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The picture output of this camera is amazing. The full frame pictures produced by this camera with the same lenses are stellar and noticeably sharper than those on the 40D. Some people have given the camera a negative mark for not having a flash. However, coming from my 40D to the 5D, I've also noticed where this camera is lacking. By no means should this be your deciding factor.
My son was falling into pillows one afternoon, and I wanted a high shot count of the fall. This isn't really a fair comparison though as the 40D was released a few years after the 5D. The on camera flash is worthless on DSLR's anyway. This shouldn't even be considered on a camera of this magnitude. Get an external flash (580exII is my choice) and your pictures will drastically be improved. I've also accidentally grabbed this camera when I meant to get the 40D, and suffered from the lower frames per second capture rate of the 5D. I recently added this body to my arsenal until the 5DMkii comes into more regular stock, driving the prices down.
There is much less noise on this than my 40D at similar ISO's. The 5D comes in at only 3fps, while the 40D is 6.5fps. Learn how to use it, don't blast your subject with it, and watch your images pop. Even if you leave the flash in full auto mode all the time. I'm a wedding photographer, and love my gear, and take great care of all of my gear. The 40D tends to focus much quicker in low light situations. IIRC, the 5D is based off of the DIGIC II processor whereas the 40D has the DIGIC III processor.
Somewhere scattered on the lost review room floor is my review. I already reviewed this and some other things I bought at the same time but I keep getting bugged to review again. I hope they find it and post it.
So even if I had it to do over, I'd probably go Canon. This is the obvious camera if you truly love your 24-70 L and 70-200 L 2.8 glass. Of course, then I have to reposition the camera and squeeze the shutter release the rest of the way. One interesting comment there said that Nikon does better at the wide angles and have lenses that favor cropped viewfinders (smaller chips). Thanks to the full-sized chip, I've shot at 1000 without any problems and it should have very low noise at 1600.
On the other hand, they said that Canon has better teles and their lenses favor full-sized viewfinders. Hey, I hear the 5d Mark II has the same problem, so I hear you'll need to go Nikon to avoid this. The full-sized chip also provides prospects of great "bokeh" (if the lens is good enough), which is the out-of-focus areas truly being out of focus (and less distracting).The cons: Weight, older technology, and sluggish focus performance. There might be controvery with this camera due to the age of its design but as a previous owner of a 20d, I can attest to the excellent quality of this box.The pros: Picture quality is astounding, viewfinder is bright, and high ISO performance is excellent. I have found that if I turn on only one focus zone, it does much better.
If you have no lenses, many people on dpreview.com seem to say to go Nikon.
I use it just now and then and still have not managed to get a great shot out of it I took it back and since it was over 2 weeks, I had to get it repaired under my warranty. When I took it out of the box, it was defective. The color is off and quality is just not what I expected for the money. I am a camera buff and purchased this camera because I thought it would be an upgrade from my Nikon D300. I bought it from Samy's Camera and it is my fault that I did not get to open the box for over 2 weeks due to a family emergency. It took 3 weeks for me to get the camera back and it has never taken clear, crisp pics.
This one is not for action shoots for sure. A second CF slot would be great as well. - 3 RAW per second seems to be a stretch. At half price of the Mk II, you can't go wrong with this full frame camera.
To me personally, a build-in flash, a better view finder (100% instead just 96%) would be far more useful than the mega pixel count and HD video. 40D got a bigger LCD (3" vs 2.5") but I found the color and details on the 40D are way off.- Full frame sensor without the burden of ridiculously huge RAW file size - reasonable post processing and storage chores.Neutral:- 5D has the old menu system where all items are displayed in one long list, whereas 40D divides menu into tabs. It'd be nice if there're after-mart place where these features can be customized into the camera, like cars and bikes.Bottom line - it is great for low light and wide angles. It struggles with each shot as reflected in the extra slow display on the LCD using a 4G SanDisk Extreme III card. Use the Sigma 12-24 on this baby and it rocks.- I am no pro, and I don't have light fall-off problem with my lenses, L or otherwise.- View finder is bigger and clearer, but not as much as I had hoped for.- Almost the same weight as 40D, same battery as 40D as well, same remote release.- Easier to clean the sensor, bigger hole and bigger area there.- Great LCD display, very accurate - which is very helpful in the field. 40D is faster but 5D is just fine.Con:- No Live-View: very important for fine macro shots.- No auto-sensor cleaning. On 40D the LCD shows the picture instantly. But I bought it for landscape so I am not worried.Some of the issues are addressed in Mark II.
I still stick to 40D on action and macro. Coming from 40D, the 5D is quite similar and yet different for the better in many ways.Pro:- Better high ISO IQ, lower noise ISO 400 and up, significantly better at ISO1600 (with minimal RAW processing before conversion using DPP)- Better wide angle. The auto-cleaning on 40D is not perfect, but very helpful.- No user menu tab as on 40D.- No pop-up flash - which is useful for fill flash.- Internal processing is horribly slow. But the Mk II got a huge boost in mega pixel counts - hens higher noise and far bigger file size to drag around with.
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