
Search the phrase “Canon 5D Mark II Review, and you’ll find more information than one can process. Some of the reviews are technical, done thoroughly by reputable magazines and professionals in the industry. Others are purely subjective, written by frustrated or happy consumers expressing their opinions with their limited knowledge and experience. This review is somewhere in the middle, leaving out the inapplicable detail, but thorough enough to make a good case for purchasing the camera as a professional wedding and engagement photographer.
As a professional wedding photographer, is it worth the money? Which features are the most useful for our profession? Why did we decide to purchase the camera, and why are we going to continue to use it?
ISO – Though there is a combination of reasons we decided to purchase the camera, the first and primary reason is its ISO performance. Bringing out the backgrounds of landscapes, chapels, or reception halls without sacrificing image quality decreases our reliance on flash and increases the overall quality of our photographs. We’ve been able to create usable shots up to ISO 12,800 (vs. 800-1000 ISO with a Canon 40D). These capabilities truly change the way we photograph.
Image Quality – Excellent! At ISO 50, the resolution of 2830 lines matches the $6,000-$7,000 Canon EOS 1-D Mark III. Comparing the images taken with our backup Canon 40D’s and our Canon 5D’s, we notice an obvious quality improvement in our new cameras. Image quality differences are particularly noticeable in images with heavy bokeh and color gradients.
Video – The ability to control the depth of field and the ability to use your fisheye lenses and various filters makes the video capabilities an attractive feature, even for professional videographers. However, the aperture is locked once you start recording and you have to manually focus, limiting its usefulness in our profession. We don’t anticipate utilizing this feature any time soon in our studio.
New 3 inch LCD – Although not that important of a factor, the new, larger, more vibrant, and higher resolution LCD is great for those photographers that like to have your subjects “chimp at the images just taken of them. This is an effective way of getting them excited about the image, ensuring that they follow through to view the rest of the images posted online.
Auto Focus (AF) Problems – In extreme low light (EX -1 and -2), autofocus becomes inconsistent and sometimes fails altogether with the Canon 5D, limiting its performance for dark chapels and other crucial situations. In these situations, the center focus, like all DSLRs, is your most reliable point, and in our experience, eventually gets it right. However, these focus issues, along with the 0.51 second speed of the focus (vs. the Nikon D700’s 0.35 sec and the Sony A900’s 0.29) are frustrating downsides to the camera.
Frames Per Second – The usefulness of having high frames per second is limited in wedding photography, as brides aren’t usually sprinting down the aisle or kicking field goals. Well, most aren’t anyway. However, at only 3.9 frames per second, its usefulness for action shots are limited; and handholding some HDR shots may require a bit more steadiness of hand than with the zippy 6.5 frames per second of the Canon 40D.
[REWIND: Learn HDR Photography with our HDR Tutorial]
Competition – Why didn’t we get the Nikon D700 or the Sony Alpha 900? Besides being married to Canon with our lenses, strobes, and other equipment, there are a few good reasons we didn’t go with the competition. For the Nikon D700, the deal breaker was the pixel resolution. With half as many pixels, similar noise performance, and the same price range as the Canon 5D Mark II, the better AF performance didn’t justify switching over. While we don’t usually tout megapixels as a major deciding factor, shooting in SRAW (Small RAW at over 10 megapixels) makes the Mark IIs ISO noise performance quite amazing, even rivaling Nikon’s new line of cameras. Additionally, the Sony Alpha 900’s sensor-shift image stabilization and better focusing system wasn’t worth sacrificing the superior noise performance of the 5D.
Christopher Lin
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Thanks for posting
With the upcoming release of the A7R II, those of you who are “married to Canon/Nikon with our lenses” are getting a little more of a release in those regards.
best camera you’ll ever get for its price and what it has to offer. Can’t beat it!
Any word when the new 5D will be out on the market? Some are saying March….and then again I have heard others say no one know when…it could be two years! I am about to do a wedding in May and would love to upgrade my current Canon…but wanted to wait on the newer model to come out first.
Also what about flashes for the Canon….which are the best.
Thanks!
Lesa, the roomers we have heard slot the 5D Mark III to be released in the 3rd Quarter of 2011. However, Canon always changes these dates, and it is just a rumor. So, nobody really knows =)
Thanks for the detailed reply. It is definitely helpful.
Well, I have been using a 30D for the past two years and I constantly have pushed it to a usable 3200 because I am used to the graininess of 3200 b&w film and the 30D in that high of an ISO was comparable. Would you say that the 40D/50D higher ISOs give similar results?
Honestly, I know that I will be settling by NOT getting the 5D Mark 2 but need an upgrade from my 30D but unfortunately, I am working with a fixed budget until I finally get my butt in gear in marketing myself.
Hey Abra,
This is Pye. It really depends on what your goals are. If you want to shoot casually as an avid hobbyist photographer, I would say go the 40D or the 50D route. If you shoot professionally, or are planning on shooting professionally. Than the ISO performance in a 5D Mark II will make your life much easier. That isn’t to say you can’t shoot professional quality images on a 40D/50D, but you will definitely have to be much more technical and skilled with lighting to pull off some of the same low light imagery.
In comparing the 40D to the 50D, the 50D has a beautiful LCD which you can actually see quite a bit of detail in. While the 50D goes up two more stops in ISO, the image quality from anything above 1600+ is almost unusable. We did some detailed testing comparing the 40D to 50D in low light situations. The results were actually quite surprising in that the 50D showed virtually the exact same amount of noise at each IS0 stop. However, if you are purchasing new, the obvious choice would still be the 50D.
Now, comparing the 40D/50D to the 5D Mark II is a whole other apple. The 5D Mark II captures amazing quality low light images up to 3200 ISO and with some post processing, 6400 and 12,800 ISO turn out some great quality pictures as well. On the 40D/50D you are pushing the noise barrier at anything above 800 ISO. So, you will extra stops of light out of a 5D Mark II as its 3200 ISO setting looks more like the 40D/50Ds 400 – 800 ISO range.
Hopefully, this helps you in your decision.
Quick question for you. I am looking into getting a new Canon body and all I’ve read about in your posts is the Canon 40D, 5D, and 5D Mark 2. Can you give any feedback about whether that is a good investment? The one thing I love about what the 5D Mark 2 offers is the high ISO as you mentioned. I read that the 50D has a pretty decent high ISO as well and I have read mixed reviews as to the noise. I would greatly appreciate any advice you can offer.