History: The Original Canon EOS 5D Camera

[privatebydesign]

I still preferred the colors out of my 5Dc than my MK3s. I skipped the mk2 series because it wasn't worth upgrading for me.

I never understand comments like this. It is digital, why not profile your camera to get whatever "look" you want from it? The free with every Canon camera ever Picture Style Editor is a remarkably powerful program that you can even edit and save then upload your "look" to the camera Picture Styles menu, and every shot with that style comes out looking exactly as you'd like it to.

 

[deleteme]

I still preferred the colors out of my 5Dc than my MK3s. I skipped the mk2 series because it wasn't worth upgrading for me.

I never understand comments like this. It is digital, why not profile your camera to get whatever "look" you want from it? The free with every Canon camera ever Picture Style Editor is a remarkably powerful program that you can even edit and save then upload your "look" to the camera Picture Styles menu, and every shot with that style comes out looking exactly as you'd like it to.

Thanks for that. I have been using Canon digital since my 10D and never looked at that software.

 

[epsiloneri]

I still preferred the colors out of my 5Dc than my MK3s. I skipped the mk2 series because it wasn't worth upgrading for me.

I never understand comments like this. It is digital, why not profile your camera to get whatever "look" you want from it?

There's more to colours than simply three numbers. E.g., the colour separation (amount of "cross-talk" between colours) might be different between different detectors (I'm not saying it is for 5D and 5D2, just that it could be). The Bayer detector has three filters: R, G, & B. By making the filters broader in wavelength, you gain some sensitivity, but you also run the risk of having the filters overlap in wavelength and counting the same light twice, e.g. for both R and G, and that will decrease the colour fidelity in your image compared to filters where there is less overlap.

So, not all detectors necessarily reproduce colours the same way, and it is no possible to correct in software (because it would be an ill-posed inverse process).

 

[mrsfotografie]

Most of the time, I shoot in MRAW, since 10MP is enough for the vast majority of my applications.

+1, there are not many that do this but I guess it also depends when you've started photography. I was never disappointed about the 10 megapixels resolution from the 40D that was my first DSLR, so I've pretty much accepted that as my base resolution.

 

[Rick]

Not sure the 5D needed a retrospective

After all, it's overall IQ was not outstanding and even for it's time. a primative camera operationally. Bear in mind the hyperbole-master Ken Rockwell had a hand in this article.

What is of great value in this article are statements by Tyler Stableford, one of Canon's "Explorers of Light."

"The 5D brought amazing image quality in a package so much smaller and light - and less expensive. The 5D was easier to pack into the mountains or hip bag on a ski day."

Canon should listen to their celebrity shooter here. The idea of bringing the next hi-rez camera in a 1 Series body with its traditional size/weight and pricing is a bad idea. Studio shooters will compromise on size/weight, many have by using the 5D series in this role. But few will want to carry a brick into the backcountry and fewer will pay a 1 Series price tag.

 

[Rick]

I still preferred the colors out of my 5Dc than my MK3s. I skipped the mk2 series because it wasn't worth upgrading for me.

I never understand comments like this. It is digital, why not profile your camera to get whatever "look" you want from it?

There's more to colours than simply three numbers. E.g., the colour separation (amount of "cross-talk" between colours) might be different between different detectors (I'm not saying it is for 5D and 5D2, just that it could be). The Bayer detector has three filters: R, G, & B. By making the filters broader in wavelength, you gain some sensitivity, but you also run the risk of having the filters overlap in wavelength and counting the same light twice, e.g. for both R and G, and that will decrease the colour fidelity in your image compared to filters where there is less overlap.

So, not all detectors necessarily reproduce colours the same way, and it is no possible to correct in software (because it would be an ill-posed inverse process).

I'm throwing a flag on this statement. First off, anybody willing to accept the overall IQ of the 5D over later versions should have no problem adjusting color in ACR or other top-end editors. Secondly, since your statement is non-specific, it has no vlaue in a 5D vs "anything else" conversation.

 

[RLPhoto]

I still preferred the colors out of my 5Dc than my MK3s. I skipped the mk2 series because it wasn't worth upgrading for me.

I never understand comments like this. It is digital, why not profile your camera to get whatever "look" you want from it? The free with every Canon camera ever Picture Style Editor is a remarkably powerful program that you can even edit and save then upload your "look" to the camera Picture Styles menu, and every shot with that style comes out looking exactly as you'd like it to.

You don't understand because you can't decipher outside of a test chart.

 

[sjp010]

It's so wonderful to see how an article that simply reminisces about the 5D can devolve into snippy comments on this forum. Why don't we all just agree that the 5D was notable in the recent history of photography. Then we can each get on with our lives, and we can each go out and shoot some photos with whatever gear we find acceptable.

 

[mrsfotografie]

Although I must rant.. it's been this many years and it's still the utterly unreliable 50/1.4 on (nearly) every camera's press photo..

I agree.

 

[dppaskewitz]

It's so wonderful to see how an article that simply reminisces about the 5D can devolve into snippy comments on this forum. Why don't we all just agree that the 5D was notable in the recent history of photography. Then we can each get on with our lives, and we can each go out and shoot some photos with whatever gear we find acceptable.

+1

 

[gfoulk]

It's so wonderful to see how an article that simply reminisces about the 5D can devolve into snippy comments on this forum. Why don't we all just agree that the 5D was notable in the recent history of photography. Then we can each get on with our lives, and we can each go out and shoot some photos with whatever gear we find acceptable.

But... but... someone is wrong on the internet!
http://xkcd.com/386/

 

[sjp010]

It's so wonderful to see how an article that simply reminisces about the 5D can devolve into snippy comments on this forum. Why don't we all just agree that the 5D was notable in the recent history of photography. Then we can each get on with our lives, and we can each go out and shoot some photos with whatever gear we find acceptable.

But... but... someone is wrong on the internet!
http://xkcd.com/386/

Nice one!

 

[privatebydesign]

It's so wonderful to see how an article that simply reminisces about the 5D can devolve into snippy comments on this forum. Why don't we all just agree that the 5D was notable in the recent history of photography. Then we can each get on with our lives, and we can each go out and shoot some photos with whatever gear we find acceptable.

But... but... someone is wrong on the internet!
http://xkcd.com/386/

Nice one!

Well yes and no, now you think it is fine to censure people who are only interested in correcting incorrect statements and fallacies, if that dumbing down and misinformation is your goal, well done, you are getting there.

 

[Rienzphotoz]

It's so wonderful to see how an article that simply reminisces about the 5D can devolve into snippy comments on this forum. Why don't we all just agree that the 5D was notable in the recent history of photography. Then we can each get on with our lives, and we can each go out and shoot some photos with whatever gear we find acceptable.

But... but... someone is wrong on the internet!
http://xkcd.com/386/

Nice one!

+1 ... yours truly is guilty as charged :-[

 

[vscd]

Well yes and no, now you think it is fine to censure people who are only interested in correcting incorrect statements and fallacies, if that dumbing down and misinformation is your goal, well done, you are getting there.

I think he was only concerned about the atmosphere in the forum. And by the way, I think your statement was wrong. With picture styles only, you can't correct some of the special characteristics of some cameras.

 

[Sporgon]

Re: Not sure the 5D needed a retrospective

After all, it's overall IQ was not outstanding and even for it's time.

There's some truth in this statement. Up until 2005 I'd been a Nikon user for about thirty years, the last Nikon camera that I had was the D200, bought at about the same time I moved to Canon because if the 5D being an 'affordable' FF camera. I really hated the crop factor of the APS sensor size. The Canon won, because it was FF, and I left Nikon for good.

However I think the CCD in the D200 gave better overall IQ than the 5D with the exception of outright resolution where, of course, the 13 mp FF sensor left the 10 mp APS eating dust. It took me some to time to get away from the 'harshness' or 'hardness' of the 5D files, call it what you will. It seemed to suffer from an abrupt change into both highlight and lowlight. Also the 5D cost twice as much as the D200 on 2005.

I've found the 5D II gives significantly better results in terms of graduation to highlight/lowlight, contrast and colour rendition. So much for DxO's colour metric or what ever they call it.

Haven't seem the same increase in 'IQ' with the 6D against the 5D II at low ISOs. Maybe the 6D is a fraction better in its tonal graduation.

 

[privatebydesign]

Well yes and no, now you think it is fine to censure people who are only interested in correcting incorrect statements and fallacies, if that dumbing down and misinformation is your goal, well done, you are getting there.

I think he was only concerned about the atmosphere in the forum. And by the way, I think your statement was wrong. With picture styles only, you can't correct some of the special characteristics of some cameras.

Picture Styles does have some limitations, like getting those settings applied to RAW files in third party software, but it is very powerful, with six HSL primary colour adjustments, there isn't much you can't correct for, certainly the differences between a 5D and a 5D MkIII are no issue.

However, basic dual illuminant profiles are much more robust, and if colour accuracy is your goal then the only way to go. Sure there are limitations even to those kinds of profiles, but none that anybody here is ever likely to run into. It might be nice theorising about Bayer array filter interaction, but the truth is cameras are capable of capturing the range of light we can see and we are capable of profiling that data, however "inaccurately" it might have been recorded, to be an accurate representation of the colours we see. If 24 patch dual illuminant profiles don't cut it, one, you already know this stuff and two, you know you can use more patches to create even better profiles.

People might dismiss this post, I don't really care, but who amongst you would not do a WB, or profile your monitor? Well profiling your camera is just one step further down the road to consistent and accurate output. I don't understand why that is so antagonistic, or why it isn't understood to be a normaliser just like WB.

Image this scenario, shoot a wedding with a 5D and a 5D MkIII, WB is set to 5,000 on the 5D and Auto on the 5D MkIII, when you come to process the images the dress colour is all over the place, would you not normalise the WB? Well if you take 2 minutes to profile both cameras first not only will WB and dress colour be 100% consistent across shots, but also the ribbons and skin tones will match. Well that is how I work.

 

[epsiloneri]

I'm throwing a flag on this statement.

I'm not sure what this idiomatic expression means, but I suspect it's not a compliment on my insightful post...

First off, anybody willing to accept the overall IQ of the 5D over later versions should have no problem adjusting color in ACR or other top-end editors. Secondly, since your statement is non-specific, it has no vlaue in a 5D vs "anything else" conversation.

In the text you quote I was responding to a specific question by privatebydesign (here rephrased): Why is the colour reproduction of different sensors discussed at all, when profiling ought to make them all identical? As I explained, the mapping of a full spectral distribution into three numbers (R, G, B) depends on the particular filter curves of the sensor. Profiling helps in making this mapping as close as possible to some standard, but it is in general not possible for sensors with different filter curves to give the same colours for arbitrary spectral distributions, no matter how careful the profiling. I can give a more detailed explanation with examples to help you see why this is so, if you are interested, but I suspect you are not.

In summary, that is why claims of "better colour fidelity" of a particular sensor (in this case that of 5D) cannot be simply discounted by arguing that you can always profile away any differences, since that is not generally true.

Picture Styles does have some limitations, like getting those settings applied to RAW files in third party software, but it is very powerful, with six HSL primary colour adjustments, there isn't much you can't correct for, certainly the differences between a 5D and a 5D MkIII are no issue.

I'm sure the colour reproductions you can get from 5D and 5D3 are similar enough to not be an issue, but I find the claims of 5D's higher colour fidelity interesting and wouldn't mind seeing some evidence for it.

 

[privatebydesign]

Picture Styles does have some limitations, like getting those settings applied to RAW files in third party software, but it is very powerful, with six HSL primary colour adjustments, there isn't much you can't correct for, certainly the differences between a 5D and a 5D MkIII are no issue.

I'm sure the colour reproductions you can get from 5D and 5D3 are similar enough to not be an issue, but I find the claims of 5D's higher colour fidelity interesting and wouldn't mind seeing some evidence for it.

I quite agree, often claimed but never illustrated.

 

[Kiboko]

Disappointed in this article because I immediately jumped to it on skim-reading "History: The Original Canon EOS 5......." I thought this was a forum item on my beautiful pristine and much prized as new thoroughly mint EOS 5 which LCE won't consider in P/E because it's simply "too old" and I could probably only sell for £40 on eBay for much the same reason! (bought it new just before they discontinued it as a replacement for my old one because I thought it was such a great camera, without the expense of the 3 or indeed the 1). It will no doubt become an antique in the future, a working pristine one at that!