Canon EOS 5D Mark II Review
The ‘Canon EOS 5D Mark II’ has a CMOS sensor of 21 Mega pixels and outstanding capability of movie capture. The camera is available in 2 official configurations: a kit version or only the body along with the USM lens. The ‘Canon Mark II’ has a weight slightly more than 2 pounds. Canon states that it has strengthened the weather and dust sealing slightly surrounding the buttons and the card cover.
Canon has enhanced the rated shutter durability to nearly 150,000 cycles. The body is made up of a steel framework covered with an alloy of Magnesium. It feels solid and is comfy to hold and capture shots. The flaw in this improved design is that it requires new accessories, which includes a new vertical grip and a battery. The top portion features the main dial and 4 buttons of dual-purpose.
These buttons allow you to access the adjustments necessary for metering (center-weighted, big 3.5% spot, evaluative and 8% partial) and white balance; flash compensation, AF (AI focus, single and AI servo) and ISO sensitivity. The LCD of top status can display full information, you may bring your current settings to the rear LCD also, but you cannot navigate them easily.
At the top left corner, a mode dial is present which provides only the basic buttons: PASM, 3 slots of custom settings, Auto, the mode, ‘Creative Auto’ and Bulb. The top rear right portion contains buttons required to initiate focus-point selection, AF and exposure lock. The left rear below features the Picture Styles, Playback, PictBridge/ Live View, Info, Delete and Menu buttons.
But most of the buttons are similar to one another. The Mark II utilizes the ‘Quick Control’ dial along with the button, ‘Set’ and the joystick multi-controller which work smoothly. The viewfinder is slightly bigger and brighter than the 5D. While the Canon camera provides greater coverage than the D700’s, it does not offer 100% coverage like the A900.
The key attraction of this camera is its capability of ‘movie capture.’ Canon can support a resolution of 1,920×1,080 pixels at a frame rate, 30fps with true 1080p High Definition (HD) with a stereo mic input and an inbuilt mono-mic, with clips of nearly 12 minutes on a memory card of 4GB. You may adjust the exposure when you are shooting, but ‘Autofocus’ feature is absent.
The ‘optical stabilization’ operates pretty well, and you may apply the ‘Picture Styles.’ The main features of the Canon Mark II are focusing screen options that can be interchanged, a mode, ‘Live view’ which is silent, low resolution raw formats pair (5.2 and 10 Mega pixels) and a ‘peripheral illumination correction’ in-camera for compensating the non-uniformity of brightness throughout the image.
You also have the ‘Face Detection AF’ but it can operate in the mode, ‘Live View’ also. If you are involved in HDR work, you may notice the bracketing implementation of the 5D Mark II. Its extremely flexible when compared to the other cameras. For example, you may bracket in small increments of 1, 1 2/3, 1/3, 1 1/3 or 2 complete stops centered on an EV to -/+ 4 stops.
But it restricts you to 3 exposures where as the other cameras offer 7 or 5. The Mark II utilizes a brand new battery pack, ‘LP-E6’ which can last for quite a long time. The camera’s CIPA is rated between 750 & 850 shots, which depends on the temperature. It can also support advanced reporting features. For example, you may register the packs and your camera can track the number of shots since you charged it recently, the date of your last use, the residual capacity on the charge status and its charge holding ability.
An inbuilt flash and a wireless flash controller are absent in the camera. The overall performance of the camera is excellent. It can wake up and shoot in just 0.3 sec and takes 0.3-0.6 sec for the first shot which depends on the conditions of light. It basically runs 0.4 sec from one shot to another. The burst shooting speed of the 5D Mark II is 3.8fps (14 Raw, unlimited JPEG) and its 9-point AF system which is center-intensive can result in continuous and quick shooting of moving objects but fails to offer fast burst shooting.
If your style of shooting needs plenty of AF points which goes beyond the frame’s middle quarter, then this is not the right choice for you. For people who focus at the centre, it will suit them pretty well. The camera generates consistent and accurate colors and exposure. With a high resolution also, the noise profile is exceedingly good. You do not witness any noise suppression or noise artifacts till ISO 1600.
From ISO 1600, you will notice softening slightly. The photos tend to be usable which depends on the subject matter at ISO 12,800. The video appears and sounds great but the microphone should have been inserted with a wind filter. In sum, the ‘Canon 5D mark II’ camera is one of the best cameras available with its superb video capture and its high resolution.
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