If you're looking for an very good, full-frame DSLR, the 5D Mk2 is very, very good. It's not less than 1 full F-stop more perceptive to lightweight than my Canon 1DS Mk2. A setting of ASA 800 or 1000 yields about the identical disturbance grade as my older camera at ASA 400. It's autofocus scheme is very very fast and unquestionable on lone shot mode. (I don't believe EF-L sequence lenses are adept of much quicker aim action.)
The new LCD computer display is gorgeous. 3" diagonal with 900,000+ pixels. It's probably the best value LCD computer display ever put on a DSLR. The meal lists are simpler to realise and navigate than the 1DS Mk2's menus. "Live View" is an very good way to do critical focusing. If you've not ever utilised a DSLR with reside outlook, you'll love it. The only contradictory of live-view is that it actually drains your electric battery and it can only be utilised for a certain extent of time before the CMOS imager circuitry warms up up, supplementing disturbance to the image. (In real-life usual firing, overheating is not a difficulty and in addition to the camera will auto annul live-view if it senses an over warmth condition.)
The gigantic 21 mega-pixel RAW images are excellent. The camera values an revised variant on Canon's .CR2 RAW format so if you use an older type of Adobe's Lightroom or Photoshop for likeness processing, you'll need the newest Lightroom 2.2 or Photoshop CS4 to get the correct RAW converter. I've in person not ever admired the encompassed programs for RAW likeness processing, but numerous persons are joyous with it.
The auto-exposure scheme appears very accurate... more unquestionable than my 1DS Mk2.
I not ever skilled any "black dot" phenomenon. But I've only shot RAW images at less than 1200 ASA. The "black dot" experiment images that I've glimpsed on the internet gaze like easy, in-camera, over-enhancement of highlights. Besides, except you're firing sports at evening or are part of a CSI group, who fires at 3200+ ASA anyway? If you're doing a evening shot of a town use a tripod, a longer exposure, and a smaller ASA. This will yield wealthy, clean blacks and much higher minutia in highlights. Also, whereas JPEG's are much lesser, every expert person taking photographs that I understand fires only RAW images.
I organised the camera with the optional BG-E6 electric battery grip. This grab makes the camera bigger and simpler to hold. It permits simultaneous use of 2 Canon lithium electric batteries or 6- AA alkaline or rechargeables. It's a very precious accessory to consider.
Now the bad...
I mainly bought the camera for its proficiency to fire large looking 1080P HD video for financial television projects. I considered it would be a large source for "B-Roll" cutaways and inserts.
The large-scale lone difficulty in the video mode is that you have no command over iris, ISO setting, or shutter speed. There's an exposure secure button that will secure the exposure variables to anything the LCD exhibitions at the time you press the button. There are no on-screen signs that display the backgrounds that the camera has selected for you. The only command you have is the hue warmth setting. Basically, you pot the camera round in the view and let the brightness ride high up and down. When you glimpse what you believe is a good exposure on the back LCD computer display, you press the secure button. Since the exposure secure resets after each view or take, possibilities are you won't have reliable exposures over multiple takes of a specific scene.
Working with the auto exposure scheme can occasionally be difficult. I was firing with my 85mm F1.2 lens. By looking at the iris, it emerged the camera had determined to only open the lens to about an F2.8 and use a much higher ISO setting than essential to accomplish correct exposure. By pointing the camera to some very dark shaded, the iris completely opened. I then panned back to my initial view which emerged to be much cleaner and free of noise. You actually need to be adept to manually set the ISO & F-stop when firing video.
I modified the camera's made-to-order backgrounds to smaller the minutia enhancement and contrast. These controls effect the value of jpeg stills but appear to have no effect on a video recording.
The camera only notes at 30.00fps, not 29.97fps. This minute .03fps distinction means that you have to adjust each file's header, utilising a program for example Apple Cinema Tools, before you can edit 5D footage into a usual, announced 1080P/1080i, 29.97fps timeline. Failure to do this header alteration needs setting up a 30.00fps timeline or rendering every 5D view on your 29.97fps timeline which yields periodic skipped frames.
There is no 24P (23.98) setting. As far as I'm worried, there is no ordered cause that Canon chose 30.00fps rather than of 29.97fps. No announced television or movie benchmark functions at 30.00fps. Maybe Canon will correct this with a future firmware update. Please note that if you're only firing high value videos for world broad web issue, the 30.00fps pace won't present a problem.
To simulate the film-like cadence of a video camera's 180 degree shutter at 30.00fps, the 5D Mk2's shutter should be set to 1/60 of a second exposure time. There is no way to notify what shutter setting the camera is utilising throughout a scene. My gut feeling from looking at camera video is that the 5D Mk2 often values 1/30 of a second.
The camera's LCD computer display is made empty when an HDMI supervise is closed in. If you're doing a financial fire with purchasers, this means that either the cameraman or the purchasers can glimpse what's being shot, but not both at the identical time... You could add an external HDMI hardworking splitter, but this would furthermore need supplementing and utilising an external supervise at the camera. If you only design to fire by yourself, this shouldn't present a problem.
To do manual follow-focusing utilising the back LCD computer display, address buying Hoodman's 3" LCD viewer. It's accessible from B&H and other retailers and it works very well. Of course, you'll have to number a made-to-order way to adhere it to the back of the 5D Mk2 utilising rubber musicians or Velcro.
The 5D Mk2 notes what I would call "memo quality" audio with it's interior, mono microphone. You actually observe the AGC lifting and reducing the notes volume. If somebody applaud their hands, coughs, or makes a blaring sound, the audio grade and backdrop sound dives down, then very noticeably fades back up. There is no headphone yield or on-screen audio brandish so there's no way to affirm the grade of your audio. If you close an external mic into the camera, there is no suggestion to affirm even the occurrence of an audio signal. The only thing you can do is record a view, then playback and mindfully hear to the noted file. If you design to use this camera on a expert sync-sound task, you'd actually have to address twice scheme sound recording. Recoding the audio on a distinct recorder adds a foremost grade of expanded hassle but it's the only way to insure very good audio. The audio from the camera's notes can be utilised as a post-production sync reference.
Another audio inquiry is why Canon chose to record audio at a experiment rate of 44.1kz rather than of the commerce benchmark 48kz. Apple's Final Cut Pro can handle nearly any experiment rate but other NLE's can't. Once afresh, if you're only firing video for world broad web issue, the compact computer disc experiment rate of 44.1kz shouldn't present a problem.
In certain reduced lightweight or reduced compare scenes, the H.264 encoding impede artifacts are noticeable. In my attitude, the 5D Mk2 artifacts are more obvious than the H.264 encoding utilised in Canon's own HF10, 1080 video camera even though the 5D's noted bit rate is higher.
The camera's signal-to-noise ratio is very good and very clean. It's a more noise-free video image than my $80,000 Sony F900R HDCam... except for the hue red. Red things are noisy. Most colors in a view appear disturbance free, except red. This is particularly factual with reduced brightness red things for example those in shaded areas.
The 5D Mk2 displays no "rolling shutter" characteristics that are affiliated with Nikon's D90.
The 5D Mk2 has the attribute of clipping to "flat-line" very dark very low-light or shaded minutia in an image. This yields a "gutsy" wealthy, very good, "film-like" value for numerous scenes, but you can't do any post-production recovery of lost low-light details. The camera does a attractive good job of revolving view best features off to a hard clip at 100 flats of video.
Possibly, some of the difficulties I've comprehensive here are associated to the exact 5D Mk2 that I bought (serial#0320105XXX) but I don't believe this is the case. Hopefully, Canon will topic a firmware revise to address the camera's video problems. New firmware could probably add manual command to the video arrest purposes and somewhat smaller the border rate to the benchmark 29.97fps.
All cameras at any cost grade have positives and negatives. I've not ever discovered or utilised the "perfect" camera. The Canon 5d Mk2 is an very good still camera and in my attitude, "a not rather prepared for major time" HDTV video camera. Possibly the camera was hurried to market to contend (or annul out) the much hyped video characteristics of Nikon's "rolling shutter" D90. It is an very good glimpse into the future of "hybrid" still & video DSLR cameras.
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