Part 2 Canon 5D Mark II review by Ira Block

This is part 2 of Ira Block's review of the new Canon 5D Mark II. For part one go here. To read about making movies with the camera go here. Ira is a long time National Geographic Magazine photographer and is the first working professional to review the camera who isn't being paid by Canon. All I can say about Ira's results are "wow when can I get one" but look and read for yourself.

-SA

As I usually don't shoot at high velocity speeds like 3200 or 6400, I only tested the new Canon 5D Mark2 at ISO 1600 the other day. I was blown away by the incredible file quality - I remarked that it looked like the original 5D at ISO 400. Under pressure from friends that haven't yet obtained the 'sacred' camera due to Canon's small shipments, I went out on the streets of New York again with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and the 24-105mm zoom lens to test the big numbers.

My first stop was Fotocare, where I photographed Jeff Hirsch (he's the guy that got me the camera, so I felt a small obligation to include him) under fluorescent lights at ISO 3200, using auto white balance. As you can see the camera performed well beyond my expectations, very little noise, and nice smooth skin tones even under the dreaded fluorescent light source. I started looking for someplace with contrasty tungsten lights, but everywhere I went was fluorescent.

ISO 3200

ISO 3200 Crop

Then I ran across Rob on the street, heading back to work at Fotocare and dragged him into a parking garage. Using the lowlight from some windows I was able to get a little more contrast on the side of his face and check out the noise in the shadows. Here I shot at 3200 and 6400 - at 6400 you do get some noise in the skintones and shadows, but hey, I'm at 6400 and it really is a usable image. The images at 3200 are a bit cleaner, but in both images the skin tones still have a nice tonal quality to them.  We processed our raw files in the new CS4 Camera raw, we added no sharpening or clarity, we only adjusted the exposure and the black point slightly. Also, in the camera I have high ISO noise reduction turned off, as I'd rather control that myself during processing.

ISO 3200

ISO 3200 Crop

ISO 6400

ISO 6400 Crop

This is a fantastic camera, it really produces great looking files, better than the 1Ds Mark 3 it's just up to the photographer to make some great images!! Though it's not as weatherproof as the Canon 1Ds Mark 3, it's better sealed than the previous 5D, and no I'm not going to put it in the shower to see how well it's does. I am glad I got my hands on this camera,  though only one - I'm still waiting for the other two I ordered, kinda hoping that by getting Jeff's photo on this review might help my cause!

-Ira Block

New York

Comments

[Stephen Alvarez]

I also have begun to see significant sound issues with the 5d mk II but had not tracked them down so well. Tell me if I have this straight, the mark II runs at 1801.4 frames a minute rather than 1800 frames a minute?

[Michael]

Here's the Canon EOS 5D audio sync issue or problem.

Last Wednesday I used my two 5D MkII's in a 3 camera music video shoot. The third camera was a Sony PMW-EX1. Audio was recorded on two additional devices. One audio recording device was an Edirol R4 Pro. The other audio recording setup was a Tascam USB Interface to a MacBook Pro.

The Sony Camera, Edirol, and Tascam/MacBook Pro devices all synced sound perfectly over the full duration of the shoot (just over 20 minutes). To clarify - once the different sources are sync'd quickly and easily to the slate clap on the waveform at the beginning of the shoot they all stayed perfectly in sync for the rest of the video.

Both Canon cameras audio and video sync'd perfectly to each other but drifted significantly from the other 3 devices even over a 3 minute segment. That is a very serious problem for me and one that introduces significant post-production trouble and expense.

This issue was so unexpected (I haven't run into this in years of working with a range of equipment) that I performed 3 subsequent tests to confirm that the 5D MkII's run too fast. The results from the tests show both of my 5D Mark II's run about 14 frames too fast in 10 minutes. Audio that is 1 full frame out of sync is noticeable on sharp sounds causing an echo. Audio that is 2 or 3 frames out of sync causes echo on any sound and looks odd in terms of lip sync.

That the two Canon cameras audio sync'd OK to each other tells me that the cameras can be calibrated to a standard. Evidently they are just calibrated to an incorrect standard.

Anybody else experience this? Does anybody really know if this is likely a chip issue or a firmware issue? Does anyone know an easy, reliable way to get the clips to conform to the standard without time-consuming constant tweaking?

I contacted Canon tech support and the girl there wasn't too concerned. She said: There is no fix and that the 5d isn't really a video camera so what did I expect? Nice!

Thanks for