Comments on: Canon came out swinging in this round

By: Bakari

Bakari — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:29:15 +0000

Wow, I was checking out the video clip you posted. That’s pretty sharp clip. Of course, there was extra lighting involved, but it still looks great. I’m thinking this feature would be really nice for say wedding photography where I could capture portions of the wedding on video and then continue shooting stills. Later, i could use the video as part of the photo slide show. I can’t wait to get my hands on the 5D.

By: CyberGus

CyberGus — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:31:05 +0000

Audio Specifications:

Full audio support: built-in mic and speaker, mic-in socket, audio-out over AV (although not HDMI)

video: Movie recording in live view (1080p H.264 up to 12 minutes, VGA H.264 up to 24 mins per clip)

And about weather sealing:

Water resistance: 10 mm rain in 3 minutes.

By: Julien Becker

Julien Becker — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:59:38 +0000

I think the video feature is great !
I’m a photographer and sometimes a videographer. I like video when it looks like 35mm and that’s what I get when I put an adapter like the Redrock M2 in front of my HVX-200. These adapters simulate the depht of field of 35mm.
With the video feature of the new 5D, it’s what you get ! Video with 35mm d.o.f, and that’s awesome ! I think you will soon see people doing short films with a canon 5d Mark II. I’ll give it a try

By: Photosaurus » Blog Archive » Canon 5D Mark II.

Photosaurus » Blog Archive » Canon 5D Mark II. — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:39:39 +0000

[...] Terry White comentek video minoseg mintakkal [...]

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:24:03 +0000

I shoot Canon but slowly I started looking into the other camp. With the new 5d I may stick around for a while. I shoot stock and 21.1 MP will be nice to have. I am excited about the video possibility, mainly because of the expansion of the stock video market.

By: Markus Jais

Markus Jais — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:03:55 +0000

I agree with you. The 5D Mark II is a worthy upgrade for the old 5D. The large resolution on a full frame body for just 2.699 $ is amazing.
What’s annoying is that European customers pay 2.499 Euros which is about 3.500 $.

I am sure Canon will sell a lot of those cameras.

By: Johannes

Johannes — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:27:33 +0000

you can choose between 5 MP, 10 MP and 21 MP and thats great. And just look gigapixlel.org or zoomify.com and you’ll see why. And video is very wellcome and it’s looks very very good, hope also is usefull, I have so many canon lenses … 15 FE to 400/2.8 L tuo use with those

By: CyberGus

CyberGus — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:52:08 +0000

I see a some uses video:

1. Storyboards. Since the video is HD, you can use any frame to work.
2. To test lighting.
3. To document your work, a behind scenes.
4. As a good exploration excercise of composition, color, light.

I think creative people can imagine a lot more, a few days ago I saw a video made with a 5D (the old one):

http://vimeo.com/1668653

By the way, I shoot with a Canon 5D.

By: Deb

Deb — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:03:13 +0000

Must be ancient
Why is 21 megapixels better than 15 megapixels if you only enlarge to 13×9?
Isn’t ISO minimal noise at 6400 sufficient? I shoot in darkened evening but not when pitch black.
For me cameras are for photographs – the art of photography etc. not for videos. If you want good graphics on a computer you usually have a dedicated graphics card. Wouldn’t you have a video camera? Also, just another electronic problem waiting to happen (I’m from all mechanical film cameras time)
Also for wildlife or sports don’t you want more than 4 fps? The Mark III could capture wings in motion that the 40D couldn’t touch (was really unhappy with Mark III AF performance tho). The D700 is full frame but is either 6 or 8 fps (with battery pack).
I shoot both NIKON and CANON but like I said I think I must be really old.

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:33:09 +0000

I agree – multi-function devices in general are good with one thing and not so much with the other tangential ones. However, after seeing some of the video samples from the 5D Mark II, I must admit that I was impressed. I posted links to the video over on my blog, so if you want to see the quality, stop over there. There’s one that shows the low light performance, and I must admit that the video was remarkably clear and free of grain.

By: Alessandro Rosa

Alessandro Rosa — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:55:48 +0000

Hey Terry,

I agree with you totally on the Nikon Vs Canon camps. The rabid foaming at the mouth that you get from both sides is a little rediculous. A camera is a tool. It is how you use that tool that counts. If ___ (insert great professional’s name) were to pick up the other company’s camera, it would probably take them all of five or ten minutes to start producing out of the park images.

That being said and disclosing that I shoot Canon and I am a little bit disappointed by the 5D Mark II announcement for a number of reasons. First, I am going to make this statement from my perception; Canon listens to Canon and Nikon listens to its customers. Canon designs what’s best for Canon and Nikon tries to make their customers jobs easier.

I say this because when I look at the little features on Nikon cameras I don’t see these things in Canon’s design concepts. Things like the ability to select the number of FPS burst that you shoot in Continuous Low and the ability to shoot up to nine, count ‘em, nine! frame brackets. Has Nikon maybe realized that people like playing with HDR? And I am absolutely in love with the Leveling Screen on the Nikons. “We have a sensor to tell the orientation of the camera, why don’t we think outside of the box and turn it into a bubble level as well?”

While Canon produces a great product as well, maybe technologically superior when it comes to sensor design and most always cutting edge, some of their decisions just leave me scratching my head and thinking that they really take the arrogant approach that they know better than the people that use their tools.

- If the 5D Mark II is all that it looks like it will be at 21MPS and ISO from 100-6400 that actually produce usable, clean images, then that’s great. But would an 18MP camera with even better noise performance and the ability to shoot at 5 to 6FPS been no more spectacular?

- Why couldn’t Canon have upped the ante like Nikon has and migrated its pro level autofocus system from the 1D’s to the 5D or even the 50D for that matter?

- Canon adds an infrared shutter release to the 5d Mark II, which I think they have on the Rebels but leaves it off of the 50D?????

- Canon makes the battery for the 5D Mark II proprietary to the entire EOS line, So now if you are a 5D Mark II primary shooter with an XXD as a backup camera, it means two different battery types, two different chargers, etc. If you are going to make the change, change the 50D as well and use it in all of your designs moving forward. You had that problem as a 1D shooter, but at least the before the line was limited to two types of batteries. Now if you include the new Rebels, the EOS line has four different types of batteries.

- If you believe the article on the European Yahoo! site where they interviewed a Canon engineer who said that they were held back from making this an even better camera because they had to meet the marketing department’s demands for MP count, then what does that say to Canon’s consumers?

I shoot Canon because the 20D was best in class for what I could afford when I converted from Film to Digital and I will stay with Canon because of the investment in lenses, but I really, really wish that they would do a case study of Nikon’s design philosophy when it comes to their customers. Maybe the difference is that Canon is a Multinational electronics conglomorate and Nikon is still mainly just a Camera and Optics company?

By: David Apeji

David Apeji — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:45:38 +0000

I totally agree with you Terry. I think the new 5D is impressive especially at the price, of course we haven’t seen images yet but I am sure they will great. Maybe this will encourage Nikon to push the D700 price a little further in my direction

By: Photoshop Insider » Thursday News Stuff

Photoshop Insider » Thursday News Stuff — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:36:44 +0000

[...] ability to shoot high def video built right in. Anyway, you’ve got to give it a quick read (here’s the link). Also, if you’re a iPhone freak (like me), make sure you stop by Terry’s site on [...]

By: Damon Lynch

Damon Lynch — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:56:55 +0000

The most interesting part of your review is the first paragraph I don’t understand it when brand loyalty is taken to the level it sometimes is. My investment is with Canon but I was really happy to see Nikon come out with such superb cameras in the last year.

The one thing big question on my mind now is how to sensibly use an external mic with the 5DII, so one can still have the mobility to walk around. Maybe someone will make an attachment so it can be plugged into the flash shoe

By: David

David — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:51:28 +0000

Thanks Terry for a great post. I agree with you that both Nikon and Canon have released great cameras recently. In the end, both sides of the fence get great bodies.

Always a pleasure reading your posts.