Should I buy a used 5D classic?

theheyes · 24 Oct 2011 at 18:47

I popped into the local camera shop today to have a look at the 24-105 F/4 L, and the guy put it on a 5D Mark 1 body for me to try it out. Part of me wishes he hadn’t, because now I’m considering the body!

I’ve been wanting to upgrade my 500D for a bit now and was planning to pick up a 5DII around Christmas time but I’m thinking the 5D classic might make more sense (and be easier on the wallet). It’s the full frame I’m after mainly. 21 megapixels would be nice, but I’ve not really found the 15 on the 500D lacking so I’m sure I could cope with the 12 on the 5D. The AF isn’t exactly raved about, but I’ve not been exposed to the higher end focusing systems so as long as it is quick and accurate I’m ok with it. It has no weather sealing which is a shame, but you can’t have everything.

My two main worries are – the screen is pretty bad. I’m a bit of a bugger for zooming in and checking sharpness which didn’t seem easy to do on a low resolution screen during the 5 minutes I had playing with it. I suppose I should just get over that. The second concern is ISO performance. I noticed that the expanded setting only goes up to 3200. Do any 5D owners miss the higher sensitivities and does it give usable images at 3200?

I’m going to read a few reviews tonight but I wondered what you guys think. Cosmetically the body is in good/very good condition but I’m not sure what I should be looking for in a second hand camera? Any tips? It comes with a 6 month warranty which gives me a little bit of confidence buying, but what would you look for in a used body? The price is £650 which seems to be the going rate.

I might sleep on it and go back on Thursday.

Cheers

bigredshark · 24 Oct 2011 at 19:43

It just about gives usable images at ISO800. It is after all a 6 year old body now. They are raved about and they are the cheapest route into full frame today but they have plenty of defects compared to modern bodies. Unless you really need full frame for next to no money right now then I'd say don't do it, goes against most wisdom but personally I'd I'd get pretty frustrated with it pretty quickly if it was me.

Ksanti · 24 Oct 2011 at 20:06

Usable images at up to 1600 and after some severe cleaning usable at ISO 3200. If you're worried about noise, shoot with primes. It'll outperform the 50D for ISO performance, definitely.

You might occasionally miss the really high ISO options (rather than performance) of more modern bodies, but I personally find that those are settings where you wouldn't really be getting any decent shots on stuff other than FF Nikons. I counter the "low" ISO limit by using mainly primes, which I prefer anyway. For the first few months of having the body I shot nothing but my 50 f/1.4 on it.

The AF is slow, its undeniable, but I'm fairly sure its the same system as is in the 5D2. Using Canon USM glass the focus as absolutely fine, particularly on the centre point (use this for low light as well), but on my two other lenses (Sigma 24 1.8 and Tamron 90 2.8) it has admittedly been fairly slow, but I don't require fast AF for the majority of the applications of those lenses.

Its age shows in a couple of places to me:
1) The noise floor is pretty bad (if you underexpose, pulling out the shadows will very quickly bring up some pretty hideous noise). Simple counter is to expose properly in camera (and by that I mean ETTR. In most situations you should be able to do this and maintain decent shutter speeds)
2) Tracking AF. Basically don't bother. If you want to shoot action, try and pre-set the focus and have good light so that you can close your lens down a bit. Or use a 135 f/2L.
3) The screen. 232k dot is adequate for me but plenty may find it disappointing.

I'd say go for it if you're looking to upgrade and you don't need action shots. Having lenses perform at their intended 35mm equivalent is nice (as is the bokeh), but in terms of money its a good thing as if you move into a 5D2 or another full frame camera (as I imagine most enthusiasts eventually will) having your lens range keep its role and not have to ditch a load of EF-S glass.

Throttle · 24 Oct 2011 at 20:14

a up thehayes, i bought a 5d in sept from the canon refurb site. I currently have a 40d which has been a great camera but i did feel the urge to try the full frame for portrait and landscape shots. I found the 5d does give a more detailed image and my 24l seems much wider on it than the 40d. The difference in image noise at higher iso is much better, i found anything over iso 800 on the 40d to be too noisey for my eye but with the 5d iso 1600 is useable. The body is very similar to the 40d and i dont find the screen size difference an issue. The 5d processer is much slower when reviewing shots and when uploading via usb and the menu system is not as easy to use as the 40d. The auto focus on the center cross type focus point is excellent and it has 6 hidden assist focus point to help tracking. The outer focus points are not as sensitive but i have not had any issues yet in low light with the 24l or 85 1.8.
Overall i am more than happy with the 5d as the image quality is excellent, i think it will compiment the 40d well

here is an iso 1600 shot hand held at 1/40th f1.8

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theheyes · 24 Oct 2011 at 22:14

Thanks for the feedback. I'm still pondering at the moment. Like I said, I went in for the lens then came out scratching my head.

You're probably right about it focusing well with USM lenses. In the shop, which was fairly dark, it had no problems and was very quick. It was as fast, if not faster, than my 70-200 f/4L which is probably to be expected.

The ISO thing... a bit of noise doesn't bother me too much as I find Lightroom does a pretty good job of cleaning them up. It's about keeping shutter speeds up indoors to stop motion more than anything, because little bits of motion blur annoy me more. I must admit though, one of the main lures of the 5DII was the high ISO settings. I do have a 50 1.4 but the damn thing front focuses a lot of the time at certain distances so I end up stopping it down. Micro-adjustment is another thing I particularly wanted on the 5DII.

I definitely want to go full-frame at some point and won't be buying any more EF-S lenses. I hadn't really looked at the 5D Mk1 until I had it in my hands but I remembered it had been recommended on here a couple of times as a back-up wedding body, so figured it was still pretty decent even by todays standards. The problem is, full-frame aside, on balance it seems closer than I initially thought to my 500D.

I should probably take my own advice I posted in the other thread - if in doubt, wait/carry on saving. I'm not desperate and it probably wouldn't do me any harm waiting for the 5DIII and picking up a used 5DII.

Maybe I should stick to the original plan and have another look at that 24-105 f/4L!

Combat squirrel · 24 Oct 2011 at 22:34

No idea what the above posters are on about, I have a 5D classic and its awesome at 1600iso and 3200, yess its mildely noisey but it has truely amazing ISO performance, ESPECIALLY considering its age, I often use iso 3200 and its just dandy. The screen is rubbish I will say that, but then, you dont view photos on the screen, its just now and then, you view them printed or on the computer so its a non issue, the AF is great, it can be a tad slow writing to memory cards or doing stuff in menu compared to the nippyness of the new stuff.

But as a photographers tool its fantastic and I could never part with mine, its got amazing image performance, even rates above the nikon d700 in image sharpness on a number of reviews.

Buy it, its a bargain.

EDIT: I ALSO own the 5Dmk2, yes of course its an improvement, but when I use both bodies shooting a wedding or something, I have a hard time telling the 2 apart unless I specifically look......at the end of the day the photos are what your after not how you do it, the only clue I have telling the mk2 and mk1 apart is the PC loads the images slightly quicker in lightroom when a mk1 image comes up , also 12mp is plenty for 99.99999999999999999999999 % of stuff.

Ksanti · 24 Oct 2011 at 23:55

Combat squirrel said:
Snip

I never said the noise was bad, it's just that the age does show in the noise floor. It's absolutely fine with well exposed images even at ISO 1600 and 3200, but if you underexpose it and try to pull out the details, there's a lot of noise in the shadows. That may just be a comment on Canon, mind, as I'm only comparing it to my Nikon D5000. Basically a well exposed ISO 1600 or 3200 will be totally usable, but an image underexposed by 2 stops or more will be a struggle to save even shot at ISO 100.

An Exception · 25 Oct 2011 at 07:29

^^^
The 5dii also has banding in the shadows, hence you have to ETTR with Canon.
The 7D was an improvement in this regard, but still not great.

mrthingyx · 25 Oct 2011 at 08:24

Personally, I'd buy the glass and leave the body upgrade, simply because it's better to stick good glass in front of a nice sensor rather than nasty stuff.

As such, the 24-105L will work a little magic with your 500D, and really allow any FF cameria you stick it on in future to stretch its legs...

An Exception · 25 Oct 2011 at 08:52

Combat squirrel said:
But as a photographers tool its fantastic and I could never part with mine, its got amazing image performance, even rates above the nikon d700 in image sharpness on a number of reviews.

Yep, it's a very sharp FF, mostly due to weaker AA filter compared to D700 and 5Dii.

Columbo · 25 Oct 2011 at 09:06

Ejizz said:
^^^
The 5dii also has banding in the shadows, hence you have to ETTR with Canon.
The 7D was an improvement in this regard, but still not great.

So with ETTR (if I'm understanding it correctly), I would use the histogram to over expose by a couple of stops and then pull the detail back in the RAW conversion?

Does that not add extra noise or am I being a noob?

An Exception · 25 Oct 2011 at 10:40

ManCuBuS said:
So with ETTR (if I'm understanding it correctly), I would use the histogram to over expose by a couple of stops and then pull the detail back in the RAW conversion?

Does that not add extra noise or am I being a noob?

No it actually does the opposite, it allows the shadow areas to receive more light, thus improves the signal to noise ratio.

The trade off is that you are exposing on a knife edge, and our camera's meters are easily fooled at times so exposure varies from frame to frame and if your not careful you will simply clip highlight detail. In contrasty light you need to be especially careful, and if the light is too contrasty you would probably need to use flash to reduce contrast.

The issue is caused by high read noise (And the banding is to do with channel imbalance on Canon sensors from what I understand).
In contrast, with the Nikon bodies I'v owned I do the opposite, I ETTL as the read noise is low enough to allow me to lift the shadows, and I don't have to worry about not being able rescue the highlights.
I could lift the shadows about 4 stops with my D7K, before it became a little too noisy, but even then, it was almost impossible to get the image to show banding. In contrast my D700 isn't quite as good in that regard, but is still very good.

Below is an example from my D7K

theheyes · 25 Oct 2011 at 16:13

Some good food for thought, so thanks. Does anyone have any specific tips on what to look for in a used camera? Obviously check the body for wear/signs it might have been dropped, the hotshoe, backlight on the top lcd, buttons work etc. I've heard that the shutter systems can fail on them but it's a pretty random event and the 6 month warranty gives me some peace of mind.

If I decide to go with it, I'll be part exchanging a couple of my crop lenses so painting it in a slightly unrealistic light I could walk out with a 5D for £320 "cash" which is what's tempting me. I still want the 24-105 which I think is a really great range on a FF (24mm is wide enough for me) but I can put that on ice for now.

In regards to having good glass on a full frame I have a Canon 50 1.4 and a 70-200 f/4L so I think I'm ok. Vignetting doesn't bother me in the slightest, and neither does softness in the corners.

It encourages me that the general consensus is getting clean-ish images at 3200 is more than possible. If it teaches me to nail the exposure more accurately then it's making me a better photographer in the process which can only be a good thing.

The only niggle is, and this is going to sound really noobish, is that I think I've developed a bad chimping habit. Generally speaking if I need to take a picture of something that is happening in front of me, I'll take a couple of shots and then check them out - if one is tack sharp I'll move on but if not I'll adjust and try again. If I'm on a tripod, I'll do without autofocus altogether and use manual focus in x10 live view to make sure I've absolutely nailed it. This is pretty easy to do on the 500D screen which is really good but it seems as though working with the 5D would be a bit of an adjustment. Is it easier to manual focus on a FF camera? Because I'm more than willing to learn. I'd never looked through a FF viewfinder before yesterday and it did seem bigger. I've tried on the 500D but I just found it really difficult. The AF just seems to do a better job than me providing it doesn't miss completely.

Anyway cheers for the help so far.

An Exception · 25 Oct 2011 at 17:52

^^^
That's why it's important to be using gear that has accurate/consistent AF, and making sure or having the AF of your camera and lenses sufficiently calibrated together (increases acceptable margin for error).

If you can rely on your AF you hardly need to chimp at all, I only chimp to confirm exposure is acceptable, from then on there is little need for me to chimp.
Even though the 5D isn't going to be that much different than your 500D in terms of AF, just the fact that it's FF allows you to get closer to your subject at any given focal length, I have found that this enables more precise placement of the AF point, so that may help.
I personally never try to MF, as I suck badly.

theheyes · 25 Oct 2011 at 22:34

You've definitely got a point about getting closer to the subject. I've noticed the 1.4 is MUCH better at distances < 2m. Beyond that it's a bit hit and miss at anything less than f/2.8. My second copy is a lot better than the first. I suppose it could go either way on a different body, knowing my luck it will be worse!

Decisions, decisions... another sleep on it I think.

theheyes · 30 Oct 2011 at 15:56

theheyes · 30 Oct 2011 at 21:57

So yeah, I ended up going with the 5D. I picked it up Thursday but I've been decorating this weekend so not had much time with it. Did take a short walk down the farm though and took a few snaps which I've posted below.

In a nutshell, I am VERY pleased. In fact that's a bit of an understatement - I'm well chuffed. I think I got a pretty good deal actually the camera itself is almost immaculate save for a small scratch on the LCD screen. Still getting used to the dial/wheel combo but I really like it. The ISO performance is pretty much as said - shadows suffer the most but to be honest I find the images generally acceptable for my purposes. The interface is not as slow as I expected. The screen isn't great but it does the job, I use it mainly to check the histogram now.

The 50mm 1.4 absolutely shines on this body and it actually focuses properly - hallelujah!!! I've been taking pictures at 1.4 and most of the time the AF nails it. I'm finding the big viewfinder a joy to use.

Anyway if this thread gets dug up in the future by someone exploring cheap full frame options, the 5D gets a massive thumbs up from me.

Cheers for the help everyone.

Time to start saving up for that 24-105

Bokehlicious!

Throttle · 31 Oct 2011 at 10:49

nice one, looks like you got a good deal. It is a great camera

An Exception · 31 Oct 2011 at 11:07

Congratulations, I knew you'd like it!