Glen Goffin Photography

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

60 Why I married my 5D Mark II

Ok, the last post was kidding around but the fact that I love my new 5D Mark II is no joke. I'm a happy puppy!!

I gotta say, the "Mark II" part always sounds cheesy to me ... like it should come from Mr. Spacely at Spacely Sprockets.

Admittedly, I'm still in the honeymoon phase. I've only had it for 4 days ... but with every new thing I try, I find myself giggling like a 13 yr old school girl. I had read post after post on why Nikon useability is so much better than Canon but I must say, I'm not feeling it (pronounced in Philly: ful'en-et). I LOVE the useability of this camera! To me, it just makes sense.

This is no serious review but some early observations in no particular order and with no rhyme or reason. Stream of consciousness ...

1. The exposure compensation just takes a quick twist of the thumb. This makes Av mode almost the same as full manual mode but allows you to not have to think about exposure for the easy shots. If you realize you're in a funky light situation you just scroll the wheel a couple of clicks and ... voila!

2. Solid body feel
This is a tank. With my 85mm f/1.2 cannon ball (pun intended) attached, this thing feels like it's made of lead. The shutter button is higher grade and you can tell. It feels like an actual spring-loaded button as opposed to
the membrane (bubble) type that are part of the printed circuit board. Another beef might be the slightly light-weight memory stick door. But so far, no issues.

WARNING - DO NOT drop this on your foot! Oh, yeah, it will break your foot fer-sure ... but you won't notice ... you'll be too worried that your beloved Mark II might have gotten injured!! Bones grow back ;D

3. Gorgeous LCD display
Did I mention it is gorgeous!? Screen protector costs extra.

4. Focus point indicator
I like this but it's not for everyone. It will show a small dot on the LCD screen where the AF focused. This
gives me a quick way to check my focus.

5. Battery life
So far ... it's terrific. I haven't gone out for an all-day shoot with this yet and I can tell that I would absolutely want to have a fully charged backup battery just in case but it feels like you can get several hundred shots on a charge.

6. Compact FLASH
OK ... this is a HUGE beef of mine. I hate CF. It is all wrong and those teeny weeny little pins on the connector are begging to get bent. Come on Cannon ... put an SD slot in here too. I bet there are a ton of Canon users cursing me right now but, hey, that's my take ;D

7. .CR2 SRAW Files
iPhoto '08 and some other older SW won't process these. No big deal, just an annoyance.

8. Auto-ISO
Because this sensor has such good noise performance, I finally feel like I can shoot auto-ISO and not worry. Since I'm shooting the 85mm non-IS cannon ball, this really helps and all my shots ... even indoors at night without flash ... are sharp!! YAY!!

Does the D50 have all of these things? Maybe. Don't know. But this sensor ROCKS and full-format ROCKS and ... well ... love is blind ;D

Ok, at this point you may be thinking ... of course, for $2700 I would expect to love it! True enough. But if I had it to do again ... I would've saved longer and skipped straight to this camera.

Just my 2 cents.

Love and peace,
Glen

PS - All I did to these images was change color space.

PPS - For a fun insight into the mind of a notable contemporary photographer, check this out: http://www.whatsthejackanory.com/2009/06/inside-the-photographers_studio-6/

7 comments:

beth said...

I tried this camera out at our local store wanting to love it...
but as a 5'5" woman at 103 pounds, the camera felt as heavy as I am in my tiny hands...
and then I attached a lens to it and fell forward....not a good sign !

Ida said...

Oh Glen, thank you for your tip, it WORKED!!My camera is working again =) THANK YOU!

Peace!

Glen Goffin said...

Beth - LOL ... yes, so true. This thing weighs a ton. Have you felt the 85mm f/1.2? It weighs more than the body! Together they pose quite a work-out. Of course there are other amazing cameras out there too but this one never fails to produce what I consider spectacular images. It's the combo of the new lens and the body but whatever it is ... for me ... it's magic! Thank you for your great comments. Peace, Glen

Ida - YAY!! yvw ;D

beth said...

thanks for stopping by !
I think you landed at my new blog that I just started last week...

my tried and true space is:
moredoors.blogspot.com

hope to have you visit there, too !

Angel Corrochano said...

Brilliant the taking. The complete series enchants to me since you have obtained the point of perfect approach, and that defocused bottom in the first Very good photo. It is a precious dog

Greetings

Debra Trean said...

SWEET pup... and I like your work...

Violette said...

Glen, congratulations on your new toy!!!
Mine are Olympus SP-570UZ and Canon PowerShot SD990,
definitely a few steps bellow but still inspire me.
What a wonderful and beautiful Friend you have there, these portraits go straight to my soul.
I'm grateful to you for trying to understand the meaning of my poems and I apologize for not providing a better translation aid solution. Nobody can against Google :D
Take care,