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Two years with the Canon 5D

Canon 5D

What’s good and what rankles.

It’s been some two years since I bought my Canon 5D, an appropriate milestone from which to reconsider what is good and bad about the decision.

Since then the price has come down significantly, meaning almost a 30% drop yet, amazingly, with other market segments seeing many model changes since, the 5D remains available and has not been upgraded. I have no idea how sales of this model compare with Canon’s other offerings, and I suppose you could argue that they haven’t made a replacement because sales are very high …. or very low.

I don’t care. It remains a quantum leap in making the picture taking process an easier one. Forget all the mind numbing choices in all those menus, the reality is that the chances of making a technically solid picture, sharp, properly focused and grain free have risen manyfold owing to this superb machine. Plus you can make a perfect print of any size you want from just about any frame. More time for seeing, less for worrying.

Things I like:

  • The 3:2 aspect ratio of the frame. I grew up with Leicas. It would be even nicer at 16:9 widescreen.
  • The large, uncluttered, near life-size, viewfinder.
  • The fact that the depth of field and coverage of a 50mm lens …. remain the depth of field and image coverage of a 50mm lens on a film camera.
  • The grain free sensor – the ISO adjustment is just another way of controlling aperture and shutter speed. I never worry about grain. If I need grain, something like this works.
  • The great selection of inexpensive Canon lenses – the non-zooms I own are mostly wonderful.
  • The lack of shutter lag – as good as a Leica M2 or M3.
  • Autofocus. With mediocre eyesight like mine the fabulous rangefinder in the Leicas is improved upon by modern technology. And it’s faster.
  • Spot focus/lock/recompose. Never another unsharp studio picture.
  • Auto exposure. Another impediment removed.
  • Spot exposure measurement for those difficult occasions.
  • The reliability. The 5D’s OS makes a Mac look like a dog. You never have to reboot.
  • The battery life. Simply incredible. Carrying a spare hardly seems necessary.
  • The 85mm f/1.8 EF Canon lens. The Leica Apo-Summicron Asph at a fraction of the cost.
  • How all that automation makes use with a 400mm Canon ‘L’ lens so easy.

Things I dislike:

  • The bulk. Bigger than my Leica Ms, it’s no joy to tramp around with.
  • The noise. Not bad, but silence would be nicer.
  • An LCD screen which is unusable outdoors.
  • Poor auto white balance indoors but easily fixed with one click in Lightroom.
  • The attraction the sensor has for dust. I mitigate that by using (superior) non-zoom lenses, but that’s not the answer. Actually, it’s more the pump design of Canon’s 24-105mm zoom and poor dust sealing in the lens that seems to be to blame here.
  • The advertising – that big white ‘Canon’ logo and crass ‘5D’ sticker – both easily fixed with some black tape. You want me to advertise your goods you pay me, OK?
  • That criminally inept stock strap. Criminal, as the first thing it will do is make sure your camera falls off your shoulder.


    5D and friends. Not a worthless lens hood in sight.

  • The fact that I take too many pictures. Digital makes you lazy, less selective. Good digital management in the likes of Lightroom helps. But nothing beats the Delete button.
  • That horrid flap.

But, taken as a whole, these really are minor gripes in exchange for the wonderful image quality.

The 5D will likely be updated/obsoleted any day now, but for this photographer it remains the bees’ knees. Would I buy it today in preference to anything else? Absolutely. The improvements in Mark II – sensor dust removal apart – will be visible to academics only. But the 5D (Mk. I or II) only makes sense if you like to make Really Large Prints. For web display even a 2 megapixel P&S is fine.


The Canon 5D. A new era in equipment.

Innovation is not invention

Cameras

Those brilliant Japanese.

Talk of warranties requires that I point out that Joseph Juran died the other day at the grand age of 103. With W. Edwards Deming he taught the gospel of quality control to Japanese management and workers after World War II. Why the Japanese? Because when he tried to teach Americans he invariably found the bosses stayed away and sent only low level workers to his lectures. To this day Detroit has not learned the lesson that quality starts at the top.

Today ‘Made in Japan’ is a touchstone of quality whereas ‘Made in Detroit’ is what ‘Made in Japan’ was in 1945.

But it isn’t just quality that distinguishes Japanese products.

It is also innovation.

Yet you still hear that old saw that the Japanese are mere copyists and incapable of innovating.

Never mind that while GM’s CEO just stated that he is going to devote more time to lobbying (read – going to Washington with his right hand out, the other in the taxpayers’ pocket), Honda is test marketing a hydrogen powered car in Los Angeles. It comes complete with a device that plugs into the natural gas line at home and makes hydrogen for the car. Washington will doubtless try to quash this innovation as there go all those gasoline taxes. Much the way in which Detroit destroyed rail travel in the US. For all its talk of free competition America still loves monopolies and cartels. Can you say Microsoft? A company which never learned the meaning of quality and which could learn a lot from the likes of Juran and his followers.

Look at camera gear. The last innovation out of Germany was the wonderful view/rangefinder in the Leica M3 -1954, though designed in 1938 or so. No need to dwell on the reasons for the delay. No, it had nothing to do with quality.

The Japanese? Look at some of the functions in cameras which they have perfected. The SLR instant return mirror, auto diaphragms, auto-focus, matrix metering, all sorts of viewfinder displays, linear focusing motors, affordable aspherical lenses, miniscule motor drives, eye controlled focus (beats me why Canon ceased offering that – the camera would focus where the eye was looking – sheer genius), image stabilization, face detection, smile detection, tiny mass storage devices, LCD screens. Amazing stuff. Great innovation.


The elegant and affordable Pentax Spotmatic – the camera whose maker made the instant return mirror a reality.

Innovation is not invention. Innovation is bringing the invention to market in quantity at an affordable price with a guarantee of quality. Juran knew that. Anyone can invent.

So next time your neighbor tells you the Japanese are copycats, just purr away in your hydrogen powered car, your magical Japanese DSLR in the glove compartment, leaving a trail of water droplets in his driveway while he ponders the challenge of a refill at $10 a gallon to drive his Detroit steel to the repair shop.

But there is hope. It seems that NASA gets it.

A cheap remote for the Canon 5D

Canon 5D

Guess from where!

A wireless remote shutter release is a handy thing to have. I use one with an ancient Olympus 5050 for the Christmas family snap. That Olympus has more shutter delay than you want to know about, so it’s an exercise in frustration. Further, I would guess the much used Oly’s years are numbered (the plastic focus and zoom racks are the first to go in these P&S digitals) and whenever I want to include myself in a landscape picture it means resorting to the delayed action on the 5D (hell to find with all those buttons) and run for it to try and get my Olympian physique placed just so in the frame.

I ruminated about a Canon 5D remote but once I saw the price ….

And that one is wired! OK, so it has a timer and will probably make your breakfast, but at that price I’ll eat at MacDonald’s, thanks. I seem to remember they listed a wireless version for some $500 and if you read on you will cease wondering why it’s no longer available.

I remember thinking about the interminable delay of the Olympus when taking this year’s family snap (it’s been bugging me for years), and checked ePrey shortly after. Well for $10.99 and $11.99 shipping from Hong Kong I decided the risk was acceptable and as I have had nothing but success with the incredible studio flash remote I bought a while back, so I pressed the ‘Buy It Now’ button and forgot about the whole thing.

Well, it arrived today and I must say the gadget is totally awesome! It’s radio frequency, not line of sight, which translates to tremendous, non-directional range. And if interference is an issue (your brand new BMW starts itself and goes off the road, say) you have sixteen radio channels (16!) to choose from.

A CR-2 Lithium battery (provided) goes in the remote and the camera-end receiver comes with a 23A battery installed.

With the antenna extended the range is quoted at 320 feet! I gave up at 105 feet which is the length of my hallway (it’s raining outside so a longer distance was … out of range). With the antenna retracted, which makes the transmitter easily pocketable, I got 75 feet.


A couple of small pieces of Velcro keep the receiver attached to the LCD shade on the back of the 5D.

So if you need a wireless remote for your DSLR because you want to avoid shutter lag or you don’t want to risk a coronary while running into your landscape snap, blow $22.98 on one of these. I have not checked but I would bet that this device is made for most DSLRs out there. Heck, the DSLRs are made in China anyway, no? The picture on the box shows the receiver attached to a Nikon D200 and, if it helps, the inventory check-off tab on the box provides options for five different connectors, though I must disappoint you by disclosing that my Chinese is not up to snuff to make sense of these.

When you press the button on the transmitter, the first pressure gets you a green LED on the transmitter. That means the transmitter and its battery are working. This changes to red to on further pressure to indicate activation but be warned that it changes to red whether you are in range or not. To make the camera end functional, you do have to press the button on the receiver, one of whose LEDs will glow red when you do that. Fear not. The instructions state that the stand-by life of the receiver’s battery is 1,000 hours if you forget to switch it off. Based on my experience with the strobe remote, I tend to believe what they write. Further pressure on the transmitter button will make the second LED on the receiver glow red, indicating it has received the signal to fire the shutter.

Further, by pressing the button on the transmitter for 3 seconds with the camera set to bulb, the camera’s shutter will open and remain open until you press the transmitter’s button again. Use mirror lock-up and we are talking minimal vibration here.

There’s more. Set your camera for continuous shooting, hold the transmitter button for 3 seconds and the 5D (or whatever) will bang away until you press the transmitter button again. Maybe there is an option for making your breakfast after all?

It’s OK, you are not taking a job from an American by buying Chinese – the American can (and does) make more on unemployment.

And yes, every time you try to open that wretched rubber flap on the 5D you will wonder how long it will take Messrs. Canon to Fix That Flap.

One final thought and a word of advice from the instruction sheet, and I quote: “When monitor light glitters, the battery will be vanished, change new battery”. You have been warned.

Leitz Trinovid binoculars

Leica, Photography

A useful accessory for outdoorsmen

A good pair of binoculars is a useful tool to have along in the countryside – a fine discovery tool for those photographers enamored of long lenses.

I struggled along with any number of numbingly awful ones as a kid until, some twenty years ago, I finally acquired the ne plus ultra of binoculars, the Leitz Trinovid 7 x 42B. These remain the only piece of Leitz equipment in the family unless you count the lens on the Lumix LX1, allegedly made by Leica (their involvement was probably limited to design only).

These are distinguished in several aspects of their design. First, as is always the case with products of Leitz Wetzlar (those made through 1965 or so, that is), are the optics. Raise these to your eyes and Wow! You will never look through another binocular again. Second, the large inlet glass, 42mm in diameter, is a boon in poor light. Third, the field of view is exceptionally wide making finding subjects that much easier. Fourth, the 7x magnification is just right – not too high (shakes!) not too low (useless). And finally the construction is like they used to make them. Leatherette covers a light alloy chassis, special prisms constrain the bulk and the feel is like nothing since that 1960 Leica M2 I used for many years in film days of yore. A sensual delight. The ‘B’ designation means that the exit pupil is very large. Stated in English, if you wear glasses, as I do, you will be delighted.

Leica makes binoculars to this day. For all I know they even focus automatically – yeccch! They are ugly to look at, with all that fake machismo effect created by ridiculous rubber casings serving only to cheapen the aesthetics. I haven’t tried a pair nor will I. I already have the best. If you are in the market for a pair of binoculars, try and search out a good used set of these. Mine are not for sale!

Canon 5D – time to wait

Canon 5D

A few months’ patience will save hundreds


It’s not hard to guess what the Mark II version of Canon’s 5D will be like. If the upgrades to the current pro (1D Mark III and 1Ds Mark III) and amateur (Digital Rebel, D40) models are any guide, expect to see sensor dust removal technology, a slightly faster frame rate and a 3” diagonal LCD screen replacing the current 2.5” one. Who knows, the new screen may even be readable in daylight.

Will the sensor be upgraded? Well, the full frame pro model (1Ds Mk III) migrated from 16.7 to 21.1 megapixels, so maybe the 5D Mark II gets an upgrade from 12.8 to 16.7? It really does not matter. First I think it’s unlikely as there is too much risk of cannibalization of the $7,000 top model compared with the $3,000 or so to be charged for the new 5D. Secondly, the 5D’s sensor is already recognized by many to be superior to the old 16.7 megapixel one in the 1Ds Mark II, so marketing may dictate the change, image quality does not. Canon’s sensors in their DSLRs are already so far ahead of the competition that incremental changes reflect the law of diminishing returns.

The point of all of this is simple. Today a new 5D (Mark I) body can be bought from a reputable retailer for $2,200. The used market sees mint bodies selling for $1,700, give or take $100. A 24% discount, say. Now I’m a huge fan of buying used as that means someone else has paid the depreciation for you and you save money at very low risk. If the new 5D comes out at something like the $3,000 I paid for my new Mark I (no used ones were available at the time), I can see the used market dropping another 10%, making a mint used ‘obsolete’ Mark I some $1,500, or half the price of a new Mark II.

“But there’s no warranty on a used product” you cry. Well, first read this then find a good mint used model. The odds are very much on your side. Remember, all insurance (e.g. warranties) is nothing more than a play on human gullibility and fear, the latter seldom supported by objective analysis.

If I’m right about the enhancements in the Mark II, unless you need dust removal or a larger (probably every bit as useless) LCD screen and those are worth $1,500 to you, have at it. I would suggest the better course of action is to wait 3-4 months and pick up a used mint Mark I for less than half the price of a new Mark II. The $1,500 can buy you two or three great primes from Canon which, I can assure you, are optically in a different class from the zooms, to say nothing of their compactness. Alternatively, you can blow the change on a few tankfulls of gas for your car ….

Back in May I wrote that a $2,500 budget couldn’t get you into a full frame DSLR kit. Well, that is no longer correct, which is great news. Your $2,500 gets you a mint used 5D body ($1,500, say, in a few months’ time), the ultra-wide 17-40mm L zoom (they are giving it away at $650 new) and the drop-dead fabulous 85mm f/1.8 portrait lens ($320). That’s $2,470.