Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Opinion: It's a really good camera. Shadow noise is bad in my camera. Dynamic range is nothing special. It's big, it's heavy, it's loud. It produces beautiful images under controlled light. It produces reasonable images at high-iso.

I like the simplicity of the 5DmkI better. It was a much purer camera. Video is nice enough on the mkII. It looks beautiful, but can't help but miss the lack of bells and whistles on the original.

I know many people will argue with me, but I also think the mkI produces a nice image quality despite the megapixel disadvantage.

Opinion: Great for landscapes- love it !!!

Opinion: Soft Focus Detraction but overall a good camera. Love the full-frame sensor. Color and contrast are excellent. Not fully a Pro camera, but excellent quality and price point for the serious photographer. At 21MP, the pixel density is 2.4MP/CM^2 which helps keep noise low even at higher ISO's or in shadows.

The 5DMII was an upgrade for an aging 20D. My kit of a full line of L series lenses made the 5DMII make sense - although the Nikon D700 was attractive but more $. The D700 has the D3's ultra-sharp focus but in a thrifted body.

5DMII is a perfect companion for Adobe's Lightroom - the overall photographic performance of the camera is realized when you experience how little effort is required to process a quality shot.

Battery life is very good for photo's. I don't do a lot of video, just clips at family and social events, so the battery life remains good for mixing photos and video.

Nearly 4 frames/sec capture rate is reasonably fast. The movie quality is so good, that movie bursts are a better answer to action shots (30FPS). All you need to do is break out the frames you want to highlight.

Opinion: Amazing camera with the best RAW files I have ever seen. They can be manipulated beyond belief without a major penalty. I primarily use DXO for my RAW workflow so I can't speak much to other software. JPEG's look good but not perfect due to the canon's sharpening and noise reduction choices.

Opinion: This review is from the perspective of a four-year 40D owner, upgrading to 5D Mark II. I shoot RAW only, processing with Lightroom. I shoot most things except for sports :-)

The most striking thing about the two cameras is physically how similar they are. The bodies are almost the same size and the 5DII is only slightly heavier. The controls are essentially identical to the 40D, although some buttons have moved. Surprisingly, I think that the 40D build quality is slightly better, with more robust rubber flaps and more metal construction. The 5D's LCD is the same size but it is noticeably higher resolution and with better glare resistance.

Functionally the two cameras are almost identical, with the exception of the addition of video to the 5D. This is a neat addition for artistic filming, but in practise we will probably continue to use our micro 4/3 cameras for video due to their better user interface (we mainly shoot research documentaries, for which a smaller simpler camera is an advantage). One niggle about the video is the use of the 'set' button to start recording. On the 40D this was used to enter/exit live-view mode, and so muscle memory means that on the 5D I still occasionally start recording a video rather than exiting live-view...

At the pixel level, the image quality of the 5DII seems almost identical to the 40D, but with about 1 to 1.5 stops less noise. Pixel level sharpness with good lenses is about the same on the two cameras, with the 5D II perhaps marginally softer (possibly a stronger AA filter?). Of course, this is at the pixel level - the 5D has twice as many pixels and so the advantage when printing is more that you might at first realise.

Shadow noise is about the same on the two cameras, and difficult to see on my 5D II unless pushing fill-shadow with images shot at ISO 3200 or higher - there is clearly vastly more noise on the discussion forums than in the images, and banding is a non-issue.

Phase-detect AF has the same operating modes and similar performance to the 40D. It works adequately, but it is a tad disappointing that a camera at this price level does not have a better system (in fact even the 40D has cross-type outer AF points, which are easier to use than the linear points used in the 5D). More positively, the 5D has micro-focus-adjust, which has proved useful with my Sigma 50mm.

More usefully, is the addition of contrast-detect focus in live-view mode, which gives more flexible AF position control - handy when shooting macro. However, I suspect that the face-detection focus was only added as a joke: even if you wanted to use it, most people will have given up and walked off before any focus is achieved.

The burst rate, shutter lag and view-finder black-out times are significantly worse on the 5D II compared to the 40D (let alone a 7D). This does't matter for what I shoot, but may be an issue if you shoot a lot of sports.

There is definitely a special 'look' to images from the camera when compared to similar shots with a crop system such as the 40D. However, this 'look' seems mostly down to the colour output and the extra vignetting that is found with many FF lenses, and in fact you can replicate this fairly easily on 40D images with suitable Lightroom processing.

What you do get over the 40D is lower noise (noticeably in clear skies, even at ISO 100), double the number of pixels, wider framing with greater depth of field control, and meaningful wide-angle lenses such as the Zeiss primes and the wide-angle TS-E lenses from Canon. Ultimately, the main reason I had for upgrading was the lack of suitable lenses for what I wanted to do in an EF-S format.

Overall, the 5DII and 40D are quite complementary - the former for the best wide angle art photography, the latter for its faster frame rates and 1.6 crop factor with telephoto lenses. Both are great cameras.

Opinion: Having used Nikon FM2's professionaly, and done the lower spec Canon Digitals this camera is so capable. I only use mine for personal pictures and the odd small job.
Unlike some others I'm not going into great detail, I havent found any problems, it does all that I want.

Opinion: After owning and shooting with film cameras Canon EOS3's and digital cameras Rebel D300, 10D,20D,30D,50,7D,1D MARK ll and a ID MARK lll .I finally got the chance to purchase this very fine camera with a vertical at a very good price .I have a chance to shoot about 2 k shots with it .I now can say that I understand what all of the buzz is about this camera.Id full frame sensor with the Digic 4 processor .What a great combination . I believe that it is the upgraded processor that makes the difference in image quality between the 5D and the 1DS camera.
So far all I can say is wow.I have gotten used to shooting with the 1D series bodies so this is a slight change for me,but to get the 1D image at a fraction of the cost I can't complain at all. It has the iD sharpness without the price. For those who have never shot with a 1D ,images are razor sharp out of the camera .Compared to none 1D bodies . Images from this camera have the same feel. Color,contrast you name it are great .

Opinion: -true full frame 35mm
-not so expensive
-FuLLHD video 1080P at 30fps
-good at low-light

I think that this is the best Canon digital camera for last 10 years.

Opinion: I have been shooting with a Canon from back in the Film days and have had a series of DSLR's starting with the 20D then the 5D and finally the 5DMKII. For roughly 20 months it has performed close to expectations but never quite met, focus a little soft is the main beef.

Last week I had the camera go completely dead on me, the last error was an err 80, just prior the photographs got pixelated and the colors went to primary's and it finally died.

It went in for open body surgery, has anyone else out there experienced this type of failure?

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