Better change the thread title to "5D Mark II RELEASED" =)
Looking for pricing, release date now...
Body-only prices: US: $ 2,699, EU: € 2,499, UK: £ 2,299 Bob Atkins: scheduled for delivery by the end of November
To be honest, I don't see that many whiz-bang features aside from HD video. It's basically a 5D with an improved sensor, expanded ISO, more MP, and HD video. If it's as stellar as the 5D was in it's day, $2699 is a decent price. Checking samples now...
I agree. I was originally skeptical, but it looks like they've skipped the flashy features and went hard-core low-noise, coming in under pricing expectations. Let's hope this is truly the case.
I would have liked more AF points, though, and some high ISO samples!
21mp made from large pixels, highlight tone priority, high ISO / low noise (supposedly, I'd like to see samples), sRaw1/sRaw2 (I'd like to see specs), sensor cleaning, large buffer plus UDMA support for faster / extended shoot sequences.
Anyway, I'll probably have one on order as soon as they're available. I've been wanting to upgrade my 5D for a long time, but just haven't wanted to jump to the 1Ds Mark III (or rather, to the $8500 price tag) to do it.
In case you can't get to the samples (servers are slow - I've been downloading them for almost an hour).
Hmmm... not the greatest image for "selling the camera". Shooting at 1/100th at f/2 probably leaves focus a bit difficult to nail (photographer + subject movement at shallow DOF, I mean). I look forward to seeing high ISO samples.
Sometime after the first of the year I'll pick one up. I'd like to see the viewfinder/AF points first though. That's the one nit i had to pick with the 5D. FF sensor and viewfinder is awesome of course, but the AF points were the same as the 20/30/40D placement wise - too far from the edges of the frame.
ISO 25,600, sRAW sizes of 11.1 and 5.2MP in addition to the beastly 21mp.
And $2699 huh? I'm thinking of getting the kit lens (24-105) as it's only an extra 800 in kit form and it's a lens i've considered getting. Hopefully by feb or so the price will drop $100 or 2. At least availabilty shouldn't be an issue.
As for video...I don't know, add that to my wedding offerings somehow?
sRAW sizes of 11.1 and 5.2MP in addition to the beastly 21mp.
Cool.
See, the Mark III had a downright tiny 2.5mp sRaw that made it pretty much worthless to me. I mean, what if I'm shooting sRaw and accidentally shoot something important at that setting? At 2.5mp there is hardly enough data left to make an 8x10 out of it.
However, 5.2mp should make a fine 8x10. And if I'm really concerned, then 11.1mp would be awesome while using half the storage space of the full sensor.
Excellent! I'm looking forward to picking it up at the Photokina next Wednesday.... although I'll probably be making a bee-line to the Hasselblad stand first up :)
I know nothing of video (and not so sure I care to learn), but I read this commentary from someone on the DPReview site:
The new 5DII uses h264 formated video at a full raster 1920x1080 size!
h264 is very similar to the emerging AVCHD format, but the data rate Canon is using is absolutely incredible. Here it is from the specs:
1920 x 1080 (16:9) up to 12 mins (Quicktime 1080p H.264; 38.6 Mbits/sec)
This is a very high quality implementation of the h264 CODEC and in a progressive 30P format, should out-perform most professional HD formats. This really is unprecedented to have such high data rates with h264 compression technologies. It will likely be very close an uncompressed look.
For perspective, most AVCHD camcorders max out a 17Mbit/sec, which looks very good. Many consider h264 at 8Mbit/sec to be full broadcast quality. All stations broadcast HDTV in MPEG2 at 12Mbit/sec which is about 30% less efficient than h264 at the same data rate. For further perspective, most Blue Ray titles, the video in those is encoded at 10Mbit/sec. The 5DII is nearly 4x that! The professional XDCAM format uses 35Mbit/sec in MPEG2 - a far less efficient compressor.
This, combined with the special ability of a full frame SLR to reduce image detail in out of focus areas should result in even more superb imaging quality. This is because with much of the scene out of focus with smooth boken (unachievable with a typical camcorder) the video compression can devote better detail to the in focus areas dynamically.
I also love the feature that lets you shoot a still (or series) at any moment during the the recording of the video. This would be huge for wedding photographers which can cut to the photo at key moments during the wedding video. We'll see if it really works that way...
It appears the sound is uncompressed PCM. If the mic inputs aren't bad, that's a good format as well and much better than what most prosumer camcorders offer for audio format. Of course, the quality of the inputs, etc will be a factor and I doubt they've added a great mic preamp, but that can be provided separately on serious shoots.
