Canon 5D Mark II (finally!)

About two weeks ago I collected all of my pennies, sold some prized possessions and donated a kidney, but finally managed to buy my Canon 5D Mark II. Since I've always been a Nikon user, I had to buy the lens, memory cards, UV filter etc. So this was not a small purchase. I bought the lens it came bundled with, which was a 24-105mm f4. Good enough for most situations and fine for doing portrait work. I haven't even bought a flash yet.

The main reason I bought this camera was it's ability to photograph in low light with little or no noise. My Nikon D80 couldn't be pushed much over an ISO of 400. My experiments with the 5D Mark II so far have been very good with an ISO up to 2000. I've tried some some shots over 3000 but the noise was fairly easy to see, but nothing like the D80. So far I'm pleased with the results.

At 21 MP it's almost a megapixel overkill. 15 MP would have been plenty and the 5D Mark II allows you to dial it down to 9.9 MP or 5.2 MP while still shooting in RAW. I haven't experimented with comparing the image quality to the 21 MP yet.

This camera is also one of the first to have the ability to shoot HD video. However, this is NOT a reason to buy the camera. It's a nice feature and the videos are beautiful, but it's not so easy to use. There's no autofocus for one thing, and the internal microphone pics up a lot of noise coming from inside the camera. I'll definitely need an external mic if I'm going to use it. It DOES give you the ability to shoot with a blurred background as long as your subject isn't moving around to much. That's something your average camcorder can't do.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the camera although I've barely scratched the surface of all this camera can do. Next purchase will definitely be a flash, probably the 580 EX II, and eventually my dream lens, the 50mm f1.2.