It’s FINALLY Mine! 5D MkII Arrives.
- At February 19, 2009
- By Neil Creek
- In Equipment
13
I have incredibly supportive and loving parents. As I have discussed much lately, I have decided to pursue photography seriously as a profession. If I am to do this, I really need to do it with professional equipment. The 350D I have been using for the last three years just isn’t up to scratch, in terms of resolution, sensitivity, speed and feature set.
Even when I bought the 350D I knew that one day I’d upgrade to a full-frame camera, and waited for Canon to eventually release a follow up to the 5D, the first “achievable” full-frame digicam for a new businessperson like myself.
I knew the camera was going to be expensive, so I have been looking into bank loans, which was a frustrating and depressing experience. Fortunately, my loving parents have helped me out, by loaning the money I need. They have confidence in my ability to make a success of my photography, and they want to encourage and help me get there. I love you guys, and once again, as always, your support means so much to me.
Beautiful isn’t it? And now it’s mine!
Photo: Steve Keys – CC.
5D2 photo examples
I will talk about the 5D2 and what I love about it more in future posts, and I don’t want to clog this one up too much, so keep an eye out for more as I learn how to get the most from this new toy… err, tool! Below are some of the very first photos I have taken with the camera:
I knew the first photo I would take with the 5D2 would be of our beloved pet Chibi. I didn’t know that he would be so cooperative, and give me such a cute expression the very first time I pressed the shutter release!
Being a full frame sensor, as opposed to a 1.6x crop that I had on the 350D, I expected to lose some of the reach of my telephoto lenses. What surprised me was how much the 2.6x more pixels would make up for that, and exceed the detail previously captured. This photo of a blood red moon was taken on a night when smoke from the recent horrific bushfires cast a pall over the whole city. The detail visible in this 400mm photo significantly exceeds that which I was previously able to capture. Click here to see the full sized version, a 100% crop of the original photo.
The above photo is of the “public vote” winner of the Bead Society of Victoria’s “Bead Challenge”, which was displayed late last year at the Bead Expo. I photographed this piece, along with several others for Naomi to use in the BSV’s magazine, Connect. This was the first product photo shoot I did with the 5D2, and I just loved being able to guarantee that I had perfect focus by being able to zoom to 100% on the large screen using Live View. This is going to help a lot in future with product-type photography.
The image below is a 100% crop of the above image, showing the incredible detail captured by the 21Mp sensor.
Finally, one of the main headline features of the 5D2, is the ability to record full HD video. I’m not sure how I’ll make the most of this feature, but I’m looking forward to experimenting with it. Below is a video I took of our adorable cat Chibi, engaging in his nightly ritual of snuggling in bed with Naomi, something he has done, for about an hour each night, since he was a kitten, eight years ago.
This video was shot in very low light, and the camera performed marvelously, but would be better when mounted on a tripod for stability. The embedded video below is hosted on Facebook, as I couldn’t get any other hosting service to display the high resolution video. Please let me know if you have any problems seeing it.
A couple of days ago I asked my Twitter friends if they had any questions about the 5D2. Rather than make this post any longer, I’ll answer them soon in a separate post. So if anyone reading this wants to ask me about my early experiences with the camera, please leave a comment, and I’ll answer them as best as I can in that post.
Marc Benton
Congratulations on the new camera Neil. I’m glad you have such supportive parents and I’m sure they’ll enjoy your efforts.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one that points to the moon after every upgrade of a camera or a lens. That image is outstanding!
ramin
Congrats on the new camera. Everything I’ve heard of it makes me want one even though it’s so expensive.
I guess I just have to start saving (or find a way to make my photography pay some bills).
LisaNewton
Congratulations on your new camera. As a parent, I know our support lasts a lifetime, and I’m so happy your parents came through when you needed them. To me, part of being a parent is helping to support your child’s dream, if you can.
Your pictures are great. I just got my tripod in the mail tonight, so I hope to take a few pictures tomorrow morning. Sunrise in LA; it doesn’t get any better…………:)
Martin
Congrats with your new toy ;-) I look forward to reading more about your impressions of it.
laanba
Congratulations on your new camera! That is so exciting and I know you will do marvelous things with it.
Smugmug will hosts high definition video.
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/best-video-sharing/
Nakey
Congrats on the camera, and beating the price rise :)
Jeanette
You lucky fish, enjoy your new toy :)
merlyn9
Congratulations and Welcome to the Club!
Now go take a weekend away from home… Find something to shoot that is different. Play with the settings and features. Stretch it’s legs, let it run. See what she’s got!
I got mine 10-days before leaving for Yellowstone, so I really checked it out there… in the Snow, and Frost, and Light!
Oh… and don’t forget to buy extra batteries (good luck finding them) and, what the heck, buy the Grip too!
Nice images with your story.
—Cheers!
Claudia Regina
Really congrats!!! Having a camera like 5d here in my country is something like “impossible”… xD… it would cost a entirely year of work =T (assuming we’re living to pay the camera xD).
It’s a wonderful camera and I’m sure you’re gonna make good use of it! =]
Claudia Regina
And OMG! How cute is your cat pouring like that???
Soooooooooooo cute!!!!! *_*
Terje
Almost every blog I have read about someone gotten their 5D mkII they put some extra thought into their first frames with the camera. That says quite a bit about photographers passion to their gear. I would probably do the same thing if I got the new 5D. Good luck on the career in photography!
Flickr Alternative
I strongly recommend that you turn the No Follow off in your comment section.
I’ll watch Google Webmaster Tools, and if the links don’t show up after a couple of weeks — I won’t go back to that blog again.
Another suggestion: you should have a Top Commentator widget installed.
Do Follow and Top Commentator will ensure that you have a successful blog with lots of readers!
Neil Creek
I haven’t used NoFollow deliberately, it must simply be a default setting for wordpress. I don’t mind people getting search engine help by putting links with their comments – I usually delete comments that blatantly link to commercial sites anyway, unless the comment contributes to the discussion. I’ll try and find how to turn this off.
As for a Top Commentor widget, I like to keep the blog relatively clean, and I’m not sure such a widget would add much. But I’m willing to listen to arguments and have an open mind.