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Canon EOS 5D Mark II Review

Roland Lim — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 05:14:02 +0000

Introduction

The long awaited replacement for the EOS 5D finally arrived on the streets end of last month. It took 3 years for Canon to replace the original 5D with the 5D Mark II. Most people would want to know how good the 5D Mark II really is. For those who have read my EOS 40D and 50D review would know my review style. This will be the same type of review and is not meant to be a comprehensive technical review like those you see in dpreview.com. I will mainly talk about improvement from previous Canon cameras like the 40D, 50D and 5D. My main camera for comparison will be the 40D and I will also include ISO comparison with Nikon D3, the previously undisputed “high ISO king”. I hope this article will help owners with xxD series and 5D decide whether they would upgrade to the 5D Mark II.

The key specifications according to Canon are:-

New 21.1 Megapixel CMOS sensor with improved EOS Integrated Cleaning System (E.I.C.S.)
New Full HD 1080 resolution movie recording
3.9 frames per second continuous shooting
High performance DIGIC 4 providing superb image quality
Maximum 310 large JPEG images in a single burst with a UDMA card
3.0” VGA (920k dots) Clear View LCD
ISO 100-6400 (expansion from 50 up to 25,600)
9 AF points + 6 Assist AF points

External Appearances

You can consider the 5D Mark II body as a combination of the 20D or original 5D with the 40D/50D. The external dimensions is similar to the previous 5D and 40D/50D, but a bit bigger than the 20D/30D. At 810g, it is also heavier than the 50D at 730g.

You can see from the image below that the 5D Mark II is very similar in size compared to the 40D looking at the front of the cameras except the bulge housing the prism on top is bigger on the 5D Mark II obviously (being a full frame DSLR). There is an IrPort remote sensor at the front of the 5D Mark II that allows the use of optional infrared remote control to fire the camera. In Canon’s infinite wisdom, this feature was previously exclusive to only the entry level cameras such as the 450D.

If you look at the back of the camera, you’ll notice that it looks like a combination between the 40D/50D and original 5D. There is the large 3″ LCD, but most of the button are lined up on left of the LCD display like the original 5D and 20D rather than below the LCD screen like on the 40D/50D. The “print” button that hardly anybody ever use now also function as the button to activate Live View, like on the 50D.

Looking at the side of the camera, you can see rubber flaps hiding different terminals such as USB, hdmi, microphone, remote control etc.

If you lift up the flaps, you can see the different terminals

If you look at the top of the cameras, the 40D prism housing bulges out more at the front. The top LCD on the 5D Mark II is wider in dimensions compared to the LCD on the 40D. The mode dial on the 5D Mark II does not have all the numerous auto modes on the 40D such as portrait, landscape and sports auto mode. Both the 5D Mark II and the 40D has 3 Camera User Settings C1, C2 and C3( only 1 available on the original 5D). The buttons in front of the LCD are arranged slightly differently on the 2 cameras. The LCD backlight button on the 5D Mark II is on the side , whereas in the 40D it is near the middle just next to the prism housing.

With a larger view of the top LCD, you can see that ISO is permanently displayed as well as other settings.

Now we take a look of the 2 cameras from the front with the portrait grip on. The 5D Mark II portrait grip is sculpted a little bit better than the one for the 40D and looks more integrated with the camera body than on the 40D.

If we now look at the back of the cameras with portrait grips on, we can clearly see that there is an “AF-ON’ button on the grip of the 5D Mark II, unlike the grip on the 40D.

New Battery

The battery for the 5D Mark II is new and is not interchangeable with the battery for the original 5D and xxD series. The new battery carry a higher capacity of 1800mAh. It is also an intelligent battery that can provide detailed charge and life information on the camera. You can accessed this information on the camera’s menu.

The camera can keep track of up to 6 batteries.

New 3″ LCD

This is Canon’s second DSLR (after the 50D) to have the new high resolution 3″ LCD. It is bright and clear and can be used to check focus accuracy. Just a point of interest though. The main reason why previous generation of Canon DSLR like the 40D and 1Ds Mark III could not use the 3″ LCD to check focus accuracy was not because the previous generation LCD was not of high enough resolution. It was because Canon used to use rather low resolution thumbnail for image review, and when blown up, these thumbnails have simply too low a resolution for checking focus accuracy. Canon have finally included high resolution preview thumbnails from the 50D onwards and can now support checking of focus accuracy with the LCD.

The brightness of the LCD display can be either set manually or automatically according to ambient light level. The auto brightness function works very well indeed.

Image Review

Image review on the 5D Mark II works in similar manner with the 40D and 50D. By pressing the Play button, you can bring up image review on the LCD. The view can be enlarged to check for focus accuracy. The initial screen showed exposure setting like shutter speed, aperture value and +/- EV.

By pressing, INFO button, you can bring up extra info during image review.Press INFO once will bring up will show image quality settings and number of files on the CF card.

Press the INFO button again will bring up the luminosity histogram.

Pressing the INFO button once more will bring up the color histograms

Camera Menu

The 5D Mark II menu laid out is similar to the one on the 40D and 50D and is different from the one on the original 5D, 20D and 30D. 40D and 50D users should have no problem with using the 5D Mark II menu. However, I don’t think it will take too long for 5D, 20D and 30D users to get used to the menu on the 5D Mark II.

Image Quality Setting Menu

The image quality menu is like the one on the 50D. You can set the jpeg quality and the RAW quality independently.

Shooting Function Info

The INFO button at the back of the camera can be set to show shooting Function info. It can be quite useful to see info for all the settings on the large LCD screen.

My Menu

My menu has been available on Canon DSLR since the 1D Mark III. You can select up to 6 of your most commonly used menus or custom functions and register it to your My Menu setting.

Camera User Setting

The original 5D had 1 custom user setting. The 5D Mark II has 3 custom user settings. You can preset a certain set of shooting modes and custom function to one of the three Custom User Setting position (C1, C2, C3 on the shooting mode dial). Say you can set M shooting mode, Long Exposure Noise Reduction and Mirror Lock Up in the custom menu and then register this combination to one of the 3 Custom User Setting position. So for example, you can have one set of setting for shooting long exposure night photography and set it ti C1. Another set of setting for shooting fast action sport and set it to C2 and yet another set of setting for shooting portrait and set it to C3.

Peripheral Illumination

Peripheral illumination is a new feature introduced since the 50D. It can perform in camera correction for vignetting (light fall-off at the corners of the frame). It maybe a useful feature for jpeg shooters who do not do any post-processing. For RAW shooters, one can always perform vignetting correction during RAW conversion. This function can be activated in the menu. I have tried it and I can say it worked as advertised.

Highlight Tone Priority

This is a feature introduced since the 1D Mark III and but not available on the original 5D. It is supposed to preserve highlight details. When Highlight Tone Priority, the ISO range starts from ISO200 rather than ISO100. Again, this might be a useful feature for jpeg shooters who may not do any post-processing. It does preserve highlight details a bit better. However, do not expect it to do miracles. You will get much better result by shooting in RAW and recovering the highlight details during post-processing.

Auto Lighting Optimizer

Auto Lighting Optimizer is another new feature not available on the original 5D. Similar to Highlight Tone Priority, it performs in camera correction, but this time to recover shadow details. It works on jpeg files only and maybe a useful feature for jpeg shooters who may not do any post-processing. Again, do not exect it to do miracles. You will get much better result by shooting in RAW and recovering the shadow details during post-processing.

High ISO Noise Reduction

The 5D Mark II allows you to set different level of in camera high ISO noise reduction. There are 3 different levels of noise reduction or you can turn it off completely. The high ISO noise reduction affect jpeg files only and does not affect the RAW output. The default setting is 0:Standard.

It should be noted that when set on 2:Strong, the maximum burst for continuous shooting will greatly reduce.

Live View and Movie

Live View is a new feature addition compared to the original 5D. Although this feature has already been available on xxxD, xxD and 1D cameras for awhile. Of course the big news is the availability of movie mode, a first for Canon DSLR. You can activate Live View and or Movie mode in the menu.

Once you get into the appropriate page, you can set the camera to activate or disable Live View +/- Movie mode.

You can also set the LCD screen to optimize for Still display, Exposure simulation or Movie display.

You can set different autofocus (AF) Mode for Live View/Movie mode.

There are 3 different AF modes.

1. Quick mode lowers the mirror momentarily and use the AF sensor to autofocus before raising up the mirror .You can activate Quick mode AF by pressing the AF-ON button. It is preferable to use only the centre AF focus sensor when using Quick mode, as otherwise, you will not be able to know which sensor was used for autofocus.

2.Live mode is a contrast detect method of AF using the main image sensor. It is the autofocusing technique used in almost all point & shoot digicams. You can move a rectangle around the screen to anywhere and then press the AF-ON button to focus on the selected area. Live mode AF is a bit slo, but is decent and accurate under good lighting.

3. Live “face” mode is similar of Live mode, but has a “face detect” function that can detect human faces and when you press the AF-ON button, the camera will use contrast detect AF to focus on that face.

There is a “Silent Shooting” mode in Live View. Silent in “Silent mode” does NOT really mean silent as in no sound at all. Silent in silent mode is really just a “quieter” mode or “delayed” noise mode. There are 2 Silent shooting modes.

In mode 1, you can shoot single shoot or continuously for up to 3.9 shots per second. Since the mirror is up, there is only the shutter noise, which is probably subjectively around 30-40% of the usual shutter+mirror noise. In mode 1, if you shoot continuously, you lose Live View as long as you are shooting.

In mode 2, you can only shoot single shot. When you press on the shutter release button the camera will take the shot with minimal noise. SO long as you keep your finger on the shutter release button, there will not be any shutter noise. The moment you release your finger though, the shutter noise will occur. This maybe the preferred mode to use if you are trying to shoot an insect or animal that may be scared away but the shutter noise. By delaying the shutter noise, you will be able to get your shot before the shutter sound will scare away your subject.

The following is what you will actually see on the LCD display for Live View.

You can move the rectangle to anywhere on the screen and magnify the image 5 and 10 times for manual focus.

For movie recording, you can set recording at 2 different resolutions, 1920×1080(1080p) and 640×480(VGA ).

You can start recording movie by pressing the SET button. The Red dot at the right upper corner of the screen indicates that movie recording is ongoing.

Recorded movies can be played back on the camera or you can connect the camera to a high definition TV for full HD replay of the movies.

A few words about the movie quality. The 1080p movie quality is simply amazing, although I am not a really a video expert, the 1080p videos from the 5D Mark II is better than those from any consumer HD video camera I have seen. The video when viewed on my 100″ full HD projection system at home is simply breathtaking.

Although the best quality video will always be made with the camera mounted on a tripod, but handheld video with wide angle lenses such as the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 IS USM II are pretty good and handshake not very noticeable even at 35mm. I have tried shooting video handheld with EF 70-300mm f4-5.6 IS USM at 300mm and the IS performed admirably.

Autofocus

The 5D Mark II uses the same autofocus sensors as the original 5D with 9 AF points + 6 invisible assist AF points. Only the center AF is cross type. In my experience, I would say the 5D Mark II AF system is adequate rather than good. The center AF point is good and sensitive and locked focus pretty easily even under low lighting, but the peripheral focus points do not perform too well under low lighting and may not always be able to lock on a focus under low lighting. I think most people do not actually need 51 AF points, but I would have preferred the 40D/50D AF system with all 9 focus points being cross type. In my experience the peripheral focus points of the 40D & 50D perform much better than the 5D Mark II peripheral AF points under low lighting.

AF Micro adjustment

The 5D Mark II supports AF micro adjustment. This feature can be activated in the custom menu.

AF micro adjustment can be either disable completely, applied same adjustment to all lenses or apply adjustment to individual lenses. There are 20 memories for storing data for 20 lenses.

Auto ISO

The 5D Mark probably has the best auto ISO on any Canon DSLR made so far with the widest range of ISO. When set on auto ISO, the 5D Mark II will set the ISO automatically between ISO 100 to 3200. It will raise and lower ISO according to lens mounted and ambient light level. When using auto ISO in aperture priority mode, the camera will raise ISO to maintain shutter speed fast enough for hand holding.

Creative Auto Mode

CA stands of Creative Auto shooting mode. It is a new auto shooting mode first introduced in the 50D.

When you set the camera to “CA” mode, you will see the above display on the back LCD display. Basically you can make different settings in this menu like set the flash to auto on, always on or always off. Set different Picture Styles. Set image quality. Set single shot, continuous shooting or timer shooting modes.

The supposed innovation here is, instead of directly setting aperture value or shutter speed, there are 2 sliders on the LCD display.

The first slider allows you to vary the blurring/sharpening of the background. This basically means, the sliders changes the aperture value and hence the depth of field.

The second slider allows you adjust the picture brightness. So it is effectively just an exposure compensation control. It will -EV(exposure value) if you shift it to the left and +EV if you shift it to the right.

In my humble opinion, this new CA shooting mode will only be of use to newbies and beginners who know very little about photography. Any advanced amateur, professional or even learner photographer who is at all serious about seriously learning photography would not really use this mode.

The Viewfinder

The viewfinder is large and bright as it should be on a full frame DSLR. It shows 98% frame coverage. It is a pity that Canon did not allow 100% frame coverage on the 5D Mark II. A feature that probably would not cost much. I guess Canon has to artificially reserve some feature for the top end 1Ds series.

You can see almost a full set of info in the viewfinder including shutter speed, aperture value, ISO, +/-EV value, buffer size, battery info and a few other settings info and warning.

Continuous Shooting Performance

Canon officially quotes a continuous shooting rate of 3.9fps with 78 frames Large/Fine JPEG (310 frames with UDMA card) and 15 frames RAW.

I tested the 5D Mark II with an 8GB Sandisk Extreme IV CF card. It managed to shoot over 110 Large/Fine JPEG pics at 3.9fps and still going. I did not allow the camera to shoot any longer to preserve shutter life and 15 RAW at 3.9fps before slowing down to roughly 1fps.

The buffer performance is exemplary. 3.9fps would be a bit slow for sports and action, however for other kind of photography, like portrait and landscape photography, 3.9fps should be more than adequate.

Test Photos (Large/Fine jpeg)

All the samples posted are Large/Fine JPEG with High ISO speed noise reduction set at 0:Standard.

You can click on the following links for full resolution jpeg samples from ISO 100 to 25600.

The jpeg image quality are good. Low ISO images are sharp and full of details. At high ISO, you can actually see the camera performing significant amount of in camera noise reduction even with High ISO noise reduction set at 0:Standard.

Test Photos (RAW)

All RAW files from ISO 50 to 25600 were converted to TIFF with Canon Digital Photo Professional and then converted to jpeg for output with Adobe Photoshop CS4. No further post-processing were done in Photoshop. You can click on the links below for full resolution images from ISO 50 to 25600.

If you don’t look at the RAW converted images, you would think that the jpeg images straight from the camera were pretty sharp. However, if you look at the RAW converted images, then you can easily see that the RAW converted images are significantly sharper than the jpeg images from the camera even at low ISO. At high ISO, it’s possible to use a little less noise reduction than the default setting, especially luminance noise reduction to gain a bit more detail in exchange for little bit more noise when viewed at 100%.

Image Quality Comparison with Nikon D3

***For those who were surprised to find the Nikon D3 crops looked significantly softer than the crops from 5D Mark II and questioned whether my tests were valid either due to incorrect focus or the softness of the D3 crops were due to the Nikkor 35mm prime lens, please read the this post.

I borrowed a Nikon D3 from a friend and did some comparison shots with the 5D Mark II. Since the Nikon D3 basically shares the same image sensor and processor with the Nikon D700, it should produced similar image quality as the Nikon D700, one of Canon 5D Mark II closest rivals. My friend lend me a Nikkor 85mm f1.4 and Nikkor 35mm f2 to do the testing. Initially, I took some test shots with 85mm lenses (since I have a Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM prime lens) on both the Nikon D3 and 5D Mark II, but the depth of field was simply too shallow even at f8 and made comparison rather difficult. Subsequently, I made all test shots on the 5D Mark II with Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM II at 35mm and f8 and used the Nikkor 35mm f2 prime lens set at f8 on the Nikon D3.

The Canon 5D Mark II images were all RAW files taken from the set of images from above section. All the Canon RAW files were processed with Canon Digital Photo Professional to 16-bit TIFF files. The TIFF files were then converted to 8-bit jpeg files with Photoshop CS4.

The Nikon D3 RAW files were converted with Adobe Camera RAW in Photoshop CS4 to 16-bit PSD files and then converted to 8-bit jpeg files with Photoshop CS4.

There are two school of thoughts as to whether it’s better to compare 2 cameras with different resolution. One school advocates upsizing the lower resolution cameras images to match the one with higher resolution, the other school advocates the opposite, downsizing the images form the higher resolution camera to match the lower resolution camera. In my 50D review, a few people were rather upset I only upsized lower resolution images from 40D and Nikon D3 to match 50D resolution. So to stop any more arguments, I have done 2 set of 100% crops. The first set by downsizing 5D Mark II images to match D3 resolution. The second set by upsizing the Nikon D3 images to match 5D Mark II. So the readers can choose to use whichever set please them.

So let’s start with the first set. The 5D Mark II images had to down-sizing to match D3 resolution to make these 100% crops from ISO 100 to 25600. The 5D Mark II crops are on the left side and Nikon D3 crops on the right side. Both cameras were focused on the eye of the teddy bear and I used Live View and zoom to maximum to check and make sure focus was right on both cameras before shooting.

ISO 100

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12800

ISO 25600

The next set 100% crop were made with Nikon D3 images up-sized to match 5D Mark II resolution. Again, 5D Mark II crops on the left and Nikon D3 crops on the right.

ISO 100

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12800

ISO 25600

To my eyes, I think the 5D Mark II has significantly more visible resolution than the 12MP Nikon D3 at all resolution, which is only to be expected if the 5D Mark II 21.1MP sensor was performing correctly. The high ISO noise level are similar between the 2 cameras and I think there is very little to choose between them. But with the 5D Mark II having higher resolving power even at high ISO, I would say it’s a win for Canon this round.

sRAW

The main question that most people wanted to know about sRAW files is that whether high ISO sRAW shots have lower noise compared to RAW shot at full resolution. I have taken shots from ISO 1600 to 25600 for both RAW and sRAW1 and compared them in detail and I have found that when the full resolution RAW converted files were down szied to the same resolution as sRAW1 files, they are basically indistingushable, both in terms of resolution and noise. So in my opinion, the only reason to shoot sRAW with 5D Mark II is to have smaller size files that take up less CF cards and hard disk space and allow faster processing on a computer. If you don’t need full resolution 21.1MP resolution, then sRAW would be a useful. However, there is no advantage for high ISO noise to shoot in sRAW as far as I can see.

You can download the files below and see for yourself. Both RAW and sRAW1 files were converted to TIFF with Canon Digital Photo Professional. The RAW files were then down sized in Photoshop to match the resolution of the sRAW1 files. All the TIFF files were converted to 8 bit JPEG before saving. I have only included files from ISO 6400 to 25600. As I could not even detect any difference with ISO 6400 shots, I don’t think there is any point in including ISO 1600 and 3200 files for comparison.

RAW ISO 6400 sRAW1 ISO 6400

RAW ISO 12800 sRAW1 ISO 12800

RAW ISO 25600 sRAW1 ISO 25600

5D Mark II Gallery

The follow is a link to some portrait samples, more image samples to follow later.

http://rolandlim.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/playstation-girls-2008-at-ags-with-5d-mark-ii/

The following is a link to some ISO 3200 food shots in a very dimly lighted restaurant.

http://rolandlim.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/the-square-%E7%BF%A0%E7%8E%89%E8%BB%92/

Issues with The 5D Mark II

This review cannot be complete without mention of the widely reported “Black dot” artifacts seen in some night time shots at the right edge of blown highlights. Personally, I have not seen these artifacts on any of my shots either in jpeg or RAW files. It seems to affect some cameras and not others. However, Canon is aware of this problem, has acknowledged it and should be coming out with a firmware upgrade to resolve the problem. You can read about the official Canon announcement here.

***Update***

Canon have come out with a new firmware 1.0.7 that addresses the black dot issue. You can download it from here. Make sure you also update the following if you appply the new firmware.
a. D.P.P. 3.5.2
b. EOS Utility 2.5.1
c. Picture Style Editor 1.4.2

Conclusion

It took Canon 3 years to come out with the 5D Mark II as a replacement for the 5D. Canon has also been seen to be lacking behind the competition, especially since just over a year ago when Nikon came out with the ground breaking D3 and subsequently the D700. Many people have already written their opinion about the Canon 5D Mark II and I will add my own here.

As a replacement for the original 5D, I think it is a worthy camera. The image quality is simply amazing with very high resolution and very good high ISO performance. As far as image quality is concerned, I think most users would be more than pleased with the 5D Mark II. However, in areas such autofocus, Canon still lacks behind the competition. In fact Canon has not advanced at all during the last 3 years and the 5D Mark II still uses the exact same autofocus system as the original 5D. In my humble opinion, I think even the 40D and 50D have a better autofocus system than the 5D Mark II. Although, the 5D Mark II autofocus is adequate for most situation, it can be quite frustrating to use under low lighting and one wonders why Canon cannot come out with something better, or at least put the 50D autofocus system in the 5D Mark II.

If you are a Canon xxD use thinking of upgrading to a full frame camera, I think the 5D Mark II would be a no brainer and you should be very pleased with it.

Although, I have not owned the original 5D before (I have played with it in various occasions though), I think the 5D Mark II will be a very good upgrade as well, and you should be very pleased with the new features in the camera and the image quality should a nice upgrade too.

I have borrowed and used the 1Ds Mark III before, and from comparisons with images I made with the 1Ds Mark III, the image quality matched those from 1Ds Mark III very well. Purely for image quality, the 5D Mark II is a real bargain compared with the 1Ds Mark III.

Overall , it is a great camera and I love it. There some things that I hope Canon would improve in the future though, a better autofocus system, full environmental seals (even Pentax DSLR have them), viewfinder with 100% frame coverage, an additonal multi-controller on the battery grip would be great for portrait shooters, a dedicated mirror lock up button would be nice too.

Canon EOS 50D Review

Roland Lim — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:52:32 +0000

Introduction

I managed to get my hands on a new production Canon EOS 50D since a few days ago and and am doing a review of this new camera as I have promised. As in my review of the Canon EOS 40D last year, I will leave the comprehensive technical review to publications like dpreview.com. I will be mainly concentrating on the design changes compared to the 40D and new features and improvement in the 50D. I hope this review will answer most of the important questions people have been asking all over the world in different forums.

The main changes and improvement with the 50D according to Canon are:-

1. A new 15.1-megapixel CMOS APS-C size image sensor with newly designed gapless microlenses over each pixel to reduce noise and expand sensitivity up to ISO 12800

2. DIGIC 4 image processor provides faster processing speed compared to DIGIC 3 in the 40D

3. Peripheral illumination correction, which automatically evens brightness across the image field, making an image of a blue sky even toned throughout

4. Auto Lighting Optimizer analyzes the brightness of subjects and automatically adjusts dark images so that they appear brighter

5. A new 3.0-inch Clear View LCD screen which features 920,000 dot/VGA resolution, four times the pixel count of the EOS 40D camera’s screen, for better clarity and color

6. HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) output to display crisp, clear images on a High-Definition TV

7. support UDMA cards for faster writing of image files

8. AF Microadjustment feature, originally introduced last year with the Canon EOS-1D Mark III professional digital SLR camera, has also been added to the EOS 50D for maximum control over focusing precision

All the above claimed improvements were basically copied from Canon official’s press release. Let’s see how many of these claims hold up.

External Appearances

The body of the 50D is essentially the same as the 40D. The buttons, dials and LCD are all in exactly the same position. Although a couple buttons have different or additional functions. The 2 bodies have the same measurements, but the 50D is slightly lighter at 730g (740g for the 40D). The mode dial is in silver rather than black as in the 40D. Otherwise, there is practically no difference between the 2 bodies.

The cameras looked practically from the front identical except the name tag of course.

The back of the camera looked identical too.

The top of the cameras are identical except the mode dial of the 50D is in silver instead of black.

The rubber terminal covers are obviously longer on the 50D, thanks to the addition of an HDMI terminal.

Changes in Features and Design

You can clearly see the HDMI output in addition to the other output terminals.

There are no additional buttons on the 50D. However, there are some minor changes with the buttons compared to the 40D.

The “Print” button on the left side of the viewfinder also function as the button to turn on “Live view” mode. On the 40D, Live view mode is turned on by pressing the “SET” button in the middle of the large “Quick control dial” on the right side of the LCD display.

The “JUMP” button on the 40D amongst the row of 5 buttons at the bottom of the camera has been replaced by the “FUNC” button. The FUNC button can be assigned to have different functions in the custom menu:-

1. select LCD brightness menu

2. select Image Quality menu

3. select Exposure comp/AEB setting menu

4. select Image jump menu

5. select Live view function settings menu

On the 40D, you can save 3 sets of “Camera user settings”, which can be selected by selecting C1, C2 and C3 on the black mode dial.

On the 50D, you can only save 2 sets of “Camera user settings” which correspond to C1 and C2 on the silver mode dial. The “lost” C3 position has been replaced by “CA” position on the 50D mode dial.

New LCD Display

The 50D has finally caught up with the competition and now has a 3″ LCD display with VGA resolution 640×480x3=921,600pixels. The 40D also has a 3″ LCD but only with a resolution of 320×240x3=230,400pixels.

The questions that many people have is whether the 50D LCD can be used to check sharpness and focus during image replay like in the Nikon D3 and D300. Actually, many people had the misconception that the 40D LCD has too low a resolution to check image sharpness and focus during image review. However, the real reason why the 40D could not be used to check sharpness and focus critically was not because of the LCD resolution. During image review, the 40D is only actually reviewing a very low resolution thumbnail rather than on the actually RAW or JPEG file. When you enlarge the image during review, this low resolution preview will become rather blur and cannot be used to critically assess image sharpness. However, the Nikon D3 and D300 is either previewing a very high resolution thumbnail or on the actual RAW or JPEG file (I do not know exactly which method Nikon is using, but whatever image it is using for review, it is of high enough resolution to critically assess image sharpness).

So the important question with the 50D is that if Canon has changed from previewing a very low resolution thumbnail to a high resolution thumbnail or RAW or JPEG file itself.

I have borrowed a Nikon D3 from a friend for comparison here.

The above is an image review on the 50D LCD.

The above is an image review on the Nikon D3 with a similar photo as on the Canon 50D.

Now let’s enlarge the image to maximum size and centered it around the point of focus.

It is hard to reproduced in a photo, but you can still see the image review showed fairly good sharpness. You just have to believe me that in real life, the 50D LCD can be used to check image sharpness and focus. But let’s compare it to the Nikon D3 before we move on.

The Nikon D3 can actually enlarge the image a bit more than the 50D, but whether this additional enlargement is beneficial in checking image sharpness is hard to say.

Creative Auto Shooting Mode

CA stands of Creative Auto shooting mode. It is a new auto shooting mode and the 50D is the first Canon camera with this shooting mode.

The supposed innovation here is, instead of directly setting aperture value or shutter speed, there are 2 sliders on the LCD display.

The first slider allows you to vary the blurring/sharpening of the background. This basically means, the sliders changes the aperture value and hence the depth of field.

One note of interest though, for the first time on Canon DSLR cameras, you can select RAW instead of JPEG in any of the shooting modes including all the fully auto modes. Previously, one can only shoot in JPEG format with the fully auto modes.

Auto ISO

Auto ISO on the 50D is improved over the 40D and more versatile. In most of the shooting mode, auto ISO would set ISO between 100-1600. I have tried it out for short time and it seemed to work quite well, changing ISO from 100 to 1600 depending on ambient light level.

On the 40D, auto ISO behavior changes in most shooting mode and was rather limited and worked in an awkward way. For example, In P, Av and A-DEP modes, the ISO will be set between 400-800. If overexposure would result at ISO 400, a lower ISO, as low as ISO 100 will be set. In effect, ISO 400 is the base ISO and only under very strong lighting would force the camera to shift to lower ISO.

Although, the auto ISO on the 50D is certainly an improvement over the 40d, it is still not as versatile as on Nikon DSLR.

Lens Peripheral Illumination Correction

This is a feature that provides in-camera correction for light falloff at corners of an image (or technically called vignetting). Basically all it does is increase brightness of the 4 corners to match the brightness at the center of the image. It maybe a useful feature for JPEG shooters that do not want to do post-processing on a computer. For RAW and JPEG shooters who do post-processing, vignetting is easy and quick to correct with most image manipulation software.

Anyway, if you do want to use it, it can be easily activated in the menu. I have not really bothered testing it out, but I believe it should work as advertised.

Auto Lighting Optimizer

Auto Lighting Optimizer analyzes the brightness of subjects and automatically adjusts dark images so that they appear brighter or at least that’s what Canon claimed it would do.

It can be activated in the custom menu and has 4 settings:- Standard, Low, Strong and Disable. I set it on Strong and put it to an extreme test with a scene with very high dynamic range.

The above photo was shot with Auto Lighting Optimizer off.

The above was shot with Auto Lighting Optimizer set on Strong. it can quite clearly be seen that the brightness of the shadow area has been increased and some shadow detail has been recovered.

Again, I think this feature could be useful to JPEG shooters who do not want to do any post-processing. It would be much less useful to RAW and JPEG shooters who regularly do post-processing work.

Live View

Live view on the 50D is very similar to the 40D. I will not go into details about live view here, please read for 40D review for detail description. I will only discuss new features here.

Live view on the 50D is activated by the Print button rather than the SET button (as described earlier).

In addition to one shot AF using center AF point to focus, the 50D also has Live AF mode, which uses contrast detect AF as in practically all point & shot digicam.

You can select different AF mode in the menu. There is also a Live “Face” mode, which can detect faces as in many new point and shoot digicams.

Live contrast detect AF modes are kind of slowish compared to Quick mode (one shot AF), but it works alright and the focus area can be shifted to an part of the screen.

I can also report the face detect AF works well and despite my attempts at trying the fool the camera, it still successful managed to recognize real human faces and ignore faces of stuff toys.

Autofocus

50D uses exactly the same autofocus system as the 40D. However, because of the faster DIGIC 4 processor, autofocus is claimed to be faster than on the 40D. (I have read from somewhere that suggested that the 50D actually has a dedicated processor for AF calculations and does not use the DIGIC 4, but I do not know if it is true or not)

Again, I will not go into details about the 50D AF performance. I could not truly detect much difference with the 40D while testing it. My opinion is that the 50D AF performance is decent and should satisfy the majority of users.

AF Microadjustment

The 50D supports AF microadjustment. This feature can be activated in the custom menu.

AF microadjustment can be either disable completely, applied same adjustment to all lenses or apply adjustment to individual lenses. There are 20 memories for storing data for 20 lenses.

I can verify the it works as advertised and can effectively adjust AF.

Continuous Shooting Performance

Canon officially quotes a 6.3fps continuous shooting performance with 90 large/fine JPEG (with a UDMA card) or 16 RAW burst.

The 40D official specs quoted a continuously shooting rate of 6.5fps. However, it has actually been tested to have only 6.3fps in real life usage. The difference is because the 50D spec is based on CIPA standard, which needed to be accurate down to the first decimal point, whereas for the 40D, the specs was conveniently rounded up to 6.5fps.

I tested the 50D with an 8GB Sandisk Extreme IV CF card. It managed to shoot 110 large/fine JPEG pics at 6.3fps before slowing down and 16 RAW before slowing down.

Test Photos ISO 100 to 12800

All the samples posted are large/fine JPEG with High ISO speed noise reduction set at 0:Standard. You can click on the photos for a full size view.

ISO 100

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12800

I think the 50D images are usable up to ISO 6400. ISO 6400 cleans up reasonably well after noise reduction on a computer. ISO 12800 has too much color noise and also exhibits quite noticeable vertical banding even at reduced web size. ISO 12800 is probably only really for emergency use, and has too much noise for any serious usage.

High ISO Test

According to Chuck Westfall, Technical Advisor at Canon USA, the 50D can be expected to have noise levels to be roughly 1 to 1.5 stops better in the high ISO range compared to the 40D, despite a having a sensor with 50% resolution increase. A lot of people are interested as to know whether this promise would hold up. I am going to post some 100% crop comparing the 50D to 40D at high ISO and also another comparison to the current high ISO king, the Nikon D3.

High ISO 100% Crops 50D vs 40D

In the following crops from ISO 1600, 50D are on the left and 40D on the right. I have taken 40D RAW at -1 and -2EV and then corrected the exposure in Canon Digital Photo Professional to simulate ISO 6400 and ISO 12800 on the 40D for comparison purpose.

ISO 1600

ISO3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12800

From ISO 1600 to 3200, I really cannot see too much difference between the noise level between the 50D and 40D. Although at ISO 6400 and 12800, the 50D did pull ahead of the 40D simulated high ISO.

However, the 50D has 50% more pixels than the 40D. Now if we up-res the 40D files to 50D resolution, would the 50D begin to show an advantage or not? Let’s find out.

The following crops were made with 100% crops from 50D and 100% crops from 40D files up-res to 50D resolution.

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12800

Again, I can’t really see much difference in noise level between the 2 cameras at ISO 1600 and 3200. Although, the 50D crops seemed to showed more details. At ISO 6400 and 12800, the 50D again showed less noise compared to the 40D, but paradoxically, the 40D crops seemed to be sharper and showed a little bit more detail.

50D vs D3 high ISO 100% Crops Comparison

Just so that I won’t have more people commented that I should not compare the 50D to D3 and I should have compared it with the D300 or D90, I will include a reply that I have made to someone here:-

“As I have pointed out in the review, I knew the Nikon D3 is not really a direct competitor to the 50D. However, since Canon claimed such major advances with high ISO performance (1 to 1.5 stops improvement at high ISO as claimed by Chuck Westfall, that should make it pretty close to D3 performance if the claim held up), I thought it would only be “fair” to compare it against the current “gold standard” in high ISO performance, the Nikon D3.

Plus the fact that I don’t have any close friends who own the D300 and lend it to me for testing. Otherwise, I may have compared it with the 50D too.”

I am just going to compare 100% crops from 50D and 100% crops from D3 files up-res to 50D resolution. 50D crops are on the left and D3 crops on the right.

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12800

It is quite clear that the D3 showed less noise than the 50D at all ISO from 1600 to 3200 and the D3 also retained more detail as well.

Perhaps this was not a fair comparison as the D3 is at more than 3 times the price of the 50D. However, the 50D sensor does have more pixel resolution than the D3 and Canon also claimed major advance in noise level with the 50D. So I think it was interesting to compare the 2 cameras nevertheless. Anyway, the results speaks for themselves.

sRAW

The Canon 50D has a sRAW1 mode than shoots RAW files at half the size (7.1MP) of the full resolution RAW files. There has been rumours around the net that Canon may have pixel binning technology that would produce sRAW files with lower image noise. Well, I don’t know Canon has put this technology into the 50D, but let’s see if sRAW does indeed perform better than full resolution RAW.

The first pic below is a full resolution 50D JPEG file down-res to sRAW1 resolution. The second pic is a native sRAW1 file at 7.1MP. Both were shoot at ISO 3200. You can click on the files themselves for a full size version view. See both of them at full size and compare the noise the details.

On the full size images, the native sRAW1 file clearly showed more detail and has a little less noise. I think sRAW1 mode can be a useful mode for shooting under low lighting and high ISO if you can live with the 7.1MP resolution.

Conclusion

Instead of the usual 18 months product cycle, Canon has chosen to release the 50D only 1 year after the 40D. This was probably due to the intense competition from other DSLR makers like Nikon and Sony. The question is of course whether the 50D is a worthwhile upgrade.

If you are still using a 20D, 30D, then I am sure the 50D wold be a very nice upgrade. If you are an xxxD user (350D, 400D and 450D etc), it is certainly a nice upgrade too.

However, the tricky question is of course whether it is a worthwhile upgrade over the 40D. The 50D basically shares the same body with the 40D. There is no difference in build quality. The 50D gives you 50% more sensor resolution than the 40D. It has a better LCD display, which can be used to critically check image sharpness and focus. It also has other new useful features like AF microadjustment, and those who have been haunted by back-focus lenses would certainly welcome this feature. The 50D does bring a usable ISO 6400 mode, but I failed to see much improvement in noise level from ISO 1600 to 3200.

If you are a birder or other types of photographer who need the increase resolution, the 50D will be a good upgrade. If you have also been haunted by back-focus lenses, the 50D should also help you out. It is overall a nice camera and I don’t think most poeple would be disappointed with getting the 50D. However, the only caveat is that, do not expect the 50D to show any real improvement in high ISO performance compared to the 40D and the competition.

New Teaser Ad for Canon 5D Mark II, 50D compared.

willwm — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 17:19:49 +0000

Update! Release info and specs available here:
http://blog.wolffmyren.com/2008/09/17/canon-5d-mark-ii-released/

More buzz about the Canon 5D Mark II (definitely my next camera) from CNET News…

Rumors of a successor to the Canon 5D have been circulating for a while and now the digital-imaging blogsphere is churning again–this time with a brooding ad Canon has posted on some of its Web sites featuring the murky outline of mysterious dSLR and the phrase “Destined Evolution.” Everybody thinks its the Canon 5D Mark II because it appears to lack a pop-up mount and has some design features that harken to Canon’s other high-end EOS dSLRs.

A next-gen 5D–the current model retails for about $2,300 (body only)–has been a long time coming, and advanced amateur shutterbugs (and some professionals) have been waiting not so patiently for the rumored 5D Mark II to arrive–so much so that they barely batted an eye at the just-announced $1,400 EOS 50D.

(http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10033646-1.html)

Here are the stats for the 50D and 5D Mark II, respectively:

Canon EOS 50D:

15.1 Megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor
6.3fps continuous shooting, max. burst 90 JPEGs with UDMA card
DIGIC 4 processor
ISO 100-3200, expandable to 12800
9-point wide area AF
3.0” Clear View VGA LCD with Live View mode & Face Detection Live AF
Magnesium alloy body, with environmental protection
EOS Integrated Cleaning System
HDMI connection for high quality viewing and playback on a High Definition TV
Full compatibility with Canon EF and EF-S lenses and EX-series Speedlites

(http://www.dpreview.com/news/0808/08082605canoneos50d.asp)

Canon EOS 5D Mark II:

15.3 MP full frame CMOS sensor (vastly improved light-gathering capacity per pixel: improved micro lenses; miniaturized micro circuitry; enhanced signal/noise ratio)
Weather sealing same as 1Ds Mark III
Dual Digic III with all-new “CXR” NR system reported to best 3rd party NR software. Available as a C.F with 4 levels of customizable parameters.
14 bit A/D conversion
ISO 12800 (C.F. up to 25600)
Reported 1 2/3 stop sensitivity improvement
All-new 29-point TTL CMOS sensor
with 12 cross-type for F/2.8 or faster lens (35% faster than 40D)
Micro lens fine adjustment for up to 14 lenses
300,000 exposure shutter durability
6.0 / 3.0 fps
3.0″ LCD (922,000 pixels)
EOS Integrated Cleaning System
Live View (improved from 450D; latest generation)
6/3 fps continuous shooting for up to 68 frames
MSRP $3499, available June 2

(http://gizmodo.com/367086/canon-5d-mark-ii-rumored-specs-and-details)

What do you think? 50D or 5D Mark II? (Or Nikon, I know, I know…)

Top 5 Cameras You Wish You Could Afford

Team SnapVillage — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:53:02 +0000

1. Hasselblad H3DII-39MS SLR Digital Camera Kit with 80mm Lens

Price: $42,995

If you want to explore every hair follicle, the Hasselblads are the only way to go. They are a must-have for the top level fashion photographer and for enormously large format prints. We know of two SnapVillage contributors who use Hasselblads: Yuri Arcurs and iofoto. Lucky guys.

2. Seitz 6×17 with D3 Digital Back

Price: $37,667

There is simply no other production camera out there quite like the Seitz 6×17 D3 Digital. At full resolution – it captures an astounding 160 megapixels (21,250 pixels wide by 7,500 pixels high) and can use your existing Linhof-Technica or Fuji large format lenses.

Check out this gallery of amazing examples

3. Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III

Price: $7,999

The Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III (note the “s”) has a full frame sensor with a whopping 21MP. It is excellent at low ISOs with the highest resolution around for cameras in its class.

4. Leica M8 10.3MP Digital Rangefinder Camera with .68x Viewfinder (Silver Chrome Body Only)

Price: $5,995

What do you get when you take on of the most legendary series of rangefinders ever made, and cross it with a modern digital sensor? The Leica M8 digital rangefinder.

Rugged and classic design aside, the 10 megapixel Leica M8 has one important advantage over all other cameras – the ability to use Leica’s famed ”M” series optics.

5. Nikon D3

Price: $4,499

The Nikon has a full frame sensor and the ability to get usable images at an unbelievable ISO 12,800! This makes the D3 unsurpassed for low light shooting. It has well implemented Live View and additional features that make it a great value, even at this price. And you don’t have to take out a second mortgage for this one.

Which one do you want? Do you own one of these? Tell us about it.