If you want to have a lens with less distortion (for art by example), there is no hint by canon what lens to buy. The support also don’t know anything about that. They can tell you all about the weight an the color of the surface of the lens instead (mostly black).

If canon is coming up with a new 50mm F/1.4, they should really come up with detailed MTF (10,20,40 and 80 lines per mm) and diagrams of distortion and vignetting like zeiss do.

A flawed product that should have been much better given the amount of time since the launch of the amazing-at-the-time 5D. I wasted money on getting the 5D MkII and am still waiting on ‘firmware’ to fix image banding and black spot problems. Like most, I never use the video feature (I’d use a real video camera set up if I needed video). As for the increase in resolution, there are 12MP camera pros I work with printing excellent large format work – so the extra MPs amount to less disk space, with little in return for me.

Come on Canon, less of the marketing nonsense, and more of the innovation in 2009 please!

I am not sure if Canon is watching the forums and website. I expect such a large company to have things planned years ahead . . . and it may take more then 1 year to get to the right path . . but I think more then 2 years will be a bad move.

I’ve also been looking around at what people are saying in Nikon-land. While Canon users are clamoring for a body like the D700, the Nikon users seem to be begging for lenses. I have a 24-105mm which I really like…it’s a very nice walk-around lens. There doesn’t seem to be a real equivalent on the other side. It seems like they have lots of DX format lenses for a cropped sensor, some very expensive lenses that are suitable for full-frame, and not very much in between. I also get the impression (could be way off base here) that unless you have the best high-end lenses, the incredible AF system they have is pretty handicapped.

I think Canon definitely needs to come up with something compelling to compete with the D700. I’m not a pro by any means, but when I take a picture I want quality. For me, flexibility is key. A lot of the pictures I take are when I’m traveling. They may be action, they may be landscape, who knows? I don’t need 21mp, but I want good AF. Like a lot of people here, I’d love to see a 12-15mp FF or even 1.3x crop with good high ISO performance. I must admit that movie mode is intriguing, but I’m not sure if I would use it.

I’m curious about how Canon decides what features to put into cameras. Is anybody watching? If so, I think you need to be paying attention to discussions like this. People are looking over the fence, and they’re seeing some very green grass over there. You’ve got the lenses, all you need is a body with the right balance for the enthusiast.

Paul

Yes, the 5D II has video, which is interesting/exciting. But its drawbacks result in an “on the one hand…but on the other hand” comparison, rather than the knockout winner it could have had.

Moving from a 1Ds to 50D will give you a slight edge in overall corner-to-corner pic quality simply because your 1.6x cam is using the “sweet spot” of all your lenses. Especially for your case the end result would be similar 15/16MP. So there’s no doubt that 50D is a way to go for you, assuming that since you are already printing big, your techniques would be appropriately as good to use the 50D as mentioned in the LL article that it’s more unforgiving on flaws.

Agree that the 5D AF is good (if just barely for faster subjects)

What most people are doing is benchmarking the 5D with D700 AF. However, most do not have first hand experience with the 2 cams are are just basing their comments on paper specs.

Actually, 5D AF is as fast as D700 in cases where all 51points of the D700 AF are turned on and somehow D700 AF seems to have a slight lag before it actually tries to focus, however, D700 AF tracking is simply superior… not to mention more sure of a lock.

Nice post. I’m also sure that all the people trashing the 5D Mk II haven’t used one yet. I’ve had mine for just under 3 weeks and I am amazed with the improved image quality and low light capability over the original 5D. Last night, I did night shooting after dark shooting at ISO 2500 hand held at 1/15 sec F4 and was astounded with the results. I use to try this with the 5D and got perhaps 30% keepers. I now get 90-95% keepers and the color, saturation, noise, and image quality is WAY ahead of the 5D.

As for the AF, I think it might be better than the 5D with improved processing from the Digic 4 but I won’t be sure until summer when I do my wild bird thing. The old 5D use to have some problem doing fast focusing on fast erratically moving objects with an irregular background. This was probably not the preferred application for the 5D AF but all the same I got over 50% keepers.

On top of the above, the LCD screen is a big improvement over the 5D. The sensor cleaner should be great as my old 5D use to catch dust particles. I’ve only scratched the surface of the video feature but friends are already appreciating the 1080p I’ve shot. I’m also looking forward to the increased frames per second for the wild bird stuff in the summer. I’ve tested it a few times and yes, the extra .9 fps should make a difference.

For all the trashers of the 5D, I bet dollars to donuts they haven’t even laid eyes on a 5D Mk II, let alone trying one out. For anyone who has one, it’s the Camera of the Year and I’ve only had it for under 3 weeks. Simply amazing!