Canon 5D Review

[sdjl]

Overview
The Canon 5D, is Canons entry level full frame sensor camera. Unlike it's bigger brothers, the EOS 1D & EOS 1Ds, its a lot smaller and has an optional battery grip, allowing you to utilise two batteries or an AA magazine holding six AA batteries.

The 5D has a 12.8 mega-pixel full frame CMOS sensor that produces images up to 4368 x 2912 in size and can shoot in either JPEG, RAW or both JPEG & RAW simultaneously.
You can choose from very low and very high ISO modes (50 & 3200), which aren't often an option on other DLSRs.

The Controls
The 5D has a convenient "jog wheel" and joystick type button that Canon have dubbed the "Multi-controller" to the right of its large 2.5" LCD display. The jog wheel or "quick control dial", as Canon refers to it, allows easy scrolling of taken photographs and access to various settings and menus. Compared to other button type scroll mechanisms, the jog wheel makes scrolling and adjusting settings a lot simpler and quicker.

The "Multi-controller" has various uses and changes depending on what you're currently trying to do. For instance, if you are wanting to select one of the nine auto-focus points in the viewfinder, you press the focus point button and move the multi-controller to the one you wish to use. Simple. No need to scroll through the other eight just to get to the one you need! This enables to you choose focus points much more quickly. Ideal in a situation where you need to take your photograph fast, without delay.

The mode dial is on the top left of the camera, just to the left of the hot shoe. There are seven modes to choose from, which consist of the following:

• Camera user settings
• Bulb
• Manual Exposure
• Aperture-priority AE
• Shutter-priority AE
• Program AE
• Full Auto

These allow you use the camera in full auto mode or use completely custom settings for everything. If you go into manual exposure mode, the "jog wheel" operates your aperture, whilst the scroll wheel behind the shutter release button operates your shutter speed. This makes it nice and easy to alter any settings on either axis, without having to hold additional buttons down.

Speed
The Canon 5D is pretty nippy! You're all set to go a fraction of a second from turning the camera on.
As for viewing images, this is incredibly quick also. You can jog through all of your images in no time at all without the camera hanging on any particular images, even the large thirteen mega-byte RAW files.
The 5D is only capable of 3fps, which is a little small when compared to some other cameras. That said, we are dealing with an entry level full frame DSLR here and if you needed the have rapid fire, you'd probably go for the EOS 1D Mark II N or higher.

Storage
The 5D has all your usual options of storage. Compact flash, Compact flash II and micro drive.
A two giga-byte compact flash card will hold between 100 and 115 RAW files and between 260 and 400 large JPEG files.
The 5D also has enough internal memory to quickly take a minimum of 60 JPEG frames or 17 RAW frames, pretty impressive for a starter full frame camera.

Lenses
The 5D is ideally suited to those people that like to take wide angle shots. The full frame sensor really opens out those wide angle lenses and captures all of the detail they provide. You can use any number of the Canon EF lenses just not the EF-S lenses, which are designed for smaller cropped sensors like the 20D, 30D, 350D and 400D.
I find both the Canon 17-40mm and Canon 70-200mm lenses works superbly well with this camera.

Menu options
I'd like to outline a few of the more useful options under the 5D's menu structure.
Along with the usual options you get with most DSLR's you also get to choose from a few more advanced options.

Colour Temperature
You can choose a setting from 2800K to 10000K. Instead of shooting in RAW and then adjusting the colour temperature, you can do it in camera if you so wish.

Picture Style
There are in camera options that allow you to adjust certain parameters that affect the processing of JPEG files. These come up as options under "Picture Style" in the cameras menu system. You can choose from six camera defaults and three user defined settings.
The settings that are available for adjustment are: Sharpness, contrast, saturation and colour tone.

Whilst these options may be suitable for some people, I use the neutral option and do any adjustments on my mac afterwards.

Select Folder
By default, the camera stores all photos under the folder 100EOS5D on your memory card. If you undertake several projects on one memory card you are able to create a new folder to store those photos inside. Instead of having to sort your photos once they've been downloaded, you can start the sorting process before you've even started taking shots! Neat!

Custom Functions
Under custom functions, you have access to another twenty one options for the camera. I'm not going to through each one, just the ones that I've found useful.

ISO Expansion - opt. 8
This does what it says on the tin really! It enables the low and high ends of the ISO range. This gives you two new options when selected your ISO, L for 50 and H for 3200.

Mirror Lockup - opt. 12
This sets the camera to lift the mirror on the first press of the shutter release button, it then takes a photo on the second press of the shutter release button. This is useful if you're undertaking macro photography or using a large telephoto lense and find that when the mirror lifts it makes the camera shake slightly.
With this option enabled and drive mode set to timer, the timer counts down from two seconds instead of the usual ten. Useful if you don't have a shutter release cable!

AF point selection method - opt. 13
This controls how you choose your auto focus selection points. You have three options which start at normal and then allow you direct access via the jog wheel or quick control dial, without having to press any other buttons.

Shutter curtain sync - opt. 15
You have two options here, 1st-curtain sync (default) and 2nd-curtain sync.
2nd-curtain sync allows you to use a slow shutter speed to capture a light trail following a subject. The flash then fires just before the shutter closes. This function can be used to obtain 2nd-curtain sync effects even with flash units that don't have this feature.

Defining Features
Here's a few of the features that I believe set the Canon 5D apart from other cameras.

• Along with the nine auto-focus points available in the viewfinder, there are also six invisible assist auto-focus points.
  These allow you to have a better chance of focusing when your subject is inside the spot metering circle. Useful for fast moving subjects such as wildlife.
• Four metering modes can easily be selected at the press of a button and a turn of the jog wheel. These include: Evaluative metering, partial metering, spot metering and centre-weighted average metering.
• Six AA battery magazine for use with the battery grip. Useful if you're not going to be near a charging point for a while.
• ISO steps in smaller increments.
• The histogram can be set to show RGB information or brightness information.

Conclusion
The Canon 5D is an exceptional camera. It has a lot of features expected in the higher end cameras, such as the 1D and 1Ds, crammed into its small body.
It's an ideal camera for those people wishing to take advantage of wide angle shots, without having to use EF-S lenses on a 1.3x or 1.6x cropped sensor camera. The quality and depth of field you get with a full frame camera is unsurpassed to cameras with a cropped sensor. With that said, if you use telephoto lenses a lot, you may find that this isn't too noticeable unless you're printing photos out to very large sizes.

The Canon 5D has superb build quality and feels nice in your hands, if a little weighty compared to it's smaller siblings.
It's definitely worth looking into if you're serious about photography but can't justify the huge cost of the Canon EOS 1D range.


Additional Links
Canon 5D Flickr Usage
Canon 5D Specifications
Canon 5D body photograph

[robwilliams]

Two cons i have found with this camera are:

• Camera Body is not weather sealed like other EOS
• Can only sync to flash at a speed of 200 where as 20D can snyc to 250

[smc1377]

Having had a chance to use a 5D for a very short time, one of the things I noticed was that the 5D's noise levels at higher ISO's are rather low. Took a picture of a church, handheld at ISO 800 at night and there was no noise and the picture turned out really nice.

I also liked how small it felt compared to the 1DS, which was what I had been using ALL DAY LONG before I used the 5D.

[sdjl]

robwilliams, Sure, it's not weather sealed. But then again, you're going to pay at least double to get a 1D body that is weather sealed. You ultimately pay for what you need/get.

smc1377, It does have some inbuilt auto-noise reduction settings that can be toggled under the Custom Functions menu option. I would also agree, the noise on images is a lot lower than other cameras, probably due to the auto-noise reduction setting.

[mdwsta4]

nice write up. one of these days i'll pick one up...

[apmadoc]

I was a very early adopter of digital cameras, starting with a Kodak 1MP camera back in about 93? From there I purchased a Sony F-525 and later a Sony F-828


I had been waiting for a DSLR with a full frame sensor in a high resolution. The initial reviews were all very positive, even glowing, so I went ahead and purchased the following kit
Canon 5D body
16-35mm lens
24-105mm lens
70-200mm lens
580ex flash

What I love about the camera / lenses

1. The lack of autofocus lag - in all but the lowest light situations, it's almost non-existent.

2. The solid feel of the camera. Yes, it's not sealed against water, but then, I've always tended not to take my photos standing in the rain, so no loss for me there.

3. Doing raw + HQ jpeg both, I can shoot 9 shots at 3fps. For the work I do that is more than enough, and I can easily extend it out by just doing jpeg.

4. I had trully missed the complete control that I had when shooting my 35mm and 645 film cameras.

5. The amazingly low amount of noise even at higher ISO's

6. The battery life is very good.

7. The flash is simply amazing. Powerful enough to light up insides of hotel atriums, entire outside of a home. I've since purchased a 2nd 580ex and and use them with umbrellas, have been able to get some great protrait shots with that set up.


You can see some samples of the work on my website : http://www.apmadoc.net/Photos/Tudors_Gallery/index.html

Now things I don't like

1. The weight of the camera and lenses can get to be a bit much at time.

2. The sensor seems to be a true dust magnet