Some thoughts on DP Review tests and potential for 5D MKII

Preface
I’m posting this just for reasons of discussion, not as a “this camera is better than that” or “this brand is better than that” or whatever. I also don’t believe that everything DP Review writes or photographs is indisputable. I’m just curious to hear other people’s thoughts on this.

Background
I had a 5D Classic for 2 years and loved it. I've also owned a 20D, 40D, 50D and a Rebel XTi, and I've always felt that the 5D offered the best IQ out of all of them. However there was really no hiding that the 5D is 3 years old, and some of the UI, feature set, and ergonomic improvements that Canon has made in the past couple years and implemented in cameras like the 50D, are really nice to have.

It was really with a heavy heart that when the 5D MKII was finally announced, I sold off my 5D Classic and prepared to purchase the MKII. However, I'm now beginning to wonder if I'm making the right choice, especially after the 50D review on DP Review.

I will say that I am surprised by DP Review's findings on the 50D noise, as they aren't totally in line with my experiences with the 40D & 50D (to my eyes the 50D is a small improvement over the 40D), but either way there is no denying that the Canon claimed "1.5 – 2 stop improvement noise over the 40D" is a little overstated to be sure. And my thought is that if Canon is exaggerating with the 50D specs, what are they exaggerating about on the 5D MKII specs?

5D MKII
This brings me to the 5D MKII. We know that the sensor in the 5D MKII is essentially a slightly modified version of the 1Ds MKIII sensor. So I went digging around DP Reviews tests to see if I could find a comparison between the 1Ds MKIII and the 5D, and I found one in the Nikon D3 review.

http://www.dpreview.co​m/reviews/NikonD3/page​18.asp

To my eyes, it really seems like the 5D holds up very slightly better to high ISO over the 1Ds III, and the D3 trumps them all (but this isn’t a Canon v. Nikon thread, there are plenty of those already).

Thoughts
My concern here is that if Canon really has not been able to improve the high ISO noise handling over the 1Ds MKIII, than the addition of native ISO 6400 and above are really just going to be wasted, because my experience with the past 5D was that at ISO 3200, it was really at the end of its rope IQ wise. And if the high ISO on the MKII isn't really an improvement over the 5D Classic, then the camera simply isn’t worth the extra money to me over the original 5D.

I guess I’m in a situation now where I’m considering picking up another 5D Classic and playing the “wait and see” game on the MKII. Anyone else have any thoughts?

i too was pretty disappointed with the 50D review by DPP. it looks good on paper but i guess did not deliver the goods. i think the best bang for the buck right now is the 40D.

I'm this close to saying go screw to DPreview. Every single other review has seen the 50D to be just fine. Albeit not a huge jump from the 40D, but when did Canon last do this the 10D to 20D?

Personally, I'm selling my 30D and going for the 50D. One negative review is not enough to sway me from testing it out myself.

Good thread Tim. I just ordered a 5D form Adorama and it will be here Tuesday. I can't imagine the 5D II is going to be much better than the original. It seems the video and the higher MP are the best new features. Those dont matter for me.

I would like to think the 5D II is going to be better at handling noise than the original but I doubt it is going to be significant enough considering Canon seems to be behind in this type of technology. Just my .02

Or the D300 =p

But that's not an option for most people who didnt already have a bunch of cool film era nikkors like I did.

Tim, you have to keep in mind that the 5Dm2 has a massive amount of resolution, which will come in handy when you downsample the image. You can cut out a ton of noise in the downsample phase of RAW processing. So, while the D3 would appear to have better high ISO results -- when viewed 100% (pixel for pixel) -- once you downsample the 5Dm2 to the same exact image size as the D3, it might be have even less visible noise.

Well, I'd say it's too bad you sold your 5D Classic, but I don't think there is cause to get in a state of angst over the Mk2. At the very least you will get some technological improvement over the 1Ds, and that's nothing to sneer about, and from the images I've seen (hype and expectations aside) the 5D2 seems to outperform the 5D Classic and the 1DM3 as far as high ISO/low noise performance.

So, if as you say the features that have come out since the 5D Classic was introduced are important to you, and if you want them on a full-frame camera, I can't see that you will lose anything other than cash by going with the 5D2.

The 50D is another beast. The crop cameras are trading off IQ for megapixels. This isn't a 50D problem, it's the nature of the crop cameras. But the full-frame sensors are designed to maximize IQ. Granted, the 1Ds gave up a bit, but the 5D has a tradition of improving on the IQ of the last full-frame sensor. This release relies on the improvement in technology to attain this rather than keeping the pixel count lower, but if they succeed, that's not a bad thing, is it?

I personally enjoy my 5D Classic enough that I'm happy to be on the sidelines for this introduction, but I'm quite sure that the 5M2 will be a worthy body.

tim,
you yourself said the 50D is a slight improvement on the 40D in terms of noise, and obviously it's a big MP jump. With the 5D and 5Dii it's a 3 year LEAP in processing advances with a MP jump as well. It's even a 2 year improvement on processing over the 1DsmIII as well with the same MP, so I'll say it should be at least one stop better in terms of ISO with all those pixels. All those pixels mean if you downsize to ~12mp you'll get another noise stop there as well.....

So w/o printing/displaying any bigger you're easily have 2 stops better noise and if you're printing bigger I'd say 1 stop. I'd bet 3200 is very usable and 6400 on the 5Dii will look similar to 3200 on the old 5D. At least that's what I'm hoping for. They've also spent a lot more time on this upgrade than they have on the 40D -> 50D, so hopefully the lackluster improvements are only for that rushed release.

Thanks for your thoughts, all. I guess the general sentiment is true, the 5D MKII is poised to be an impressive camera. I guess my concern is that when Canon over-hypes these cameras, I think it chips away at their credibility.

I do think that the feature set that Canon has been building since 2005 do make our lives a little easier, such as Live View, more intuitive menus, in camera Speedlite controls, bigger brighter LCD’s, more Cfn’s, sensor cleaning, etc. So that, coupled with the IQ that should be at least on par with the 5D Classic should make for a nice camera. I guess I should stop second guessing myself.

It could be worse—did anyone see the Sony A900 review? Seriously poor performance:
http://www.dpreview.co​m …s/sonydslra900/​page20.asp
http://www.dpreview.co​m …s/sonydslra900/​page21.asp