Dear Readers,

Last Friday night I received my brand spanking new 5D mark2. I was so excited for it’s arrival! I was also very apprehensive about shooting with it the very next morning on the Kiss Chacey Winter Range Shoot. I had heard all sorts of reviews on it, and had mixed feelings about getting one. People were reporting focus issues, black dot issues and general problems with files. I really wanted to shoot with one seriously before I bought one, but I got the opportunity to get one cheaper and faster than expected. I’m a sucker for a good deal, and for the sake of having to send it back to canon to get any issues fixed, I bought it anyway.

Opening the box was exciting to say the least. I’d only ever held one for a couple of minutes – but that wasn’t my own… It felt small and light compared to the 1Dmark2 I usually shoot with, so I was happy about no more wrist complaints I reeled off a few studio shots to make sure it was functioning and then I popped it back in the bag for the next morning’s big shoot. I was more worried about camera failings than anything else, but I persisted with it all day and didn’t even drag the 1D out of the bag.  I was like a kid in a toy store all day with this thing, and was amazed at how quickly my memory cards disappeared into this little machine. 21.1MP is one big file and when you’re shooting all day, it wasn’t hard to rack up the miles. My poor computer is suffering because of it!!!

Half way through the shoot I had a chance to load up some images and look at them in zoomed mode. It was a nervous feeling hitting the zoom button and waiting for a potentially unsharp image to stare back at me. I had shot on the 70-200 2.8 lens all morning and I know that lens is tack sharp, so any focus problems were always going to be the body. I still can feel the beautiful twang in my body when the tack sharp image jumped into my lightroom workspace. I was truly amazed at the quality of a 21MP image and was even more amazed when detail was still present at a 200% crop.  How can this sort of image come out of a little machine like the 5Dmk2? Not sure, but I’m not paid to make cameras…

Anyway, I’ve really only put this camera through it’s paces once, and it came through in flying colours. I really want to film some bits and pieces in HD and give it another good shake from the video end, but overall I’m stoked. Well and truly happy with my purchase. If only the 1Dmk4 will come out this year with specs to blow away the Nikon D3, and I’ll be happy I stayed with Canon.

Here’s an image cropped to 100% and re-sized to 550pixels. Check the detail. Amazing.