I finally upgraded. Sunday, I got myself a Canon 5DMkII to replace my aging 20D. Not to be mistaken ; I do like my 20D a lot, but I'm feeling encumbered in my creative process with the 1.6x crop factor turning by 24mm to the equivalent of a 38mm in term of field of view. That's a bit narrow for somebody like me who like wide angle.

Amongst other things, the main feature I get are:

  • full-frame (good idea I had not to invest in EF-S lenses): that's something I was really missing from film. Despite having more wide angle capabilities, it also helps controlling depth of field.
  • better noise contol. I was first impressed by the 6400 ISO shots I took. We'll see how it goes.
  • A larger buffer: I never thought I'd be limited by this in the past, but I have run into more than often lately with the 20D.

Things I might use experiment with:

  • movie mode: the interesting part with the movie mode is that it has been the subject of the last firmware upgrades as it is being used more and more in the movie industry for second unit photography and digital plates (for use with green screen)

It came with the firmware 2.0.3 that Canon released yesterday.

With it, I got the "kit lens": EF 24-105 f/4 L IS. Unlike other "kit lens" this is actually a not cheap and good piece of glass. Well build, sharp, etc; so much better than the 24-85 or 28-105 I was using. And better than the 28-135 IS that Canon was putting as a kit with models like the 40D (with 1.6x crop). With a significant rebate when purchased with the camera, I was afraid it wouldn't come with the lens hood nor the pouch, like the retail version. But no. It is the exact same deal. Note had I had the EF 24-70 L, I wouldn't possibly have gotten this lens.

I'll write more about both of these later.

The test pictures. Because I love the challenges, they have been shot at ISO 6400. Is just corrected the white balance because of the difficult lighting conditions.

@24mm:

@55mm

@50mm