Canon officially announced the new 5D last night. Its been in the works for awhile as the original 5D has been on the market for over 2 years now. As expected, it posted some pretty impressive specs.
- Full Frame
- 21 megapixels
- ISO 50-25,600
- 1080p video w/ mic jack
- Improved 920k pixel LCD (old was 320k)
- 98% visible area in viewfinder (up from 96%)
- Listed for $2,700.
Some people have listed some downsides to the camera, primarily the relatively slow 3.9 frames-per-second and the hardly improved autofocus.
As far as I’m concerned, the 3.9 fps doesn’t bother me so much as I don’t see this as a sports camera. Usually when I’m doing general news assignments and features I have my camera set to single shot anyway. My impression is that Canon kept it low as to not canibalize sales of their higher end full frame camera the 1Ds Mark III which runs around $8,000 or even their regular, non-full frame Mark III which runs $4,500 new. The regular mIII hits 10fps while the full frame model does 5fps.
The auto focus is a bit more puzzling. I can’t really explain why they didn’t try to upgrade it, but from what I’ve heard from people who own the original, the auto focus works fine as it was so its not a huge blow to the camera.
All-in-all, I’m glad to see Canon is competing again. My primary allegiance to Canon has been a result of their amazing customer service. I’ve had to send my wide angle in for repairs now twice for drop related problems and Canon has repaired it free of charge both times.
Competition is good for the marketplace, and I’m glad that Canon was able to step up this go round by one-upping Nikon’s D90 for video (The D90 has 720p and no mic-input).
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2 responses to “Canon 5d Mark II thoughts and analysis”
CORRECTION: The lens is still under 5-year warranty and I won’t have to pay for repairs, only shipping to get it there. I’ve only sent it in three times, and Nikon has told me that when I send it in again, should I be having the same problem that I’ve had before each time before the lens reverted back to suckness, they’ll just send me a brand new lens.
I’m having to pay for repairs on my relatively new teleconverter, because I bought it second-hand and warranties are non-transferable. And as many times as I’ve dropped that thing, I’m surprised it’s still (apparently) in one piece. Very sturdy piece of equipment.
PS- Sorry if I got you all confused about that stuff. I know my ranting over AIM can be kind of hard to follow sometimes.