Canon 5D still a viable camera?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ajf
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Thanks guys, that's good to know :)

Really just wondering how feasible it would be if I ever did decide to upgrade my body and what kind of cost I may end up with if I had to replace my lenses. From the sounds of it I should be OK, albeit not the absolute best quality but still enough to make use of a quality sensor (full frame or not)
 
Not that anybody should read too much into these things, but on the cover of my 5D owners manual it's actually a Canon 50mm 1.4 :)

I have this combination (plus a couple of L lenses) and the 50 holds its own without a shadow of a doubt.
 
Appreciate the point about dof etc when recomposing after focusing, especially as this is one thing I want the 5D for.

I already have a 17-40 f4 L which I think should be OK but, yes, it was either the Canon 50mm f1.8 or 1.4 i had thought of or their f1.8 85mm, thoguh not sure how this stands up quality wise?
 
85mm 1.8 is a cracking lens - probably Canon's sharpest non-L prime. It's a great focal length on FF so I'd definitely grab one. Until recently I had a 50mm 1.8 but wasn't overly impressed with it (think I had a bad copy) so I'd maybe consider the 50mm 1.4 if you can stretch to it.
 
I wasn't impressed with the Canon 1.8, two copies and neither was what I would call sharp at 1.8. I'd get the Sigma 1.4, it blows the Canon 1.8 out of the water, and is definitely worth the extra.
 
I was chatting to a pro photographer we had in to take some corporate photo's yesterday about this. He generally uses the 5dii as his main whilst having a 5di as a backup camera. He said he's thinking of switching back to the 5di for a bit because of something to do with the way the images look....I forget his exact words but he seemed to be implying there's some kind of processing or similar that goes off to give the images something a bit different to that of other cameras?

Does this ring true with those that still use it? Can you explain what it is?

I'v heard similar to this as well. Apparently the 5Di has a slightly different quality to it's look, supposedly akin to film. What I think these people are actually describing is the sharpness and the higher micro contrast the 5di can deliver at pixel level due to a weaker AA filter. This gives images a 'crisp' look, without needing additional processing, it's kind of like the D800 vs D800E, where the E delivers noticeably more micro contrast in small details like foliage.

Of course by the time a 5dii image is down sampled down to a 12mp file, I would think they would be of about equal sharpness.
 
I'v heard similar to this as well. Apparently the 5Di has a slightly different quality to it's look, supposedly akin to film. What I think these people are actually describing is the sharpness and the higher micro contrast the 5di can deliver at pixel level due to a weaker AA filter. This gives images a 'crisp' look, without needing additional processing, it's kind of like the D800 vs D800E, where the E delivers noticeably more micro contrast in small details like foliage.

Of course by the time a 5dii image is down sampled down to a 12mp file, I would think they would be of about equal sharpness.

Jeff Ascough has commented that the 5Diii has a thinner AA filter and said that his 50L is like a whole new lens on the mk3 compare to the mk2.
 
Jeff Ascough has commented that the 5Diii has a thinner AA filter and said that his 50L is like a whole new lens on the mk3 compare to the mk2.

I'd imagine that comes more down to suddenly having usable autofocus rather than any huge change in IQ? Sure the 5D3 is better but the 50L isn't exactly pushing IQ boundaries given both the 50 1.4 and 1.8 can be sharper than it (though with other characteristics worse, the sharpness is the main thing affected by the AA filter).
 
I'd imagine that comes more down to suddenly having usable autofocus rather than any huge change in IQ? Sure the 5D3 is better but the 50L isn't exactly pushing IQ boundaries given both the 50 1.4 and 1.8 can be sharper than it (though with other characteristics worse, the sharpness is the main thing affected by the AA filter).

Narh, he specifically talked about the AA filter, he refers to the files created, not about the AF.
 
Narh, he specifically talked about the AA filter, he refers to the files created, not about the AF.

I think Ksanti was suggesting that maybe the 5diii is acquiring critical focus while the 5dii probably wasn't, so the real difference was down to a more precise focus than a noticeable difference from a weaker AA filter.

Personally I would think it was down to the AA filter more so, unless of course his 5dii had a slight front of back focus issue when combined with that particular 50L.
 
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