Yes ... i have tried the Canon 5D Mark II today :-)

[Mark K]

Thanks Frank
This is the first report from an A900 user.
Having lenses from three system, I have been always dreaming to have the three cameras all, A900, D700 and 5D.
As a 5D owner, I am still struggling to accept the image quality of 5D II. 5D II shows improvement in overall speed despite the minimal 0.9 fps quoted. It is lighter with a large LCD screen as my A700. The video shooting is exhausting, requiring tripod all the time unless you want to provoke seizure from your audience. As more and more people around me are getting 5D II, I will definitely do a more serious shoot out
Still difficult to pull my trigger for A900, because of the noise

[David Kilpatrick]

Be aware, as I have found, that the 5D MkII high ISO from 3200 up is not as good as it appears to be. I have streaks across skies and a pattern of vertical and horizontal lines is visible in plain dark tones at 3200-6400. I did not even try the boosted speeds to 25600 as the results from 6400 already had this kind of stuff appearing. But below 3200, the files look clean. Some users and claiming the patterns are there at lower speeds but you would need to abuse the camera by underexposing several stops and trying to correct the result, in order to see them. Just don't assume it's going to 6400+ elegantly!

David

[David Kilpatrick]

Here is an example with the Nikon at ISO 200 and the Canon at ISO 100, which gives the Canon an unfair advantage - drilling down to locate the source of the pattern noise present in Canon files, but not present in Nikon (or Sony):



It is worth the time to view the full size image:

http://www.pbase.com/davidkilpatrick/image/108176452

Some people will no doubt find the Nikon sky at ISO 200 unacceptably noisy, much like the Alpha 900. Yes, it is. Both cameras have much more obtrusive noise in low ISO blue sky tones than the Canon appears to have, but in reality the Canon firmware is processing out a considerable level of noise of a much worse kind, and still not managing to get rid of the traces.

David

[David Kilpatrick]

Well, I'm not knocking the Nikon - the blues have high levels of red channel noise, like the Alpha, and it's probably down to the filter set on the sensor - but overall the Nikon files stay very consistent and clean. In practice the Alpha files while pretty wild in terms of chroma noise next to Nikon are also surprisingly homogeneous. If anything I am knocking the Canon, but there's no doubt it delivered some superb low light shots with very little trouble.

Here's what I hit when cranking the 5D MkII up to 6400 - and this is also why I didn't even bother to experiment with the boosted settings (this picture was not needed, but most of the pix I was taking were for a commercial purpose or use in the local paper. I reverted to using ISO 1600 as a maximum with this camera, just the same as I would with the Alpha 900, but I honestly think this is some of the worst-looking noise I've seen from a current DSLR:



Again, the original really deserves a full size view. The uneven streaks and stuff are very clear. You can also see the asymmetric sharpening artefact which Canon users have been calling black dots, now removed by a firmware fix:

http://www.pbase.com/davidkilpatrick/image/108178023



This is a 100 per cent crop, edited the post because the reduced size hardly shows the effect.

I have the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 HSM for Alpha coming on Saturday. This lens is truly amazing - I had the Nikon version last weekend (still got it, they can go back together). I may see what I can do with high ISO on the 900 with the Sigma. My personal view is that Sony should have done what Nikon did, and rated the 900 as a 100-1600 camera not a 200-3200 camera.

David

[fastson]

Regarding the ugly noise banding in the 5D MkII, wasnt that fixed in the new firmware or did I dream that bit?

[David Kilpatrick]

I don't think the firmware fix has removed everything (my camera went back before the firmware upgrade was announced). The banding most users were complaining about was more obvious, and in a vertical direction in shadows, where what I found was almost a checkerboard pattern and affecting midtones as well. I'll have see whether Canon want to send a revised firmware body for a second look - or just some raw files.

David

[David Kilpatrick]

The difference is, Don, that the Canon produced consistent banding in all images and it was a type of pattern noise. We don't know if it had been fixed fully, users are divided on that. We do know that the A900 does not consistently produce banding artefacts and there's been no need to 'fix' them as they are not present. You have found one example, which also happens to be an example I put up for bad sky noise.

I'm interested in some of the work the Russians are doing (as reported by Iliah Borg) because it may reveal the reasons for Sony's high noise levels.

David

[David Kilpatrick]

At least you are admitting the high Sony noise levels.
-Sonolta

I'm not blind, as I said a while back!

But I would take the A900 with high noise levels over the 5D MkII any day. The D3X - if the sensor/processor was in an A900 body, I would prefer it, of course. It works better than Sony's version. But in the massive non-ergonomic lump it currently has for home, no thanks. I'd rather have the usable, portable, friendly A900.

David

[David Kilpatrick]

Try it in gloves. Nothing beats the A900 in ski gloves!

I can get along with most button, even the very small tightly spaced Canon ones, but the A900 is fantastic for my eyesight. Everything is so BIG that I do no need either to remove, or put on, specs. I can see it all blurred, even the top LCD. Now I can not view the Nikon top or lower LCDs on the D3X without exactly the right correction (specs). The Canon is midway. The Sony is just brilliant for anyone with poor accommodation. Another ten or twenty years down the line, you'll know what this is about. The A900 is a fantastic camera for senior citizens. I'm not there yet but I can see the difference it makes.

David

[InTheSky]

wow ! i come back from business travel and what happen ! eavy traffic of discussion in my first post .

Well, again a very good thanks for you David and all you analysis on those cameras.

I'm totally agree, for being a man living in Quebec, where we have real winter (now this week the temperature has not go higher than -20 (average of about -25c..) you understand what is a camera easy to use in very cold condition.

I will say too, that you can easily not remove you eye from the viewfinder and easily change the setting.

the joystick is working event with very big gloves in your hand.

I think Sony is the winner for that, and make them very attractive for professional wild life photograph .

The series of picture i have took with the Bigma Sigma was at -20 for about 1h30. Marching in heavy snow and big glove (yes my neighborhood will become to think, what is this guys ... )/

For the bandage I'm agree too. Even my best friend when he bought the Canon 5D in the past, was a little bit perplex with the bandage effect in the picture. Almost like if the sensor is doing kind of double scanning on the picture. Is it possible that canon is doing that ... processing in kind of interlacing the picture?

Regards,

Frank