Guest post by Big Files
I always shot jpeg on the 10D as RAW files were almost unusably slow and it didn’t help that the camera kept crashing when I used them. The 5D2 is a lot faster so I can shoot full resolution RAW and a 5 megapixel jpeg a lot faster than the 10D could shoot just jpegs.
However… The amount of data the 5D2 produces is completely insane, incredibly high resolution images are also incredibly big. Full resolution RAW files from the 5D2 are typically 25-30MB but can be anything up to 40MB, each. I used to take about 250MB in an afternoon, that’s now ballooned to multiple gigabytes, I’ve even managed to fill an 8GB card one day! Video is just as bad, At 1080p you can use up to 8MB per second, a 3 minute clip is in the region of 1GB.
Apart from images I deleted on the camera I used to keep all my photographs once they were transferred to the computer. The files are so large now that this is no longer an option, I have to delete images that don’t cut it. I fell this shall be a good thing for the quality of my photography, my pictures should improve as I’ll only be keeping the good ones.
After upgrading your to a 5D2, you’ll have to upgrade everything else. For a backup drive forget GigaBytes, go for a TeraByte. Apart from the backup drive, you’ll probably need a BluRay drive for backup. If you use a portable HD for copying files to while you are on a shoot you may need a bigger drive. It might be worth considering a HD equipped netbook for this purpose, this will not only let you store the pictures but also look at them. I bought an Acer aspire one pretty much for this purpose, I have it running Haiku which wont understand the RAW files of course but displaying jpegs is no problem.
Processing the 5D2’s monster files is also every bit as intensive as they are large, you’ll need to have a fairly potent computer to deal with them. I got a new MacBook at the end of last year (unibody, 2.4GHz Core2 Duo, 1.06GHz DDR3), very little seems to stress this machine, it is cool and quiet pretty much all the time. However that changed when I started playing with 5D2 files, now it can get hot and noisy!
When the 5D2 first appeared the MacBook couldn’t even play the video files properly, Apple have subsequently updated quicktime (and recently iMovie*) so the files are usable for both viewing and editing. Adobe Lightroom handles the 5D2 files but the machine gets pretty hot in the process and memory usage goes completely bananas. Currently I find it best to shut everything else down while processing 5D2 files, I’m now thinking a memory upgrade is probably quite a good idea as well as new drives.
Card wise the 5D2 takes standard CF cards. You’ll probably want fairly big cards though, I wouldn’t recommend anything less than 4GB, preferably more. You don’t need anything especially fast, x133 is easily fast enough for video. On the other hand if you plan on taking a lot of high res RAW pictures in quick succession (the 5D2 does just under 4 per second), you’ll need a high end UDMA card.
Connections
The 5D2 has a number of connections on the side. For the most part I don’t use them as I just eject the the CF card and put it in a reader. The USB seems perfectly usable though, unlike the 10D which had the slowest USB interface on the planet – it did a whopping 17MB – a minute! Canon supply software with the camera that I don’t really use, however it can get files from the Camera and you can also use it to remotely control the camera and do effects such as time lapse photography or time long exposures. Useful if you want to try things like star trails.
The 5D2 also has video and mini HDMI connectors for connecting to an external screen. The HDMI output is 1080i, this is perfectly fine for viewing photos or video on an HDTV. Canon supply a video cable (like I don’t have 10 of those already) but they don’t supply an HDMI cable. On a camera at this price they should supply an HDMI cable, or at least an mini HDMI to HDMI adaptor. If you can afford a camera like this you can certainly afford an HDMI TV so if anything I think supplying an HDMI cable / or adaptor would be better than supplying the video cable.
Video
Apart from just being a very high specced DSLR, the 5D2 is also a video camera, a very high specced video camera at that. The 5D2 includes a video encoder chip that allows it to record up to 1080p at 30 FPS. The video is encoded using H.264 and is stored as .mov files.
As numerous examples around the web show, the video quality from this camera is really quite spectacular, it can record at BluRay resolution with a similar bit rate. The image quality is perhaps not Planet Earth [PE] but it is damn good. The big lenses and huge image sensor make quite a difference over normal video cameras, the ability to use a large aperture means you can get very shallow depth of field, this gives the 5D2 videos a very “movie” like feel.
Thankfully there is no ‘jelly effect†you see with some cameras, the only nasty effect I’ve seen so far is caused by camera flashes being caught over 2 frames, this can look rather odd, however it’s a side effect of the way the image data is read from the sensor so other than post editing there’s nothing you can do about it.
The 5D2 isn’t the best shape for holding a video camera and thus handheld footage has a tendency to be shaky. There are ways to deal with this however, one is to use an IS (Image stabilizer) lens and another to use software image stabilization. Using an IS lens is better as software zooms in losing a bit of quality in the process, that said the best option may actually be to do both. On the other hand you could always make yourself a Steadycam [Steady] if none of these options are available.
Unfortunately while the image quality is awesome Canon have effectively crippled the video mode by giving you effectively no manual control over the aperture or audio levels. Just like in still photography, automatic systems do a good job but they’re not perfect, you sometimes need to go to manual control to get the right exposure or effect you want. There are hacks to get around the lack of manual video control but these involve things like half disconnecting the lens or (perversely) using a Nikon lens with an adaptor.
There are rumors that the 5D2 was released early and the full video software wasn’t ready. This makes a lot of sense as it’s not like Canon to screw up like this, especially not on such an expensive camera. There have been rumors that Canon was going to fix this in a firmware update and I really hope they do, Canon could seriously shoot themselves in the foot by not doing it. They must already be horrified at people using Nikon lenses but if a Nikon appears with full manual control video eBay might get a sudden influx of 5D2s. On the other hand if Canon add full manual control and (if possible) 24FPS recording, I can see the 5D2 becoming very popular with amateur, independent and possibly even professional filmmakers. Personally, I have a great idea for a horror I’d like to try…
Image Quality
You buy a camera to capture images so the real test of a camera is the quality of the images it produces, the 5D2 does not disappoint. The images the 5D2 produces contain an absolutely vast amount of detail, sufficiently so that I can capture images of ariels and power cables over a mile away using a 105mm lens. The 10D captured a lot of detail but images tended to be a bit soft when zoomed in (displaying 1 sensor pixel per screen pixel), the 5D2 captures 3x more pixels and the images are pin sharp, even at full zoom.
The images are also better quality than those from the 10D, this was immediately obvious when I first loaded an image into Lightroom. Without zooming I would not expect to see any difference, however the 5D images appear to have a bit more punch.
The images from the 5D2 are captured with a 14 bit ADC (Analogue to Digital Converter) that gives much more depth than the 8 bit jpegs I’m used to working with. The extra information means that I can now really use the controls in Lightroom. If the highlights are too bright you can use “recovery” to turn down their level and extract hidden detail, the same goes for darker parts of the image. This is possible with jpegs but doesn’t work nearly as well. You can also do the opposite, images that have dark areas can be selectively brightened.
The noise level is a great deal lower than the 10D where I was limited to shooting at ISO 800. On the 5D2 I can go to ISO 6400 without problems, going any higher gets noisy though this is most noticeable in dark areas. This opens up a lot more possibilities for indoor photography and it also means I can get fast action shots even in relatively badly lit areas.
The low light performance has to be seen to be believed. I have been able to take detailed images in pretty much pitch blackness – handheld! You can even get pictures of stars with relative ease but the exposures are a bit too long for hand holding. The low light abilities really come into their own if you are shooting with limited light and you don’t want to use flash. I experimented by taking some pictures at a local Salsa club and the images have come out surprisingly well, without vast amounts of noise, quite an achievement considering how dark it is there and I was shooting at ISO 6400. It would be virtually impossible to get these images on any other camera, the results from most cameras would be to blurred, noisy or both.
Conclusion
The 5D2 is an awesome camera, the pictures it produces are quite simply superb, the level of detail is really quite incredible. The quality of the video is also superb.
The Camera is a good size and well made, it’s also easy to operate, but read the manual as there things that will catch you out. If you are upgrading from an older DSLR you’ll find a lot of new features and improvements on the old ones. It’ll also be faster, the battery lasts longer and it takes better pictures …but you might need a new computer! You might also need a new lens, EF-S lenses will not fit the 5D2.
The 5D2 is probably very good for video but this really depends on if you can handle the lack of manual control and put up with the hacks to get around this limitation if you need it. For most people it probably isn’t an issue, for more serious film makers this is a very big deal.
The 5D2 is a very expensive camera but you certainly get what you pay for. I’d recommend it to anyone who is serious about their photography.
Images
There’s plenty of images direct from the 5D2 out there in web land so I’ve not bothered doing them. These images have been cropped and in some cases manipulated with Lightroom. This is more representative of images I’ll actually use.
Note: These pages are huge so may take some time to load.
References
[DPR] DP Review went to town with their review. [PE] What BluRay was made for:Planet Earth, just remember to pick up your jaw afterwards. [Steady] Home made steadycams.
US version
and UK version [*] You might want to read this comment about
iMovie’s quality
About the author
Nicholas Blachford has been taking pictures since he was a child.
He works for ARM in Cambridge, England. This article was written in a personal capacity.
I think you should look at upgrading your lenses too. That 28-105mm doesn’t look like it does justice to your camera. Some fast primes like the 50mm f1.4 would be really awesome and you’ll enjoy the shallow depth of field immensely.
Thanks for this review, very interesting. I’m a Nikon shooter using a D90, my video comes out in AVI, so it blew my mind to see the file size of video that the D2 does, even though it comes through as mp4. Admittedly, the D90 only does 720p, so 1080p at 30/fps is crazy – it’s better than my video camera.
I’m curious about the lens that came with your body. Did you buy a kit or use a lens you already had?
Since this is OS news and a story on photography, let me post this link to “Linux Photography”
http://jcornuz.wordpress.com/
It has a low post count so as of now the latest article is still his April Fool’s day post, so don’t get fooled.
Disclaimer: Its just a site that I enjoy reading, I’m not affiliated in any way.
I still remember his “The future of computing” series here on OSnews. Pretty crazy stuff(not the good kind of crazy, though). According to him the PC,X86 and compiled languages should be dead by now and we all should run scripted appz on PPC/Cell
The future is not what it used to be. I think static typed languages will be around for a long time (Scala could actually win scripter over again) and only the slow emergence of FOSS everywhere will break the Wintel monopoly … but fairly slowly..
Right. The new Palm platform, ARM Netbooks, JavaScript applications in browsers talking back to cloud servers running Python in Virtual machines. And the Java and CLR aren’t even worth mentioning.
He was way off the mark.
What is it like for low light photography? I mean evening shots and night shots, indoor candlelit scenes and even moody light restaurant scenes. A lot of cameras really don’t do these well.
What are people’s experiences or opinions as to what the best camera is for low light shooting?
On modern DSLRs the biggest and i mean the biggest thing is the quality of lenses you have. If your lens does not have a large aperture like a 1.8/2.8 then low light shooting is quite tough. However if you lens does support that, and you play around with your ISO you can get some incredibly low light photography.
Well I haven’t used the 5D2, but I have used the Nikon D700 and D3 and they’re excellent for that kind of shooting, especially when combined with a fast f1.4 or f1.8 lens. I imagine the 5D2 will be very good as well since really the large sensor size is what you’re after.
Of course you have to look at the price. While not quite as good, both the Nikon D90 and the Canon 50D with a fast lens will to a very good job and less than half the price.
If you already have an SLR and you’re using the zoom lens that came with it, my first step would be to buy a fast prime lens. You’ll get significantly improved low light performance for very little money.
For low light shooting, you’ll want a full-frame camera like the 5D, in order to let in as much light as possible.
Thanks for the article. It sounds a great camera to have though too high-end for many folks perhaps, unless you are a professional. Pentax here, and I go for their “Limited” prime lenses. Tiny but so good.
I’m not sure I completely agree with what some folks have said about fast lenses. There are depth of field issues of course, but a more promising and certainly more economical way round this may be by camera-makers generally improving performance at higher ISOs. In fact, if camera and sensor technology continue to improve it may be that fast lenses purely because of low light won’t be nearly so important any more. Digital has already made a huge difference to shooting at high ISOs.
I like that link about Linux software. Could become a whole article. At the moment I am using rawtherapee and Gimp with the fx-foundry plugin. Digikam does a good job of importing and cataloguing but Picasa under wine isn’t too bad either. I get some colour management by using icc profiles and xcalib64 to load them. Don’t feel I’m missing out, anyway, by not running Photoshop for stills, though video files may be another matter.
There’s a limit to what you can achieve with sensor technology. You’re essentially limited by the amount of light per area, and that’s a reason why a current compact or bridge camera (like the Canon SX1) will give much worse high ISO performance than a DSLR from 5 years ago (like the Canon EOS 10D).
With a fast lens, you get great low light performance today. Compare a fast 50mm f1.4 lens with some mickey mouse kit lens. With such lenses, you’re looking at around f5.6 at 50mm. This is a 4 stop difference, i.e. the f1.4 lens lets in 16 times more light. To put it in a different perspective, to get the same shutter speed as a f1.4 lens at ISO 100, the f5.6 lens requires ISO 1600.
If low light photography is important to you, a fast lens is a must.
9 – 3 = 6
Nice in-depth review of the EOS 5D. Interesting pictures on the linked pages. The high-end specs of the 5D make my Nikon D60 seem like an Asus EEE next to a MacBook Pro.
Before you go feeling sorry for yourself, remember that you paid $550, and he paid $3550.
Yeah good advice. I’ve got a Canon EOS 400D and next to this piece of hardware, mine makes me feel like I’m shooting with the camera built into my phone.
The 400D is an excellent camera. Pair it up with some high end glass and you’ll be wowed by the results. You might want to buy a battery grip though, since high end glass = heavy glass and this tends to off-balance the entry level DSLRs since their bodies are too light.
Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but the one in this article seems a whole lot better.
You are right though, get better glass and the quality of images goes up remarkably.. well to my eye anyways.
Yes I should get a battery grip but I’d rather get the top end flash attachment instead. I really hate the built in flash.
Here’s some untouched photos from my 400D:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=fdf2xf&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2pzl4t4&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=10yntw4&s=5
You really should never use JPEGs from Canon bodies. The in-camera conversion is not good and your images will look much, much better by converting them on the computer.
It is scary trying to find space for them, though, when using a 35mm frame camera body.