Friday, November 21, 2008
Canon 5D Mark II
Although this is a pretty awful photograph I wanted to show a pretty accurate depiction of the setup ill have most often, the Canon 5D Mark II with an EF 50mm 1.2L. This is really one of the only non promotional pictures i can find of the new model and it doesnt include some crappy package lens. Anyway, this is THE camera, the successor to the wildy popular 5D. I had been planning to purchase a 5D at a pretty decent, discounted price, but I wanted to wait a bit, because i had heard a lot of rumors about the 5D being succeeded by a new version, that canon was planning to rethink the cameras at that range, to make the new 5D a more professional camera, and create a new model more for 'prosumers'. So the rumor had been that there would be a cheaper version of a 5D, and then a more professional 2D or 3D, and the projections for that camera had mainly been in the 13-16MP range, which i wasnt highly excited by. Granted the camera i use right now is far inferior to that projection, but nothing about 17 would have inticed me to put down the big bucks for a brand new camera model, especially if it were going to be only really some retooling and a minor bump in resolution. Well when i read the press release and the initial reviews of the new 5D Mark II, I didnt bother to even figure out what the asking price was, I wanted it, bad. It turns out the camera body is 2,600, about 6-800 more than i would have paid for my 5D body so its extremely affordable in my mind. The Canon 5D Mark II shoots at a resolution of 21MP, an 8MP improvement, has an ISO range from 50-25000 with state of the art noise reduction at high levels (better than Nikon's D3). it shoots 1080p HD video, which, to clear up somewhat of a misconception, is not the only camera on the market shooting HD, the Nikon D90 does as well, but fails to notify the consumer on their prideful advertisements that the D90 shoots a pathetic 720p HD, whereas the 5DMII shoots 1080p which is the highest industry standard 50% larger resolution than the D90. There is really no comparison between the two cameras, so I wont get into a full on review of both, I just definitely wanted to clear up a discrepancy. So with this advance in SLR technology, which frankly im enthralled they both decided to forgo lesser quality video and jump straight into HD, these SLR cameras now have the capability to bring the world famous canon lens optic quality to digital video. and now for the SLR impaired user upgrading from say, a canon powershot to a 5D (dont ask me why anyone would do that), the HD video capture allows for 'live mode' to be utilized during photo shooting. The live image shows up on the huge, gorgeous display LCD.
This is ultimately exciting to me because of course I am a photography student, but I have always had a resounding interest in film, and cinematography in the back of my mind. This will facilitate versatile creatives like myself, or documentary and journalist photographers to branch out into a new format. Now granted film has been around almost as long as photography itself. The Daguerrotype came about in 1826, and shortly after, inventions like the Zoopraxiscope in 1867 bringing motion pictures into relevance, so film is certainly not a new format, however, since the advent of digital camcorders, nothing has broken ground quite like the HD video capable Canon SLR. I can not attest to the quality of canon video lenses, like that on any of their digital camcorders, but i can certainly be safe in betting that the canon camera lenses, which have been in part in developement since 1933, are pristine beings, and have very few rivals, although id love to get my hands on anything Leica. Digital camcorders have always had picture capture functions, but never at 21 MP with the versatility of a high end professional SLR. Point and click cameras have long had video, but nothing like 1080p HD, and now here comes along not only a camera to blend the best of both worlds, but to do it with the worlds best and largest range of lenses. So where will photographers and cinematographers take this? Well I for example want to start making incredibly well designed films, and obviously taking a lot of photographs during the whole process. I am quite looking forward to this.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment