Canon 5D MII prices dropping

I was surprised the other day seeing a table for how long each camera has been for sale that the Mk2 and 7D have had a particularly long life. As the timeline on here shows....

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/cameras/Canon_7dmk2.html#canon_timeline

Money no object I would pick up a 5Dmk2 second hand later this year when it's replaced for it's low light ability in comparison to a crop and I'd pair it with a 7D2 when that comes out.

Sadly I didn't win the lottery so I will settle for the latest crop when it's released :D
 
It'll be interesting to see what happens to the second hand prices, for both the 5D2 and D700...
 
Rojin said:
It'll be interesting to see what happens to the second hand prices, for both the 5D2 and D700...
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Don't expect any dramatic price drops over night.
The shops rarely discount the older stock by much, and Nikona dn Canon are careful not to leave to much old stock around. I think the last time Nikon did that was with the D2x body when the D3 came out a bit quicker and demand for the D2x disappeared over night.

At least with the D700 many owners wont feel the need to upgrade and sell their D700. Unless they need the resolution of HD video then they already have a camera with some of the best AF and metering money can buy.
I would imagine much more 5DMK2 owners being persuaded if Canon bring the 5DMKIII up to standard with the AF system from the Canon 1D-X. Otherwise again I doubt many 5DMKII owner will want to upgrade to get more MP.
 
It all depends how many sell their D700\5D2 to get the latest and greatest. That will see the second hand prices fall (or not!). At the end of last year you were looking at £1400 for a mint second hand 5D2 (admittedly the troubles in Japan inflated prices) and they have been slow to come back down to the £1200 they were previously.

I bought the 1Ds2 with the intention of picking up the 5D2 replacement once it was released, obviously only if it filled my requirements. If it didn't then I was hoping the D800 would be something to look at. I just don't need or want the 36MP though and if the 5D3 is also high MP... sraw is an option but it has to be implemented really well to be worth looking at. As Nikon haven't included it I guess the results might not be up to par?

Ultimately though I am happy with the 1Ds2, the great big clunky old brick that it is. The only things I would like is a faster clearing buffer and better high ISO performance. Higher FPS would be nice as well. A 1DX in a smaller body would be just about right :D At the moment though my only option for a more modern body is looking to be a 1Ds3 (still too pricey and now looking to stay that way), or the D700...
 
It will have the knock on effect of lowering the 5D mk1 down in price a little, but let's face it, Canon gear tends to hold it's value very well.
 
Rojin said:
It all depends how many sell their D700\5D2 to get the latest and greatest. That will see the second hand prices fall (or not!). At the end of last year you were looking at £1400 for a mint second hand 5D2 (admittedly the troubles in Japan inflated prices) and they have been slow to come back down to the £1200 they were previously.

I bought the 1Ds2 with the intention of picking up the 5D2 replacement once it was released, obviously only if it filled my requirements. If it didn't then I was hoping the D800 would be something to look at. I just don't need or want the 36MP though and if the 5D3 is also high MP... sraw is an option but it has to be implemented really well to be worth looking at. As Nikon haven't included it I guess the results might not be up to par?

Ultimately though I am happy with the 1Ds2, the great big clunky old brick that it is. The only things I would like is a faster clearing buffer and better high ISO performance. Higher FPS would be nice as well. A 1DX in a smaller body would be just about right :D At the moment though my only option for a more modern body is looking to be a 1Ds3 (still too pricey and now looking to stay that way), or the D700...
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The 5DMKIII will be at least 32MP, I really don see Canon going in any other direction. You can be sure the only reason nikon went with a 36MP sensor was they were 100% confident in Canon producing a similar resolution sensor for the 5DMKIII.

It is a shame Nikon never put any pixel binning options in the D800, maybe they haven't been exposed yet. But then it is kind of a philosophical issue about he nature of a RAW file and that it shouldn't be processed. You can shoot jpeg in lower resolution and get the benefits of pixel binning.

Otherwise it is just another step in the PP work flow, and we will need bigger memory cards. There is absolutely no difference in pixel binning on the camera or on your computer, except the extras memory card usage. If you let the user do the pixel binning/down sampling then they have much more control over the process and have the option of having the high resolution original if desired.


thinking about it, even if the D800 did offer pixel binning modes for raw files, I would probably still shoot in full 36MP resolution and immediate down sample to a lower res tiff on my computer. Once I have scanned through the photos looking for keepers and I would then decide what resolution of regional to work with, depending on intending print size, lSO, cropping needs.
 
I like a non destructive workflow based on RAW straight from the camera. I guess I could setup an action to resize, but I just plain don't need 36MP. Nothing I do will benefit from it, it just adds to the workflow or requires a computer, storage/backup upgrade. I guess I'm gonna have to sell a kidney and get a 1DX :D
 
Yes, 36MP is a little silly, I agree, and is a pain.
You like non-destructive workflow, but pixel binning in camera is a destructive action, irreversibly throwing away information.


I was also thinking that a D4 makes more sense to me than a D800, but really, the price difference means one can buy a lot of big fast memory cards, firewire card reader, and a nice raid array + SSD, and still have money in the pocket to buy a new lens. With the high res sensor there is still the option for actually trying to use the high res. On a lower resolution camera you will have to stitch, which is fine for landscapes but not possible for portraits or wildlife.

I guess it all boils down to quite a simple question of what you like to shoot. Weddings in dark churches, indoor sports, night time streets, nocturnal animals, etc... then the 1DX/D4 is the camera of choice. Landscapes, studio, wildlife and the high resolution sensor comes into its own.
 
Rojin said:
Yeah, that's why I said sRaw would have to be really well implemented!
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But what do you really mean by that? It is trivial pixel binning, there is no wrong way to do that and it is nothing that you can't do equally or better in post processing. So although it maybe handy to save on memory cards and transfer times (the D800 supports USB 3.0 so this might be quite good anyway), you don't really gain a huge amount.

Wouldn't be a decision make for me, it is just a shame that it is not an option. Would take about 15 minutes work from the firmware programmer, including a toilet break and making a cup of coffee.
 
D.P. said:
The 5DMKIII will be at least 32MP, I really don see Canon going in any other direction. You can be sure the only reason nikon went with a 36MP sensor was they were 100% confident in Canon producing a similar resolution sensor for the 5DMKIII.
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Every rumour I've seen is pointing to a 22MP sensor.

With the top-of-the-range 1DX sporting an 18MP sensor, there's no way on earth the lower-end 5D3/X will have a 30+ one.
 
D.P. said:
But what do you really mean by that? It is trivial pixel binning, there is no wrong way to do that and it is nothing that you can't do equally or better in post processing. So although it maybe handy to save on memory cards and transfer times (the D800 supports USB 3.0 so this might be quite good anyway), you don't really gain a huge amount.

Wouldn't be a decision make for me, it is just a shame that it is not an option. Would take about 15 minutes work from the firmware programmer, including a toilet break and making a cup of coffee.
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Canon don't use pixel binning though do they? It is basically a resize algorithm, this can be done well or badly. I have some faith that they wouldn't butcher it, but I wouldn't bet my house on it!

Having a camera that gives you a very high res full frame file and a "medium" res file, whilst also giving a crop mode with a resolution equivalent to todays crop cameras is actually quite attractive.
 
Vertigo1 said:
Every rumour I've seen is pointing to a 22MP sensor.

With the top-of-the-range 1DX sporting an 18MP sensor, there's no way on earth the lower-end 5D3/X will have a 30+ one.
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The top-end Nikon D4 is 16MP, the D800 prosumer is 36MP. What is your point?

Pros don't always want or need MP
 
Rojin said:
Canon don't use pixel binning though do they? It is basically a resize algorithm, this can be done well or badly. I have some faith that they wouldn't butcher it, but I wouldn't bet my house on it!

Having a camera that gives you a very high res full frame file and a "medium" res file, whilst also giving a crop mode with a resolution equivalent to todays crop cameras is actually quite attractive.
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Canon effectively use a pixel binning approach, hence the 2 sraw modes are more or less exactly half and quarter resolution with 2-pixel and 4-pixel binning, respectively.

Even is they use resampling algorithm, there is no magic here. Have a play with jpeg mode and take some photos a the smaller sizes. this effectively demonstrates the cameras resampling capabilities and how the apparent noise is decreased when down sampling.

So if they pixel-bin or properly down-sample, there is nothing really to it at all, it is implemented in all digital Nikon cameras since they first appeared. So it is about 15 minutes work for someone to make down-sampled raw images a function in the D800. Its probably 2 lines of code to do the actual work, then adding the option to the menu interface.

This is why it annoys me that the camera manufacturers are not more open with their firmware and allow SDKs etc. There are lots of simple additions to the firmware that anyone remotely technical could implement, such as true colour histograms for RAW files, but we are stuck with closed systems.
 
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Vertigo1 said:
The 5D3 will still be circa 22MP, you mark my words :p
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Maybe you are right and the 5DmkIII and it will be 22MP, but that would make a very strange line up for Canon. What will be the differences between the new 5D and the 1DX? This would likely mean there would still be a soemthing like a 1DXs in the work with a high res sensor, but then canon have already said that the 1ds and 1d lines have merged.
What would be the differences between a 22MP sensor and the 18MP in the DX, certainly not enough resolution difference to be noticeable.
 
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D.P. said:
Canon effectively use a pixel binning approach, hence the 2 sraw modes are more or less exactly half and quarter resolution with 2-pixel and 4-pixel binning, respectively.

Even is they use resampling algorithm, there is no magic here. Have a play with jpeg mode and take some photos a the smaller sizes. this effectively demonstrates the cameras resampling capabilities and how the apparent noise is decreased when down sampling.

So if they pixel-bin or properly down-sample, there is nothing really to it at all, it is implemented in all digital Nikon cameras since they first appeared. So it is about 15 minutes work for someone to make down-sampled raw images a function in the D800. Its probably 2 lines of code to do the actual work, then adding the option to the menu interface.

This is why it annoys me that the camera manufacturers are not more open with their firmware and allow SDKs etc. There are lots of simple additions to the firmware that anyone remotely technical could implement, such as true colour histograms for RAW files, but we are stuck with closed systems.
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As I said previously I don't believe Canon use pixel binning, it is a down sample. Here is a link to some discussion on sRaw on the 5D2 and how some find that the DR is affected. It is this sort of quality issue that I am referring to and hope will not be repeated in any new models:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/950489/0&year=2010#8986211
 
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