5D Mark II

[Miss Kelly]

So no one was around for me to take photographs of today, so I shot the cats! LOL

Edited in Bridge and sharpened for web. What do you think? The colors SOOC are amazing.

 

[dqpowell]

Congrats on the new camera. I love my 5D.

Your pictures demonstrate a good eye for composition, but they are a bit oversharpened. Back off a little bit on the USM.

David

 

[AndrewWG]

Congrats! That is awesome!

I hope it is everything you had hoped for and more. I'm sure it will be. It is an awesome camera!

 

[crazydadguy]

Pardon my ignorance, but how can you tell that the pictures are oversharpened?

 

[dqpowell]

Pardon my ignorance, but how can you tell that the pictures are oversharpened?

By looking at them. I'm not trying to be flip... while USM is generally a matter of taste, I do not know a photo editor that would accept those images in their current states (assuming they would be okay with small web-sized reproductions).

David

 

[Miss Kelly]

Thanks. I think I will love this camera after some practice.

Sharpening looks just a tad overdone on my old CRT. These are personal photographs so I don't see what the big fuss is. I use this action on all my portraits posted for the web, but perhaps this same action is not suited for animal images. Or I'm just not use to this new 5D and 85mm lens.

 

[dqpowell]

These are personal photographs so I don't see what the big fuss is.

No big fuss. Just a comment in response to your request for comments. ("Edited in Bridge and sharpened for web. What do you think?")

I use this action on all my portraits posted for the web, but perhaps this same action is not suited for animal images. Or I'm just not use to this new 5D and 85mm lens.

If your existing action was put together for images taken by a different camera, you may want to tweak it a bit. The 5D's antialias filter is considerably less aggressive than the 20D or 30D's AA filters, and (assuming proper focus) requires less sharpening than either of those cameras.

David

 

[dqpowell]

One other comment... you refer to a 'new 85 mm lens.' If you're talking about either the Canon 85/1.8 or 85/1.2L, they are two of the sharpest lenses under 300 mm in Canon's lineup. That fact combined with the less-aggressive AA filter over the sensor in the 5D means you should probably put together a new action from scratch.

David

 

[Miss Kelly]

Thanks. To be honest, I don't understand all that technical crap. But if you say it's so, I'll shake my head in agreement. LOL Seriously, thanks. And yes, it's the 85mm 1.8.

ETA: Out of curiousity, how do you sharpen? You seem opposed to USM? I usually use USM or high pass sharpen.

ETA again (sorry!): Here is the unsharpened version of one of the photographs above.

 

[dqpowell]

Thanks. To be honest, I don't understand all that technical crap.

I'll summarize. The anti-alias filter is a special piece of glass over the sensor in digital cameras that actually blurs the image slightly in an effort to prevent (you guessed it) aliasing. This is most often seen in photographs as moire patterns in pictures of grids or grates.

The degree of blur imposed by the antialias filter is described in lay terms as its "aggressiveness." An aggressive AA filter blurs the image more; an unaggressive filter blurs the image less.

The 5D's AA filter is less aggressive than Canon's other prosumer cameras like the 20D and 30D. This means it's a bit more susceptible to moire, but (on the plus side) it produces sharper images by default. (Here I'm referring to shooting RAW files; if you're shooting JPEGs in camera, some degree of post-exposure sharpening is happening in the camera before the image is recorded to the memory card). So all I'm really getting at here is that properly-focused 5D images probably require less sharpening than similar photos from other lower-priced cameras.

And yes, it's the 85mm 1.8.

I got my 85/1.8 back in 1997 and wouldn't dream of giving it up. A truly great lens.

ETA: Out of curiousity, how do you sharpen? You seem opposed to USM?

No, I didn't mean to imply that. I just meant to back off a bit on the percentage of sharpening you're using in USM or reduce the radius a bit. You might also consider creating an action to do edge sharpening rather than overall sharpening. Here's a good page describing various sharpening techniques, including a section on edge sharpening:

http://www.bythom.com/sharpening.htm

Cheers, and have lots of fun with your new 5D.

David

 

[crazydadguy]

Looks like a really good article, I plan on reading it. From the sound of it, you must be a pro photographer. I hope I didnt sound like I was asking a stupid question earlier, but my eyes are quite as "calibrated" as yours yet, but having things to look for pointed out, I can learn what to look for and how to correct it. Thanks for the article posting!

 

[SharonLowe]

Pardon my ignorance, but how can you tell that the pictures are oversharpened?

The best way to do sharpening is to look at a part of the image at 100 percent. You'll usually see a halo around the edges if they are oversharpened. We don't have a 100 percent crop of Kelly's images but my first thought also was that they were oversharpened - nicely composed and great colors, but a tad too sharp.

Kelly - Looking at the unsharpened version at this resolution, I would say you could get away with not sharpening at all for web purposes. Very nice cat portraits!!! The close-up is my favorite.

Congrats on the new camera and lens. I am sure you will enjoy them very much!!

 

[DVC Jen]

Ohhh Kelly - how exciting. Have fun.

 

[wdwmom2]

Congrats on your new camera!!!! Nice lens, love the DOF!

 

[kewlby]

OMG! Your photos are stunning!!! I wish I could do that.

 

[Miss Kelly]

Thank you.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I've been following the rumors of a new Canon 5D model. Canon does a great job of controlling information, so I haven't seen anything credible yet. After reading dozens of ridiculous rumors from people claiming to have inside knowledge, I decided it was time to write my own. I posted mine over at rumor central (dpreview) but I thought I'd post a copy here for anyone interested.

--------------------------
I was desperate to get real news about the new Canon 5DM2, so I took matters into my own hands. I hooked up a war dialer and tried looking for every modem in Canon’s home area code. When I found their site, I used a backdoor to break into their system. The result was that I uncovered the text of a soon-to-be-published interview they gave Pop Photo on the subject. My English translation may be a little off, but here it is:
PP: Why is the 5DM2 so late coming to market?

Canon: It’s not late. It just seems that way because the original 5D shipped a year early.
PP: Will the 5DM2 have image stabilization built into the body like the latest Sony, Pentax, and Olympus cameras? With that, their stabilizers work with any lens that fits the body.
Canon: No. We build the stabilizer into the lens because it makes more sense there. With the stabilizer built into the lens, it works with any camera body that fits the lens.
PP: Are you improving the LCD screen to match Nikon’s high resolution LCDs?

Canon: Not only are we going to have a 3” LCD, we’re going to have two of them on each camera. This dual screen mode matches the way most photographers work on their computers at home. We’ve also taken a lesson from Nintendo and made one of the two screens touch sensitive. To make it even better, we’ve included games as well, so now you can play Sudoku on your camera.
PP: Will they be high resolution, like the Nikon LCD?

Canon: No. We have not found high resolution LCD’s to be very useful in the field. Instead, we are including a pair of red/blue 3D glasses and a special mode that makes the menu appears in 3D. We’re very excited about that.
PP: That sounds great. What other new features have you added?

Canon: One of the most popular features on our cameras is the Direct Print button. We’ve decided to apply our business machine knowledge to our cameras and take that up a notch. We will now include a Direct Fax button with the camera for people that want to quickly share images.
PP: What about having a Mirror Lockup button?

Canon: We’ve found that very few photographers in the real world care about Mirror Lockup. It’s just one of those things that people vent about on the Internet. We have removed Mirror Lockup from the custom function menu. For the zealot’s that feel that they really need it, they can send their camera in to a Canon Service center and we’ll lock up the mirror at no extra charge. We feel that it is important that we meet the needs of our professional photographers without overcomplicating the cameras for novice users.
PP: With the 1 series cameras, you support CF and SD cards. Nikon now supports dual CF cards in their top cameras. Will the new 5D support dual cards?
Canon: We’ve done even better than that. We now include a 7-in-1 card reader so you can use just about any type of memory that you want. Even better, if you use 4 or more memory cards at a time, you can set them up as a RAID 5 array for extra space and redundancy. We now support more memory standards than anyone on the market.
PP: What about file standards? Pentax can write RAW files in Adobe’s DNG format. Will Canon be offering that?
Canon: We are committed to open standards. In addition to our industry standard CR2 format, we support JPG. We also worked out a deal with Adobe and will now fully support PDF right out of the camera. Don’t be surprised if we integrate that with a Direct Email button in a firmware upgrade later this year.
PP: Will you be including any post production capability in the camera for people that want to process their RAW files without waiting until they get home to their computer?
Canon: Absolutely. We have included a new panorama mode that allows the users to crop the top and bottom of the picture before they print or fax it. We have also included a special HDR processing mode!
PP: So that will automatically combine several exposures to create a single image with a greater dynamic rnage?
Canon: Huh? No, not that kind of HDR. This mode will oversaturate the colors, apply extreme transitions between dark and light areas, and make the pictures look garish. That is what our research has shown people use HDR software for.
PP: Will the camera come with a built in portrait grip?

Canon: No, but there are two great innovations in that area. First, for the California and Massachusetts markets, we have a new “orientation” sensor to help wedding photographers adjust to changes in their market. Second, we’ve shaped the bottom of the camera like an Arca Swiss plate so that you can mount the camera directly to a tripod without a bracket.
PP: Will the 5D be weather sealed?

Canon: Absolutely! It won’t have the same weather seals as the 1 series, though. The 5D will be sealed against heat, cold, and even extremely windy weather. You’ll still need a 1 series to be sealed against rain.
PP: Will there be any improvements to the AF?

Canon: This is going to be our most exciting feature (aside from the Direct Fax button). We have improved the predictive autofocus and combined it with Live View. The 5DM2 will be the first camera with predictive Live View. With it, you can actually see what is most likely to happen just before it happens. No more wasted shots on missed goals. This feature is a sports shooters dream.
PP: Will you be releasing any new lenses?

Canon: It’s time for another wide angle zoom, so we’ll be releasing the 16-35mm Mark V this year. It’s a significant improvement over the Mark III and has a new filter ring diameter of 84mm.
PP: Will it be competitive with the Nikon 14-24mm?

Canon: Officially, yes. You'll notice, however, that we still use the Nikon on an adapter when we want really sharp ultra-wide shots.
PP: All that sounds great. With the ad campaign you’ve got planned with us, we’re sure to make the new 5D camera of the year. Thanks for talking with us.

 

[wenrob]

 

[jann1033]

I'm ready to go

 

[Chikabowa]

That's great!! Too funny!
Canon better get on it though with the upgrade to the 5D. It's needed at this junction!