Have I mentioned lately how much I love my Canon 5D Mark ii? Well I do. I want to draw silly doodles on my notebook "I *heart* my camera" and "Lisa plus Mark ii = luv 4/ever."
I love it when I shoot a wedding or event and the videographer drools over my equipment. I love it when I bring it along to my kid's school functions and people move out of my way and part the crowds. "Let her through, she's a professional." They'll say. Yes, I *heart* my camera!
I thought I'd make a little demo photo to show some of my students in class when we talk about ISO and camera quality. And I'll admit, my demo photo loses a lot of it's impact when shrunk down to web size and put in the blogger. But it's really amazing to me and will be amazing to the students who can get up close and really look at it. Go ahead and click on it and bring it up to your full screen.
I dusted off Jayme's old Rebel XTi with it's crop body and 10.1 megapixels to shoot a little demo. It's a good camera. A large percentage of my students use this camera or one of equal quality. I like this camera for what it's worth. I also pulled out my little baby -- the Canon 5D Mark ii with it's full frame sensor and it's 21.1 megapixels. To be fair I used the same lens in both shots -- the nifty 50 (50 mm, f1.8), and the same settings -- ISO 1600, F1.8, 1/320. I didn't feel like setting up an elaborate shot so I just used the window for lighting and shot the centerpiece on my table. It's a bowl full of fall ornamentals arranged so delicately by my 9-year-old. It's not an ideal set-up, but it'll work.
The top is the shot taken with the Rebel -- I enlarged a piece of the center and slapped at the top left corner so you can check out the noise in the image. The bottom I did the same with my 5D. The first thing you'll notice is the colors. The colors from the 5D are so much richer and vibrant. The second thing you'll notice is the noise. The fact that there's pretty much the lack of any noise in the image taken with the 5D while there's quite a bit of it in the Rebel image.
Canon has made a lot of improvements in the Rebel line since this camera. Among others, the T2i is making lots of waves in the camera world right now. This newest model has 18 MP -- still in a crop body camera, but much better noise reduction in higher ISO settings. A lot of my students are starting to come in with these later generations of Rebels and I'm very impressed with their abilities.
Before long, they'll make a camera that will steal my heart away from the Mark ii. I'm mature enough to admit it's not a forever love affair. But no matter what the future of the camera industry brings, Mark ii will hold a special place in my heart. What was that I just heard -- a Mark iii is coming out next year. Hmmm.
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