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 | 306 Total Reviews |
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Latest Reviews
| | | Posted: 23/11/06
Updated: 27/11/06 | | 'Mid range zoom lens which is ideal for general use. ' | | Strengths:
The lens is very well built as you might expect for one in this price bracket and being in Canon's flag ship "L" range.
The lens is not very heavy, but it is not a light weight either. On a 350D it makes the camera slightly unbalanced, but the addition of the portrait grip makes a huge difference with this lens and any large zoom.
The lens is very sharp, even at F/4.0 although accurate focusing is needed particularly on the 350D, due in part to its large focusing points which makes picking the focus point slightly difficult. Certainly the 5D is alot easier to focus accurately.
The IS works very well, and I've been able to get sharp images at 105mm at 1/15" without too much difficulty, even on a crop camera.
On a full frame camera, like the 5D, at 24mm it is very wide, and is ideal in cities like Barcelona where the streets are a little narrower than say Paris, where it works very well on a crop camera.
It is ideal as a portrait lens, covering most of the ideal focal lengths. Using Studio flash the lack of a faster aperature doesn't seem be an issue as shooting at f8 or smaller is the norm. (In my experience anyway!)
As a landscape lens it again performs very well particularly on a full frame body, with good colour and contrast. | | Weaknesses:
There is some evidence of viginetting on a full frame body at 24mm. It is easily sorted out in post though, particularly if shooting RAW.
Its not a good lens for action photography as the focusing, although quick, doesn't seem to react in AI servo mode very quickly. To be fair, its not marketted as one, so its not a major issue. | | Overall:
Its a cracking lens which does what its designed to do very well.
In summary: Very sharp thoughtout, good colour and contrast |
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| | | Posted: 21/10/06 | | 'FULL FRAME DSLR - EXCELLENT IMAGE QUALITY' | | Strengths:
Image quality, Noise control. Perfect sized body. Very bright viewfinder. | | Weaknesses:
Not weather sealed. Only 3FPS. | | Overall:
First Impressions
I’ve had the camera for a few days now and have only taken a few shots, mostly indoors. This has meant either flash or a high ISO.
In fact my first shot was taken at ISO1600 and I have to say it is very impressive when compared to my 350D which although good at high ISO is not as good as the 5D.
Comparison to the 350D
I’ve come from a 350D and there are a lot of differences. Firstly there is a joy stick and a wheel to play with instead of a set of 4 cross keys and the set button. Then the mode dial is both on the left of the view finder on the 5D rather than the right on the 350D and it has no creative settings. The nearest it gets to a creative mode is full auto, What it does have is a separate bulb position and a custom position.
On the right on the camera body on the top plate is the LCD display giving the camera data, such as white balance, shutter speed, aperture, shots remaining and the exposure and drive modes, together with the buttons to be able to change these settings together with either the quick command dial or the main dial, depending on the function.
The LCD on the 5D is now a decent 2½ inches from the 1.8inch screen on the 350D. The buttons next to screen are the same on both cameras and work pretty much the same. The exception being the menu, which rather than having 5 tabs, they are grouped in one row, but still colour coded and the Jump button still jumps to the first item in the next group. The info button still displays, just picture, picture and overlaid short info and full info and hysteresis. The difference is that the hysteresis is either RGB or luminance on the 5D.
There is also an option to display the AF points used when looking at the full info display.
The 5D also has a direct print button, but unlike the 350D, which is also used to backlight the info display, the 5D button has no other function. A waste of a button!
The depth of view preview button is bigger and more obvious when you press it compared to the 350D.
The 5D has no facility for an IR remote release – which is a pain because I have one! Instead you have to use the hardwired remote.
The 5D has no popup flash. I believe its due to the viewfinder arrangement, which it has to be said is so much better than the 350D – much brighter and easier to use and I can vouch for that!
The 5D has changeable viewfinder screens to assist in manual focusing or composition etc. These are extra.
Using the 5D
Pretty much the first thing I did when I got the 5D was to turn off the option to allow shooting with the card out – actually it was the second – I did take a shot with no card in!
The second thing I did was to change the Quality to RAW as I shoot raw most of the time. I did notice though that the ability to shoot various RAW + Jpegs qualities is a nice addition, By that I mean you can select RAW + L or RAW + M and RAW + S as well as just RAW and just the Jpeg options.
I then went into the Custom Functions and changed Cfn 1 to 2 (SET function to Change picture style), Cfn 4 to 3 (Shutter/AE lock button (*) to AE/AF, no AE lock. Cfn 13 to 1 (AF Point selection method) AF Multi-controller direct and Cfn 17 to 1 (AF point activation area), Expanded.
Most of these give me the same sort of control as I had on the 350D.
The lens I first put on the camera, was my 24-105 f/4 IS. Its wide! Its wider at 24mm than my 17-40 is at 17mm on my 350D and is noticeable. It should be a perfect walkabout lens in a lot of situations.
The AF focusing pattern is obviously different to the 350D as it has 2 more focusing points. It also has a centre ring, which is the spot metering circle.
Within the spot metering circle are 6 AF assist points which are used in AI Servo AF mode. 4 are sensitive at f/5.6 and two at f/2.8.
From first use, it is obvious that the auto focus is in a different league, in so far as the actual AF point is much smaller which does mean you can really select the point of focus, rather than the somewhere around the area. I have tried it in AI servo mode at a bird of prey centre and found it much better than the 350D at tracking the birds in flight. The 350D is not impossible to take them by any means, but the 5D certainly has the edge. It’s probably better than the 20D/30D as it has more focus assist points. I have found the AI Servo mode on the 350D ok for people running in good light and large moving objects (Go carts for example).
Metering.
The 5D has 4 metering modes; Evaluative, Partial, centre weighted and spot. It could be argued that the spot metering is not true spot metering as it is 3.5% and not 2 or even 1%, but having used it quite a bit, I think its fine.
I certainly got a lot more shots where the subject was correctly exposed when it was small and dark compared to the background.
Viewfinder.
The viewfinder is very similar to the 350D, only bigger, brighter and has the ISO displayed when it is changed, which is very handy when you want to keep the camera to your eye. It’s a shame it’s not permanently displayed as a reminder of what it is set to.
Picture Quality.
As already intimated, the quality is better. I took a shot of a dog last weekend, at ISO400 – the noise just doesn’t seem to exist – and it printed out superbly.
Many of the shots I took of the birds of prey were at ISO’s upto 800 and the noise is very well controlled – even though the birds tend to be darker and hence more prone to noise.
I did also take some in the pub at ISO3200 and the noise was almost none existent – though again the subject was relatively light. Interestingly, the major picture houses accept the 5D pictures onto their books, although not officially a professional camera according to Canon, although it does qualify for the CPS (Canon Professional Service) along with the 1 series bodies.
As they also (at a push!) accept the pictures from the Nikon D200, I wonder if they will take the D80 and 400D images as well as they have the same sized sensor.
Overall Opinion.
I’m really impressed with the 5D. It has a lot more usable features than the 350D – but then at three times the price it aught to!
Is it worth the extra money the 30D let alone the 350D? Well, that is one that is subjective. For me it is, but it won’t be for everyone.
Has it made my 350D obsolete? No it hasn’t. It is still a fine camera that takes perfectly good pictures. I just like the 5D better!
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| | | | Design | | 80% | | Ease of Use | | 80% | | Features | | 80% | | Picture Quality | | 100% | | Battery Life | | 60% | | Value | | 60% |
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| | | Posted: 22/09/06 | | 'EXCELLENT FIRST TIME CAMERA.' | | Strengths:
I thinkc the 350D has excellent build quality. I've had a silver one for well over a year and taken over 12,000 shots in various conditions from the heat of the Med to the cold and rain of winter. The body is virtually unmarked which is testiment to its strength. I originally found its size and weight perfect, probably because I came from a G2. I still don't think its too small even with hands that are not small, but I've added the battery grip, which really does make it perfect and is so good for portraits. It controlls noise particularly well at high ISO and I don't worry too much at 800 and 1600 is usable in most circumstances.
It has several useful custom functions to change the way some of the buttons operate. Typically I have the focus selected to the * button and leave the focus mode set to AI Focus. As all of my lenses have full time manual focus, it means that I can manually focus, single shot or servo focus without changing anything on the camera; its all down to if and how long I press the *. I also have the 5 buttons in a ring set to select the focus point. This works really well as this is only activated when the shutter has been half pressed, otherwise they do the function they are designed for, ie shortcuts to ISO, AF, WB and exposure mode. | | Weaknesses:
Auto-focus can struggle with fast moving objects, such as birds.
The screen is a little small compared to the latest DSLR's, but is viewable in all but the brightest sun.
The print button doubles as a backlight button, its a shame it couldn't be something else!
Occassionally my nose will press one of the buttons down the left hand side, but it doesn't actually cause a problem.
| | Overall:
Well packaged camera with everything you could want as a first time user or coming from a P&S. |
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| | | | Design | | 80% | | Ease of Use | | 80% | | Features | | 80% | | Picture Quality | | 100% | | Battery Life | | 80% | | Value | | 60% |
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