5d Mark 2

Canon EOS 50D Mark II Digital SLR Camera Reviews

This was my first Canon full CMOS DSLR camera. Prior to it I had owned and operated a Canon 40D, Canon 30D and Canon Rebel XTi. I am a wedding and sports photographer primarily, so I have been able to test the Canon 5D Mark II out under both of these conditions.

For basketball I used it with AI Servo, Center Point focus, but went into custom settings and enabled the AF assist dots. It worked like a dream, focusing faster and more accurately than my 40D ever had. While no, the FPS aren't ideal for sports, if you can lock on focus like this from the start, you can still achieve amazing sports photographs. Plus the fact that I was able to shoot at ISO 4, 000 and not have noticeable noise was just incredible. The shots auto-white balanced correctly too which normally in the arena I shoot at is not what happens on my 40D.

My first wedding all I could say all day was wow. I was getting available light photographs I never would have dreamed of before. The new screen also made it incredibly easy to determine if something was in focus or not. When I would switch between my 40D and 5D2 I found out just how spoiled that screen had made me, since the 40D screen looked terrible to me now when previously I thought that had a great screen. I sure was wrong! 920, 000 pixels is definitely the way to go on this LCD. I primarily shot with center point (one shot) for my focus and it nailed focus every time. I did a mix up of manual, aperture priority and some program (Program mostly for the formals)

What else do I love about it? The 98% view finder is awesome. I like being able to use UDMA cards in it...

Video! Although I'm not a video / motion person by nature, I prefer stills, I've been testing out the video quite a bit. At Christmas I took a few short clips of my nephew and was really happy with how they look. It's very neat to be able to take high definition video of a little kid and have that awesome affect of a wide aperture blurring out the background. The only downside is that the files are huge. My 1 minute clip was over 300MB, but that's what I get for shooting in 1080!

The batteries this camera use really do hold a charge for a while. I used mine with the battery grip at the wedding, and the two batteries after going for over 500 shots (maybe close to 600 shots that day?) still had about 72% charge each left on them. I could easily have shot 3 times that much and still have had left over charge on the batteries. Also the new battery info screen is really nifty since you can see what serial number battery has what charge, making it a lot easier to keep track of.

So far I've used a 35 1.4/L, 135 2/L, 70-200 f2.8/L, 50 1.4, and 100 2.8 Macro on this camera body and all have performed wonderfully. I don't miss the pop up flash that my 40D has since I never used it anyway, I always throw my 580 EX II on top when I need flash.

what is the advantage of a full-frame over an aps-c?
if i was a photographer by hobby, then how much of the full-frame would i be missing in an aps-c dslr? mostly i am confused between the canon 7d and 5d mark 2.

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Do DSLR cameras ( or Canon EOS 5D Mark 2) work "body only"?
Work well... Or at all for that matter? I'm looking everywhere for sample pictures of the Canon EOS 5D Mark II body only, NO lenses, but can't seem to find any and am questioning whether it's capable without a lens. I want to buy one but am not sure I can afford a lens just yet (if you know the camera, it's gonna take a few months, an arm, a leg, and my spleen too buy the body as is).

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Can i put naphthalene balls in my camera bag ?
ok just found ants on my canon 5D mark 2? i totally flipped out and freaked out ? i always have odd brushes to clean electronics. so my old Mascara brush came to rescue as it perfectly dragged out the jerks walking along the tiny ridges where the gripping part meets the mark 2's face plate. at this point i thought i had sort of caught them trying too get in? i think few might have gotten in through the battery compartment.few were around the rubber around the viewfinder and around the hotshoe? all of them were removed with the mascara brush?. now my camera is resting for the past half hour with a naphthalene ball in its battery compartment. after half an hour 2 more crawled out? now my only question is since naphthalene sublimates into a gas? ?it cant affect the internal circuitry by any chance?. and hence of further protection can i leave some naphthalene balls in my camera bag?? is it safe ? there is nothing remotely edible near my bag? by that i mean i do keep food away form such things? but i do live in an asian country with currently high humidity as its monsoon season here?

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