canon line. Also someone in the audience had asked why only one of the three tilt-shift lenses offered by Canon is designated as a L and Jim’s response was: 1) L designation is given to lenses who fit the above requirements and 2) not all lenses require fluorite or ultra-low dispersion glass to achieve optimal quality. Thus, the 45mm and 90mm tilt-shift lenses are not L quality lenses because they do not contain fluorite or ultra-low dispersion elements.

Nature’s Elusive Beauty

Jennifer Wu gave a great PowerPoint presentation on capturing Nature’s Elusive Beauty, the one moment in which the scene is perfect, the lighting is just right, the colors are popping, the scene is ready to be captured.

Jennifer shoots with a new Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III and a Canon EOS 5D. Her lenses are the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM, Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM, Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM, and the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM. She does very little post processing, usually dodging and burning and does not remove anything from the scene with Adobe Photoshop or up the saturation in anyway. She uses a circular polarizer and neutral density filters.

Some of the bullet point tips she offered:

• Finding locations: Internet, guide books, asking the locals
• Things to consider: seasons, fall colors at peaks, when flowers are in bloom
• Get local advice: call ranger stations (rangers have most likely hiked every inch of the area and done it repeatably where they would know the best times to visit), visitor shops to find the answer to questions
• Scout the area: scenic routes, pullout areas, off the side of the road
• Get off the beaten path. Don’t just come to a pullout area, get out, take a picture, and leave. Walk around a bit, get a different angle.
• Things to consider for photographing: weather, clouds and light (arrive before a storm-clearing storm, fog create mystery, rain-saturated colors, snow-first dusting on mountains (versus white covered mountains), wind and movement
• How to create perspective: lens coverage, distance to subject, and camera angle
• The lens you choose is about the type of coverage you want
• Focus using hyperfocal distance to get things near and far in focus.
• Always use a tripod for maximum sharpness.
• Camera angles: look down, look up, get low. Create depth with wide angle lens by getting up really close.
• Use ND and Polarizers. Polarizers for foilage, water, and midst
• User manual with spot metering on 18% grey of red or blue. Aim for exact exposure, not under or over. Shoot RAW and aim for f/16.
• Foreground elements: fill the subject with the foreground element.

One of Jennifer’s other favorite types of photography is star photography. Here are some great tips she offered for photographing stars:

• To avoid star trails and get points of light: Take 500 divided by focal length of the lens (if you are using a crop sensor, you have to take that into account and get the actual focal length) will give you the seconds to set your camera to get points of light. Anymore and you will have star trails
• Use wide angle lenses at 30 seconds or less.
• Shoot at wide open aperture (f/2.8, f/1.2 if you can)
• For moonless night, set ISO to 3200, with moon (depending on how bright), set ISO to 200-400
• Use your ISO to change exposure and not aperture or shutter
• Turn your camera’s noise reduction on which is great help
• After you take a night shot, let your CMOS sensor cool down for at least 30 seconds or you may have additional noise in your picture because of the heat on the sensor
• Set your white balance to custom kelvin from 3200-3800 to give the nice bluish sky
• WB custom 4200 works really well at the beginning of sunset, but not at 3 AM
• Try focusing on the brightest star and not on a tree or foreground element. If nothing to focus on, set to infinity and back off a bit.

Conclusion

This was a very informative free seminar sponsored by Canon. It was also an introduction course for those who signed up for the Canon Field Workshop the next day. Jennifer Wu has some absolutely stunning landscape shots and is able to articulate her technique and give steps and advice and not boring useless technical details.

As an added benefit, we were able to try all the twenty four lenses and four bodies and all the participants were given a free copy of the newly updated EF Lens Works III book that includes the new Canon Mark 3 bodies and new lenses. Awesome.

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