22nd February 2009, Canon 5DMKII:
Disclaimer: This is a quick overview of my experiences with new Canon 5DMKII in practical photography. I have had Canon 5D earlier and I'm using also Canon 1DMKIII for bird and action photography.

Why change from 5D?: To be honest in my case there was not urgent _need_ for upgrade, merely a few things that would make my photography tasks a little bit easier. Let's have a look of the features in detail:

Auto focus: I have not noticed any big difference compared to 5D. Compared to 1DMKIII autofocus is much slower and general responsiveness of camera is biasing to all round tool with somewhat limited speed. In my case that is not a big problem since I'm using manual focusing for most of my shooting with 5DMKII. In that case I keep all the autofocus selection points activated so they will blink and beep to assist my focusing. If I'm using autofocus, only the center point is selected, sometimes with surrounding assist points.

Image quality: Common argument is hinting there would not be much improvement in image quality between 21mpix versus 12.7mpix of 5D. There are two sides in this argument. If you have a set of optically good lenses, use tripod often, print big and have to crop sometimes: then I would say the image quality improvement is significant. And the same way around, with mostly handheld shooting and no need for large prints, you maybe don't have so big deal between the two 5D models in image quality.

With 5DMKII I personally like the more accurate color graduations and surfaces, lack of moire and the possibility to crop heavily my macro and bird shots. By further enhancing my workflow with improved DPP raw-converter I can up ISO from 800 to 1600 and still keep the same detail and color as with my earlier 5D. New DPP converter allows better fine tuning with luminance and chrominance noise reduction.

In the following example unsharpened 100% portion of left picture is shown on right. By sharpening the crop slightly and then looking 50% size at Photoshop we can evaluate there is enough artifact free detail for perhaps A2 or 16x24" print.

LCD -display: One of the biggest improvements. Bigger view with loads more of resolution. I can browse through pictures, magnify and pretty much evaluate sharpness and other details before uploading files into computer. LCD -display (now with light sensitive brightness) has been good enough in the mixed winter conditions I have been using it.

Live View: I have been using Live View with 5x and 10x magnifications to judge exact focusing and camera shake in macro and landscape applications. Sometimes with very difficult shooting position live view can make or break the picture, especially if you are working without angle finder. Live View feature is also priceless for 'pixel peepers': if you connect your camera to computer, you can focus the target *spot on* with tethered computer ;)

Video: This is the biggest new feature of 5DMKII in context of history of DSLRs. For my applications it has been only nice-to-have add utility to document a few second clips while traveling or similar situations. Without aperture control I feel the feature is quite basic, unless one really commits for the video task with dedicated manual lenses, external microphones and stuff like that. I can show my clips to my nearest and dearest but for sure I will not publish them like I do with my still pictures. If and when the dslr video technology will improve, I will then re-evaluate my priorities.

Battery: Since I have not anymore compatible cameras with older BP-511A battery, the new model LP-E6 is all good news for me. But if you have older camera paired with your new 5DMKII, you also need two separate charger as well as set of batteries for both cameras. Just like 1-series cameras LP-E6 has capability to show percentage of power left. But even more importantly it is more durable, especially in colder weather. I can now shoot in cold weather without continuous battery swapping between camera and inside my gloves to warm them up.

Ergonomics: Camera body is very similar to 5D: weight and dimensions are nearly identical. Overall I like body without vertical grip for macro, traveling and for most of other applications I'm using this camera. Viewfinder is slightly better by specification from 5D (from 96% to 98% coverage) and is certainly much easier to use than the ones I had with my earlier 1.6x crop cameras. For critical macro and landscape work viewfinder is joy to use.

Operations: Menu structure is totally new and similar to the one in 1DMKIII. In my opinion that is an improvement and for the latest 1-series users like me there is an advantage to have similar user interfaces on all cameras.

Customization: With new menu structure, there is a shortcut 'My Menu' -selection where you can add the most frequently used settings from all other menus: like Mirror lockup, Battery info or Sensor cleaning. Further there are now two more Custom mode positions (2&3) on command dial to have memory for three fully independent settings you can program into camera. Very handy for extreme and quickly needed operations like 'shooting from tripod with ISO100, f13, manual mode and mirror lockup. As situation emerges you can immediately switch to 'action mode' with ISO800, f4, Av -mode, servo focusing and what else, with just one quick turn of dial. It is a real pity this feature is not included in more expensive 1-series cameras.

Conclusion: Based on two months experience I can warmly recommend 5DMKII for landscape, macro, travel and nature photography, excluding use for day to day action shooting. And nowadays we have choice: there are now seven full frame dslr -models available in Canon, Nikon and Sony lineups: in quality and quantity a huge leap from what we had only a couple of years ago.