Canon 5D mk2 + 24-105mm f4 L lens = Good combo?

James J

James J

James J

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As some of you may have already read, I'm looking at going full frame after being without a camera for a few months now and missing taking photos greatly. Got a decent budget now set aside for a camera and I'm still deciding whether to go D700 or 5D mk2 as the new cameras are simply out of my price range.

However, I have some questions and a few concerns. The autofocus system on the 5d mk2 is exceptionally old, but is it actually decent? The D700 has a 51 point AF vs 9 on the 5D mk2 which is quite off putting. Also reviews say that the shadows on even 100 iso on the 5D mk2 are noisy, also putting me off slightly.

On the other hand its a lighter camera and the lens choices seem far more simple due to the L variants for full frame cameras (if I understand their nomenclature correctly).

My questions are as follows:

1 - is the 5D with the 24-105 F4 lens a good combination and how good is the lens in general? Is it good for things like wildlife photography with a fast focus on it or is it quite slow to get an object in proper focus? Also how good is the sharpness on it at F4?

2 - Whats a good 50mm prime lens for the 5D mk2 which doesn't break the bank but has good bokeh? Is there actually one available?

3 - Will the AF system or ISO performance on the mk2 ever limit what I do compared to the nikon D5100 camera I had previously? The nikon camera I had couldn't do over 800 iso without experience noise issues. Can this do better?

Opinions greatly appreciated.
 
Depends what you want to photograph, the 5dmkii is good for landscape and studio work, the D700 is much better for sports, wildlife, casual shooting, low light work, street, weddings etc.

TBH, with the release of the 5Dmkiii if you are interested in the Canon side then the 5Dmkii is just not an option to consider, unless as above you only want to shoot studio and landscape. Even for landscape work the 5dmkii has banding even at low ISO in the shadows and the DR is not the best, the Nikon D5100 or D7000 could work put as a better landscape setup depending on your style and required print sizes.



Lastly I don't get what you mean about lens choices. The canon L series is just a marketing ploy more than anything else. For sure many of thrm are opticlly good but the L is more meant for build quality and intended market. There are some very ad L lenses out here, but arewell made! On the Nikon side, any gold ring lens is equivalent to an L lens, and anything by Nikon with a pro price tags is a pro lens, regardless of marketing names. Nikon used to use ED to denote their pro lenses with Extra low Dispersion glass but these days ED glass appears in the entry level lenses. Every fixed aperture Nikon zoom lens is a pro lens equivalent to a Canon L. Every Nano coated nikon lens is a pro lens.

As to your specific questions:

1)the canon 24-105 is a good lens and I think it focuses fairly fast, the focus performance limited by the 5dmkii body. It is not a wildlife lens, far too short on an FX body. The Nikon 24-120mm f/4.0 is pretty similar. Check reviews at photozone.de

2) depends on your budget, I would imagine the 50mm f1.4 is good, but lots of canon user seem to prefer the sigma version. On the Nikon side even the 50mm f/1.4 is painfully sharp, and the Nikon 50mm f1.4 is better than the sigma. Again, check reviews on photozone.de

3) depends what you shoot, landscape and studio the 5dmkii is great. The Nikon d5100 a tau.ly has a very very good sensor with really good noise performance for a crop camera. The 5dmkii is better due to the larger sensor, you might gain 1 stop noise performance. If high ISO noise performance is important then the Nikon d700 is the obvious choice. Www.dxomark.com is useful. To compare sensor performance. You notice the low ISO banding in the shaped of the 5Dmkii seriously affects the available Dynamic range, even your d5100 offered about 1.5 stops more DR and provided cleaner shadow performance at ISO 100. The AF performance will depend on what you do, again for slandscpae and studio there is no problem, for sports and wildlife it is not so good. aF performance is similar to your old d5100? For this reason alone the 5dmk3 should really be the canon camera to consider, otherwise a 2nd hand canon 1dsmk3. The 5dmk3 has resolved all the shortcomings of its predecessor and by all accounts now has an excellent AF system, and although the banding in the shadows is still present it is supposed to be much better.
 
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i wouldnt call the 24-105 a wildlife lens, its great as a walkabout/ people lens

what do you mean by "wildlife" ? as i would guess you need a zoom and something longer would probablly be better?
 
The centre point AF on the 5D2 is very good, wedding photographers like Raymond use th 5D2 with great results. Derek uses his for football and I know people who use it for motorsports so it can do sports, but for sure there are better AF offerings out there. The 24-104 is sharp at f4 although I don't know that 105mm is particularly long on a FF if you're looking at shooting wildlife? It's a great walk around lenses if f4 is as fast as you need. Shadows are noisy if pushed and some have issues with banding, it really depends if it is something that you need to do a lot and is important to you. Plenty have produced excellent work regardless over the past few years. The 5D2 will give you bigger print options and there is very little in it with regards to noise performance, especially when you downsize the 5D2 output to D700 size.

Both the D700 and 5D2 are great options and you'd be happy with either. I'd look more into the lens offerings from each and see which matches your needs the best for now and in the future. As its the system that you are buying into.

5D3 and still the 1Ds3 cost substantially more than the 5D2, so that may push them out of contention?
 
Good information guys so thanks for that. Swaying more over to the D700 as the D800 and the mk3 are just too expensive for me at the moment.

I'd want a good prime lens for portraits and a macro lens for very close up stuff. I'll get a telephoto down the line when I have more funds.

Any suggestions?
 
In order:

-The 5DII and 24-105 is a very good combination. It's sharp wide open and nice and quick to focus. If the 5DII AF is good enough for you the 24-105 will be absolutely fine.

-The Sigma 50mm is well spoken of for Canon, the Canon f/1.4 is OK, the f/1.8 is a bargain but isn't very robust and the f/1.2 is lovely but expensive and slow to focus.

-Compared to the D5100 it will not limit you in any way.

The 5DII is a very good camera, for day to day photos and with half an eye on the possibility of video, I prefer it to the D700. For anything in any way demanding the D700 would be my choice though.

You should look at both carefully though, both are very different beasts from the D5100, being both bigger and heavier and more complex. The D700 AF (or more properly the CAM3500 modules it uses along with the D300/D3) is very good but needs learning and tweaking to get the most from it, if you want to shoot wildlife or sports and are prepared to really learn it it's fantastic but if you aren't so demanding and just use it casually it's not that much better than simpler systems aside from better low light acquisition.
 
James J said:
Good information guys so thanks for that. Swaying more over to the D700 as the D800 and the mk3 are just too expensive for me at the moment.

I'd want a good prime lens for portraits and a macro lens for very close up stuff. I'll get a telephoto down the line when I have more funds.

Any suggestions?
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Prime portrait lens option depend on your style, working distance and if you want full body, head and shoulders, or just head. Main candidates are 50mm, 85mm and 105/135mm. The new Nikon 50mm and 85mm f/1.8 are incredibly sharp and immense value for the money. The f/1.4 version mainly just give you 2/3rds a stop of light and slightly smoother OoF highlights.

For macro lenses it depends really what you want to shoot. All macro lenses will get you to 1:1 reproduction ratio, but the shorter focal length macro lenses have a smaller minimum focus distance and you will need to be much closer, scaring away insects. The Sigma 150mm f2.8 is a good option. The best insect macro around is the Nikon 200mm f/4.0 but it is expensive. The Nikon 105mm VR is very good and may be long enough. The Carl Zeiss 100mm f/2.8 macro is a little better, the manual focus is very nice for macro work, but it is quite expensive. For flowers you cant go wrong with the Nikon 60mm f2.8, but I have heard the Sigma 70mm f2.8 is sharper.
 
Why do people keep referring to the 5D line as a studio camera? You can take other photos with it! There's a lot of people out there doing all sorts of photography using these cameras.
 
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ElDude said:
Why do people keep referring to the 5D line as a studio camera? You can take other photos with it! There's a lot of people out there doing all sorts of photography using these cameras.
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The 5DmkI and II were very good studio camera where the camera limitations were not important, similarly for landscape work and related macro/still life.

The AF performance meant it wasn't well suited for sports, wildlife, photojournalism, exploration photography, and the body didn't stand up to pro use, e.g. wasn't weather proof etc. Yes of course people use 5Ds for these types of photos, but then I have seen people using an ipad for wildlife photography. A lot of people using a 5DMKii would have been better served by a 1dsMKIII, but obviously price differences limit ones choices. Similar a D700 would have been a better camera for most people but changing cameras systems is very prohibitive.

The 5DMKII was very popular in studios because it offered the resolution they wanted in a cheap body. In a studio environment the lighting can be controlled so limitations in the sensor, e..g, the severe banding in shadows, were of no concern, and the AF performance perfectly adaquate.

The 5dMKIII has hopefully largely changed that and is a much more balanced camera.

In the end the camera is just a tool and it is wise to try to choose the best tools, i.e.. camera and lens setup, for the job
 
ElDude said:
Why do people keep referring to the 5D line as a studio camera? You can take other photos with it! There's a lot of people out there doing all sorts of photography using these cameras.
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As explained well above me, I'd would say it's a studio biased camera (i.e. can do other things, but works best as a studio camera) instead of simply 'a studio camera'.
 
Sorry but it's utter tosh, the 5DII does work well outside of a studio. It doesn't suffer from agoraphobia or anything! :D There are far more 5D's out there that have never seen the inside of a studio than those that spend all their time in a studio.

The AF isn't cutting edge but the centre does work really well. I wouldn't buy one for my needs, but that is because I like to use the outer AF points a lot. If you're happy with focus\recompose then it's a non issue. Which if your main area of interests are going to be portrait and macro then you'll most likely be fine. Also what is your target output going to be? If you want to print large then the 5DII offers benefits there.

I'd make the choice based on the lenses that I want, not the body.
 
Rojin said:
Sorry but it's utter tosh, the 5DII does work well outside of a studio. It doesn't suffer from agoraphobia or anything! :D There are far more 5D's out there that have never seen the inside of a studio than those that spend all their time in a studio.

The AF isn't cutting edge but the centre does work really well. I wouldn't buy one for my needs, but that is because I like to use the outer AF points a lot. If you're happy with focus\recompose then it's a non issue. Which if your main area of interests are going to be portrait and macro then you'll most likely be fine. Also what is your target output going to be? If you want to print large then the 5DII offers benefits there.

I'd make the choice based on the lenses that I want, not the body.
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Technically, the 40D and 5DII AF seems to be pretty similar, 40Ds having cross-type on all (F2.8 on the centre) whilst the 5DII is only the centre. Having had a play and from comments from users the AF isn't better than the 40D and I know my 7D is a damn sight better than the 40D at AF.

I would be all over a 5DII right now if it had even half decent AF as the 7D does, it is a bloody shame really :(
 
That wasn't aimed at you :)

It was more for the guys that said that it's best suited as a studio camera.

It's not just a studio camera, you can take it out, and i find the low light performance to be good good imo.

My gf has a D700, i have the 5Dmk2, both are amazing.

I only ever use the center point to focus, and it's fast and accurate, it's no 7D, but it suits my needs.
 
ravl585 said:
I think you'll find the majority of these pics were taken with the 5dmk2...

http://blogs.reuters.com/fullfocus/2011/11/21/best-photos-of-the-year-2011/
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Well, with Reuters being pretty much a Canon shop that's hardly surprising given the other choice is a 1D of some description and if your on the move lots that's not a hard choice...you could equally link to another agency which is a Nikon shop and point to the proliferation of D700 shots...

That said I've just found a tack sharp shot of a red squirrel mid leap at f/4 from last week which I took with a 5DII so it's capable, it's just how repeatable and reliable it is. I wouldn't like to rely on it's AF and I think you'll get less keepers but you can get the shot.

I'd have preferred the Nikon for that but I had a 17-35 on it and a 70-200 on the Canon so it wasn't an option for that shot as I had a couple of seconds before it disappeared...
 
bigredshark said:
Well, with Reuters being pretty much a Canon shop that's hardly surprising given the other choice is a 1D of some description and if your on the move lots that's not a hard choice...you could equally link to another agency which is a Nikon shop and point to the proliferation of D700 shots...

That said I've just found a tack sharp shot of a red squirrel mid leap at f/4 from last week which I took with a 5DII so it's capable, it's just how repeatable and reliable it is. I wouldn't like to rely on it's AF and I think you'll get less keepers but you can get the shot.

I'd have preferred the Nikon for that but I had a 17-35 on it and a 70-200 on the Canon so it wasn't an option for that shot as I had a couple of seconds before it disappeared...
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The point that was being made was that the 5D2 has uses beyond the studio. I've already said that I'm not likely to buy one based on my current needs, but if I was only doing landscapes, portraits and macros I would have bought one long ago.
 
ravl585 said:
That wasn't aimed at you :)

It was more for the guys that said that it's best suited as a studio camera.

It's not just a studio camera, you can take it out, and i find the low light performance to be good good imo.

My gf has a D700, i have the 5Dmk2, both are amazing.

I only ever use the center point to focus, and it's fast and accurate, it's no 7D, but it suits my needs.
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As I said earlier, I have seen someone with an iPad for wildlife photography - a bear in yellowstone NP. Does this mean the iPad is a great wildlife camera?

Using the centre FOcus point will lead to some very dull compositions or focus errors if you recompose.
 
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Rojin said:
The point that was being made was that the 5D2 has uses beyond the studio. I've already said that I'm not likely to buy one based on my current needs, but if I was only doing landscapes, portraits and macros I would have bought one long ago.
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I even said said it was good for landscape and macro, excepting the banding in the shadows forcing a strict ETTR method.
 
This is kinda what worries me because if there are such strong opinions on these two products, it means that they are really quite different in their approach to different pictures.

Most of the photos I take are landscape or portrait, but I'm looking at doing macro work as I enjoy it. I tended to do quite a lot of night time photography or dusk landscapes, so good performance in low light is ideal really.

I was gonna do this all later this year but my girlfriend graduates soon and I want to give her and her family some good photos of the event so that they can remember it fondly. She's doing really well at uni and it'll be nice for me to have a proper camera again over the summer before I start my two years of hell on my course.

Will that 24-105mm F4 lens have enough reach for a graduation ceremony do you think or would I be better off buying the body only and getting something like a 70-200mm F4 instead?

This is assuming I was going down the canon route.

I also have another requirement and that is the ability to control an external flash for some creative lightning shots. Can the 5D mk2 do this as I believe the D700 can?
 
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