Software

The EOS 5D is provided with the 'Canon EOS Solutions Disk 11.0' which includes:

  • Canon ZoomBrowser EX 5.5
    • Canon RAW Image Task 2.2 (RAW plug-in for ZoomBrowser)
  • Canon CameraWindow 5.4 (transfer / camera settings application)
  • Canon EOS Capture 1.5 (tethered capture)
  • Canon EOS 5D WIA driver
  • Canon PhotoStitch 3.1
  • Canon Digital Photo Professional 2.0

Note that Canon has now dropped EOS Viewer Utility, RAW Image Task becomes its replacement and can only be used through ZoomBrowser. RAW Image Task (RIT) is essentially a 'DSP emulator' in that it for RAW conversion it produces identical output to the camera (with the same settings). Digital Photo Professional however uses its own RAW conversion algorithms and so images have a different 'look' to them.

Canon ZoomBrowser EX 5.5

ZoomBrowser is Canon's centralized transfer / browsing / organization / editing and printing application. It's designed for easy of use but doesn't skimp on features. During the installation of ZoomBrowser EX three additional components are also installed:

  • CameraWindow
  • RAW Image Task (a plug-in for ZoomBrowser)
  • EOS Capture

CameraWindow

CameraWindow is Canon's launcher and transfer tool, this can be configured to automatically pop-up when the camera is connected to provide features such as image download, change camera settings, set DPOF, upload images back to the camera and start remote shooting. Options for transfer include just new images, all images, DPOF marked images, destination folder and sub folder creation (year/month/day etc.).

Clicking on the 'Confirms/change camera settings' option displays the 'Camera Settings' dialog as shown below, this allows you to set the owner's name, date & time and optionally format the memory card. In addition you can also program the camera's Picture Style parameters (see below)

Picture Style settings

The second tab of the Camera Settings allows you to program the image parameters for the camera's in-built Picture Styles. It also allows you to load new Picture Style definitions (.PSE files) into the camera, these are provided on the Canon Picture Style website.

ZoomBrowser EX

ZoomBrowser EX's default browsing mode is 'Zoom Mode' (as seen below, and hence the name) it provides an overview of folders and sub-folders with a unique automatic sizing thumbnail display. Sub-folders are shown as boxes within a box of thumbnails, you can click on a folder to 'Zoom' into it and display images under that etc. Two other view modes are Scroll Mode (a more traditional thumbnail display with collapsing folder headings) and Preview Mode (a kind of film-strip display). Hover your mouse over any image to see a larger version of it, double-click to view the image in a full size window (see below).

View Image

'View Image' mode shows one image in a large window, you can of course browse through images, magnify and scroll around the image (a navigation window opens when you do so), view images two, three or four at a time and even lock images side-by-side for comparison purposes. You can also enable display of AF points and shooting information (as shown below).

Single image view, magnified with navigator, shooting information and AF points.
Four-way comparison view, four consecutive shots shown 'synchronized' together at the same magnification and position.

Tools

In Edit mode you apply some basic adjustment / correction; Red eye reduction, Auto adjustment, Color/Brightness, Sharpness, Trim and Insert Text. Clips of four of these tools are shown below.

Auto adjustment Color/Brightness adjustment
Sharpness Trim Image

Returning to browse mode you have a series of buttons shown in the 'Task Area', these provide access to the various features available in ZoomBrowser. Each feature is listed below:

* This option may not be available in certain regions