Canon 5D
August 23, 2005
Overview | Specifications

Canon has released a Full-Frame DSLR for around half the price of a 1DsMKII. We must remember, everyone was shooting a "Full-Frame" camera before the APS imagers were introduced in the mid to late 90's and then finally became popular and affordable in the first half of this decade. It was called a 35mm film camera.

12.8MP Full-Frame CMOS Imager

Yep, you heard it right. Whip out your wide-angle lenses and start celebrating--unless you traded-in your wide-angle primes for EF-S lenses. I would imagine Kodak followers of the 14n/SLR and even a portion of Nikon owners, are interested in this particular camera. Not all Nikon owners want a 1.5x imager. While the controversy of "Challenged Corners" of a full-frame imager can be debated ad nauseum, I personally think it's not as bad as some may imply. At the worst possible scenario, you would have to crop the image yourself, which would leave you with much more of an image than if you were shooting with a Canon 20D.

2.5" LCD Monitor

The 5D has a 2.5" monitor, which is a good thing. 3" would be even better, but hey, we'll just have to wait I suppose.

Picture Styles

Ahhh yes, the 5D has the same image modes of the 1DMKIIn:

  • Standard
  • Portrait
  • Landscape
  • Neutral
  • Faithful
  • Monochrome
  • User Defined 1-3
Picture Styles replace the Processing Parameters and Color Matrix options of Canon's DSLRs. And I will say again, thank goodness photographers still have 3 User-Defined settings.

3fps / 60 JPEG / 17 RAW

The 1DsMKII is 4fps so the 5D had to be cooled down just a little. 60 JPEG / 17 RAW in the buffer before it flushes, is not an embarassing number at all.

9-Point AF with 6 AF-Assist Points


9 AF points & 6 AF-Assist points*

This is a new feature for this particular type of DSLR. 3 "supplemental" AF points above the center AF Point, and below it, are positioned for more accurate focusing. Canon specifically mentions this as benefiting sports photographers, so this is interesting.

Other Features

Here is a list of other features:

  • Improved shutter reliability to 100,000 cycles
  • Interchangeable focus screens
  • Improved PictBridge (with Canon printers released after the second half of 2005)
  • USB 2.0
  • DIGIC II imaging engine
Thoughts

Canon is adding yet another model to their robust line of DSLRs. Currently, no one can even come close to offering such a product at the assumed MSRP of $3,500 USD. Canon has basically carved another notch in their DSLR Totem Pole, and it's getting quite impressive. The consumer has a vast assortment of cameras for their particular shooting needs.

For The Pixel Nerds

I ran some numbers, and the pixel size appears to be around 8.02µm square. As we all know (or should know), the larger the pixel, the more dynamic range the imager has.

If you would like you to see other sensor sizes and their pixel sizes, please visit Sensor Sizes page of DigitalDingus.

*Illustration provided by Canon but with slight legend modification.




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