Some further 5D Mark II thoughts.

grumpybadger said:
I do wonder how many people actually make prints now though? I feel as if I am in the minority!
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I ask that question a lot as well.

My contention is that its utterly pointless paying £££ for cameras if your only output size is 800x533 to Flickr.
 
It's just a pointless argument now IMO.

Canon and Nikon both make cameras that will allow good sized prints at ISO6400. Think about that statement.

Is a 12MP sensor likely to output a file with lower noise than a 21MP one? Yes. Does it make any significant difference in the real world? Not any more. It's about the system you prefer. Choose that and get on with taking great photographs.
 
pxl8 said:
That's the problem with pixel peeping at 100%. I've printed wedding shots taken on a 30D at ISO1600 and they look great. Admittedly the same shot taken on my 1DmkIII would look better but the 30D still looks great :thumbs:
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Funny you should say that. :D

I took some graduation shots of my wife earlier in the year, when my mother-in-law said she would like a canvas print of Nick in her graduation outfit I told her no problem as I had taken some that would be suitable.

i was horrified to find that I only had the lowest quality jpgs, as I had been shooting stuff for ebay the day before on a small CF card and had forgotten to reset the camera to raw+jpg. The quality looked very poor in PS3 and I thought they would be useless.

I eventually had a 11" x 14" canvas print done from one of the images and to be honest, you really would not know that it had been taken from the lowest quality jpg. It is now framed and on the wall and many people have commented about how good it looks. Okay, I realise that the canvas has probably helped cover up some of the quality issues, but from what started as a 660kb image i am well chuffed.

That's what makes me laugh about how some view the images on my high iso thread, yes they are poor, but printed out they will not be as bad as people are expecting, and considerably better than what was available from 110 film in the recent past (which was acceptable to the masses).

Digital image capture has changed peoples perspectives to an unrealistic degree!
 
I have a set of images to score for someone who has expressed in interest is billboards and large on site prints hence the shift. However, I concur on the arguement however. All very moot where applicable. I could have used fractals too.

As for the post, I hope people get something from it. Not being self indulgent, just did not want to appear as a fanboy sayine everything was wonderful.

It is getting there bit by bit. More so, I wanted the mark II solely for the way in renders an image. Nothing else.

Pete.
 
tdodd said:
The nice thing about DPP, apart from the fact that it knows exactly how best to process Canon's raw files (unlike Adobe products for the first ACR release to support each camera), is that it is fully aware of all the camera settings for things like picture style, sharpening, contrast, saturation, WB, tone, HTP, ALO, NR. In other words, if you want the safety net of raw, but the fuss free results that JPEG gives, you can shoot in raw and then have DPP batch convert everything straight out to JPEG just as though the camera itself had spat out the JPEGs. Of course, with the raw masters you also retain the option to fix WB after the shoot and tweak sharpening/NR/levels/curves etc.. With only a couple of clicks you can apply a global change (e.g. WB) to one, many or all of your images and have it pop out the JPEGs with little/no hassle.

p.s. if you shoot raw you can output to sRGB or Adobe RGB as you see fit :)
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Cheers Tim. Noted and now starting to get to grips with it.

Any online links?
 
woollyback said:
Folks,

I was talking generally about the xxD camera's and not the 5Dmk2.

Rob
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Thanks mate. The sad thing is that I have had people mailing me and asking me, or saying that the cant believe I moved back to Canon. Starting to tire of that now and its getting xbox vs. ps3 type of silly. :cuckoo:
 
Diego Garcia said:
As for the post, I hope people get something from it. Not being self indulgent, just did not want to appear as a fanboy sayine everything was wonderful.
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Not at all - too be honest, its much more useful than someone taking a picture of their cat or a crisp packet on their desk and going "Wow!".

I'll be going through a similar thing myself - I've got the D700 and will have a 5D MKII. I want the 5D MKII for landscape accuity. However I have some superb Nikkor lenses, that are unmatched by anything in Canon's lineup... so while I may gain pixel resolution, will Canon's "meh!" wide angles match the Nikkor's on a (potential) D700x....?
 
Keep the thread going Pete, it's helping with my learning process with the MkII.
 
I have followed this thread, and its nice to see proper use/test from a new camera and getting out there and using it just like its intended for rather than all these other test shots that float about, seems more realistic imo. I did have a serious think about the 5d mkll before investing in the D700 the other week, but went with the nikon as was happy with the lenses they had to offer for my landscape.

Great seeing your reviews and work coming from different equipment Diego. Keep it up:clap:
 
devitt said:
but went with the nikon as was happy with the lenses they had to offer for my landscape.
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TBH its the wide angle lenses that worry me - I've got several 5D MKII samples and the corner quality even stopped down from say a 17-40 L or a 16-35 is shocking.

http://www.16-9.net/ are using Nikon lens on their 21 megapixel Canons - it's interesting to see how well the 14-24 does :)
 
Radiohead said:
Aren't you selling the 14-24m again though?
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Yeah, I can't get pass the filter thing again...

Mine you the same site tested the 17-35 against the new Zeiss 18mm and the 17-35 murders it. So I'm confident my 17-35 will be OK on a 5D MKII (with an adaptor) and will be fine on a D700x.
 
Oddly enough I'm rebuying the 14-24mm (I had one arrive last week but it was duff and flat refused to AF on any body) - should arrive Tuesday now.

Keeping the 17-35mm though.
 
I'd better test mine.. tbh I've not used it.

I had a wedding tog come over a week or so back wanting to swap his 14-24 for my 17-35. I didn't fancy the trade as the extra 24 to 35mm was much more noticable than the difference from 14mm to 17mm, but the sharpness is really good and its clearly better than the 17-35 wide open. But it made me buy another instead. But as I shoot stopped down, I can't really use that wide open sharpness.. so it was my head over-ruling commonsense! (I've bought the bloody 14-24 twice now too!)
 
Well I did a night shoot at Southend Pier and while the detail is superb, LR2 isn't taking the RAW file well at all...loads of unnecessary noise even with long exposure noise reduction enabled in camera, so will import them to DPP tomorrow I guess :(

I'm hoping (like most of you by the sound of things) that Adobe will issue a firmware to fix this..
 
markta said:
Well I did a night shoot at Southend Pier and while the detail is superb, LR2 isn't taking the RAW file well at all...loads of unnecessary noise even with long exposure noise reduction enabled in camera, so will import them to DPP tomorrow I guess :(

I'm hoping (like most of you by the sound of things) that Adobe will issue a firmware to fix this..
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DPP all the way - the whole LR thing was what caused my horror in the first place !!!!
 
Thanks all, appreciate the feedback to, after all it is starting from scratch. As well as the camera stuff, I have learnt that to my detriment, I was over processing images all the time via LR2. Only now looking back do I realise it and this has to be a good thing. Vanilla is where it is at. As such, trying to book a shoot with the mountain bike company I have done stuff for to set up some multiple flash stuff. Also, using DPP is wonderfully simple - nice quick work flow and ease of use. Been looking at the guides. Nice one all and I hope this thread does not discourage people to not buy or use the camera. In the meantime, so pix. The first one is me. I make no apologies for my middle aged hair do - simply not had time to visit the barber. He uses Pentax clippers, terrible in low light!

I am calling this NikCan user!!!! Talk about my camera I puncha your face you cockaroach.

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This is an on body flash shot, about 50th, F/1.4, ISO 400 to test the 50mm.

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And a simple grab portrait.

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I don't know Pete - your shots always had that style (5D and D3) that made them really gritty - I liked that.
 
Diego Garcia said:
DPP all the way - the whole LR thing was what caused my horror in the first place !!!!
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Although my 5d MKII hasn't arrived yet, I've got a few CR2 files and DPP is doing way better.

I think DPP is doing some under the hood NR, but also LR2 isn't doing a good job at the moment.

Long term I don't really want to have to use yet another proprietary raw converter, as DPP, Fuji Finepix Studio and Capture NX are a pain in the arse in their own way.

But I don't have high hopes that Adobe will be able to do much.
 
Some solace maybe, the last couple of LR2 updates with the camera profiles have made a decent difference to D3 files IME - ACR is obviously not there yet!
 
Radiohead said:
Some solace maybe, the last couple of LR2 updates with the camera profiles have made a decent difference to D3 files IME - ACR is obviously not there yet!
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I didn't state it explicitly but it was the same thing with Canon 40D files and 50D files, and yet the likes of DPReview insist on using these duff first releases, if not beta releases, of ACR to review the cameras.
 
LR is getting very close to DPP with the profiles. If you run both and select the matching profile in LR and then switch between the apps it's surprising how close the new Adobe profiles are.

One thing about DPP (and Capture One) is that the display image is sharpened even when it's not at 100% zoom which makes it "feel" better to work with.
 
The profiles only match the colours though - they don't really have a lot to do with noise if I am understanding it correctly which is a de-mosaicing function, not a colour mapping function. Although an incorrect tone curve can certainly increase the impression of noise, and ACR is 0.5EV too bright for the D3 and D700.

On my D700 I find that ACR / Lightroom 2 really doesn't do a good job and the noise is chunkier and blotchier, and thats using the new profiles or the beta. Capture NX is much finer grained and less "chunked"

Ditto with my S5 Pro too vs Finepix Studio. Whether this is under the hood NR from the own manufacturers converter or just better understanding of the sensor characteristics I'm not sure. A bit of both I suspect.
 
By default LR doesn't apply any luma noise reduction, DPP does. If you match them in terms of percentage then LR actually appears to have less noise than DPP. I've no idea what Capture NX does by default but it could be similar to DPP and defaults to some noise reduction.
 
KayJay said:
This is old, still waiting on further news :(
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TBH every shot I've seen with the black dots has been crap.

Its nature's way of saying "Don't use a £2k camera to take a picture of a Christmas Tree"

Non issue.
 
Ha ha, true that. I have to say that I've yet to see any issues with some of the images I've seen on Flickr, and it's only when you use particular modes on the camera too.
 
A couple from today, both shot in S1RAW with no issues evident. The first shot was a real test for the camera and there is nothing showing. Loads of detail evident.

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Matt T said:
5d2 or d700, hmmmmm.....
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I will have both on Friday.

As I don't have any decent Canon glass, I'm quite tempted to just return it.

On the other land, for what I shoot, a 5D MKII would be much more suitable... but then you have the issues of what lenses? For what I shoot Nikon glass is much better than Canon glass.

So you need to look at the whole system, and not just the camera bodies if starting out fresh IMHO.

I would look at what lenses I needed, what I wanted to achieve, then decide on the bodies.
 
Matt T said:
5d2 or d700, hmmmmm.....
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It is a tough call. I must admit that before plumping for the 5D2 (and I've also just pulled the trigger on a 1D3) I did begin to look long and hard at Nikon's options and I was very tempted by both the D700 and the D3. I think that if I was starting from scratch right now then Nikon would get my money, at least judging from the specs on paper of anything from the D300 and up (I'm ignoring the overpriced and over-pixeled D3X). However, whenever I read comparative reviews it seems that the advantages on paper rarely translate to a clear win in the field. e.g. the 51 point "pro" spec AF rarely seems to score significantly, if at all, higher than Canon's rather more modest 9 point systems in terms of effectiveness, and sometimes seems to fair less well. If it's raining so hard that I need full weather proofing then I won't be shooting.

Of course, Nikon has other advantages - full weather sealing (if that's important), ability to use DX glass on FX bodies, (potentially) higher frame rates, built in wireless flash commander, equal high ISO capability and a refusal to bow to the marketing stupidity of silly amounts of megapixels (at least until the D3X was unleashed).

The problem for me is that I am just a little too heavily invested in the Canon system (three bodies already, one grip, one wireless grip, two flashes, three EF-S lenses, three EF lenses and four more EF lenses on the way) and it doesn't really make good economic sense to switch. Maybe in another year Canon will have woken up and start to give us the cameras we do want rather than the cameras their marketing departments think we should have. Rather than knee-jerk to each new camera body release I'll just ride out Canon's slump and look forward to the good times to come. I'm really hoping the 1D4 will be something to make Canon owners proud, but who knows when that will be coming or at what cost. Right now the threat of surging prices due to exchange rate wobbles has made me bite the bullet and buy what I need right now, rather than waiting to see what turns up in six, twelve or 18 months.

If you are starting out, do look very hard at the total system on offer and how it will meet your needs both now and in the future, and at what cost to meet those needs. Don't base your decision on a couple of extra flashing lights on one body over another. Bodies come and go. Lenses go on and on.
 
Update.

OK, so, I have to admit that after putting down the best part of £1000.00 for a 50mm prime lens, I was perplexed to note that the lens missed shots that I would consider keepers. Talking about prime work at f/2.8 with the requisite shutter speed that would ensure sharpness. However, it simply missed photos. I began to think about the dreaded MK III focus issues as it was very like this. However, I went on a Canon forum and discovered that the 50 1.2 and the 85 1.2 are notroious lenses to manage at wide aperture. So much so that people burn through three copies before settling on one or giving up on it. I had already decided to give up. Anyway, today I went out to visit a mate for a second opinion and we decided to have a go at the famous mirco adjustment. In the end, I 'think' we have the lens flying. Now razor sharp with stunning DOF control. It is a little tricky at f/1.2 and can almost become a tilt and shift effect, but from f/1.4 down it is lovely and sharp which bodes well for my style and of course boxing.

So here are a couple of examples. Processed in Adobe Camera RAW and chopped up in CS4. Delighted with them. My ongoing fine tuning of the camera continues so take nothing for granted. The skin tones have been reigned in, the noise is of little consequence and the control is lovely. Will post more as and when. (dont worry about the gun, in bad taste but our mate is a cabaret piano player and he was tinkling the ivory tonight. Think Phoenix nights x 10....:eek:)

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