Canon 5D mk II official owners/users thread, anything related to the 5D2

Love the 5D2, but dissappointed with the amount of noise at 400 ISO. On the up side, Nik noise reduction or Topaz de-noise wouldn't have rid the noise so well if I still had the MK1 IMHO. The first shot is a zoomed in crop to show noise on the shot as taken.

The 2nd shot is a similar zoomed in crop to show how Topaz de-noise 4 coped with dealing with it. However. I'm a little dissappointed that there is this much noise at 400 ISO. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong? Any thoughts welcomed.


original.jpg


denoise.jpg
 
david1701 said:
that is a lot of noise I was shooting at 4000 earlier and it was usable
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Tis worrying, you willing to post an example David1701, so I can compare?

I used AV mode for the shot above and was on a moving boat. But the exposure wasn't far out. The second pic after some basic adjustments in ACR were levels, Topaz de Noise and a little sharpening using the USM filter at 15 for the amount, 60 for Radius and 0 for threshhold (NoBS de-fog):shrug:
 
here one from me something wrong with yours if it that much noise at iso 400..

iso 3200 no sharpening no flash just the lights through a big window plus indoor light's
took with canon 100-400 from about 12 meters away

4635142638_c5abf3a97f.jpg


just noticed yousaid crop in your pic HOW much crop as the pic i posted no crop
 
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chilliz said:
Your image looks underexposed and underexposure causes excessive noise. I have never had a noise issue at all, in fact the lack of noise is astonishing.
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agreed - i wonder if the processing has amplified the noise.

@NigelPaul do you have the original raw file we could take a look at?
 
NigelPaul said:
Perhaps I'm doing something wrong? Any thoughts welcomed.
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Looking at your exposure EXIF - 1/3200, f/9, 400 ISO, you have an exposure that would work well for lighting conditions 1.3 stops brighter than full, direct sunshine. It is unusual to find conditions in nature which are that bright. It does look like the crane(?) is sunlit, so I would say a standard "Sunny 16" exposure would be a good starting point, but you are 1.3 stops darker than that. So your shot is more like shooting at 1,000 ISO, but without the benefit of lower read noise from using the higher ISO to begin with. However, 1,000 ISO is not a good choice either, since the camera exposes at 800 ISO and then brightens the exposure in camera, which will also increase noise, but 0.3 stops of underexposure is better than 1.3 stops.

Furthermore, shooting at 70mm, I wonder why you felt the need to shoot at 1/3200, or have the ISO at 400 to begin with. I'm sure you would have got far more agreeable results at 1/200, 100 ISO, f/11. Your exposure would have been far closer to where it should have been and noise would be a total non issue.

I'd be interested to understand why you chose the exposure settings you did. What did the histogram look like, prior to editing?

BTW, I don't use Photoshop, but assuming you shot raw and used ACR to process the file, if it's anything like Lightroom then everything gets a light dose of sharpening by default, including edges, textures and noise. I would advise increasing the sharpening mask a little so that sharpening is reduced in the areas that should be plain and flat, and not require sharpening at all.
 
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Thanks for the replies everone in response to my post.

Paul Rogers: Yes it is a heavy crop I admit but the noise was noticable on the uncropped file :shrug:

Chilliz. Yes, I agree that exposure is under, but still didn't expect that much noise srom 5D2 ;)

Cuthbert: I can do a screen grab, but unsure how to link a Raw file? :help:

tdodd: I set the camera in AV mode and initaally chose f11 for a deeper dof.
I chose iso 400 as I was on a moving boat and wanted fast shutter speeds for when the sun went in.(And as being a 5d2 I wasn't expecting any noise).
I obviosly knocked the wheel by accident to have f9:bonk:

I will post the histogram later on this eve.

Thanks again everyone. Any other thoughts in the meantime would be great.
 
Screen grab of file in ACR.
Def just over a stop under.

Untitled-2.jpg
 
That's your main problem. Underexposing by 1 stop at 400 ISO will look worse than exposing correctly at 800 ISO. Obviously underexposing by more than 1 stop will look worse than that. Like I said, even for conditions of bright sunshine you are underexposed by 1.3 stops, so in the conditions you have here you may even be underexposed by a little more than that. I also noticed you had -2/3 EC dialed in. Was that deliberate. or accidental, because clearly it was not needed for his scene?

As for f/9 vs f/11, of course f/9 is brighter than f/11, so while it might harm your DOF a little, it would not have contributed to underexposure. Oh, and regarding the boat, it looks to me like you were on a large enough vessel for the sea conditions, so I doubt you needed 1/3200. If you had shot at 1/1250 you would have addressed the underexposure and I'm sure still had plenty of shutter speed to combat a little shake.
 
Cheers tdodd, agree definately user error, so hopefully not a dodgy camera.
Didn't know I had -2/3 EC either. :bonk:

Thanks so much for your contribution. (y)

Need to take a bit more time and think harder :nuts:
 
I've just also noticed you were using SPOT metering, which can throw exposures around wildly if you don't pay attention to what you are aiming at. Spot metering is really intended to be used for very precise metering, but you need to take charge of letting the camera know whether the target you are metering from is darker or lighter than a middle tone. It looks to me like the "SPOT" will have picked up that lighter patch of cloud surrounding the crane, as well as the white writing on the crane, so along with the -2/3 you had dialed in I think the underexposure can be easily explained.

20100524_202047_.JPG


Also, don't forget to have a look at the raw sharpening parameters and if there is a setting for a sharpening mask then try setting it to around 30-40 instead of 0.
 
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spot metering is amazing but needs apropriate compensation and often meter - lock - recompose (what I have half press front button set to)
 
tdodd said:
I've just also noticed you were using SPOT metering, which can throw exposures around wildly if you don't pay attention to what you are aiming at. Spot metering is really intended to be used for very precise metering, but you need to take charge of letting the camera know whether the target you are metering from is darker or lighter than a middle tone. It looks to me like the "SPOT" will have picked up that lighter patch of cloud surrounding the crane, as well as the white writing on the crane, so along with the -2/3 you had dialed in I think the underexposure can be easily explained.

20100524_202047_.JPG


Also, don't forget to have a look at the raw sharpening parameters and if there is a setting for a sharpening mask then try setting it to around 30-40 instead of 0.
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YES! I was going to mention this on my last post, but worried I'd say something to make me look even more of a numpty :puke:

I focused on the writing, and perhaps I should have used matrix rather than spot. (Hope matrix isn't a Nikon term, but if it is then whatever the Canon equivelent ;) )

I normally shoot people, and use spot metering at weddings and never thought of checking this! :bang:
 
NigelPaul said:
YES! I was going to mention this on my last post, but worried I'd say something to make me look even more of a numpty :puke:

I focused on the writing, and perhaps I should have used matrix rather than spot. (Hope matrix isn't a Nikon term, but if it is then whatever the Canon equivelent ;) )

I normally shoot people, and use spot metering at weddings and never thought of checking this! :bang:
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Matrix is a Nikon term, Canon calls it evaluative.

It's basically dozens of spot meter readings taken from all over the frame. In this way, the camera can calculate the average scene brightness, the dynamic range, the dominant tones, and where they are located.

That is hugely more data than any other method and armed with that information, the camera the interrogates its database and compares the image to a distillation of thousands of typical scenes. It knows for example, that landscapes quite often have an area of bright sky at the top, so it compensates automatically. But it's much more sophisticated than that and is surprisingly accurate.

At the very least, evaluative will always give you an exposure that is close enough to be moderated with slight adjustment to the +/- compensation control. Check the LCD and histogram - that's what they're there for. No guesswork invloved with those, that's an actual exposure, not an estimate calculated by the metering system.

Spot metering is very hard to use accurately, it needs a high level of knowledge and experience.
 
Some more new firmware tweaks just announced. Nothing very exciting though, this is what Canon say about it.

This firmware update (Version 2.0.7) incorporates the following improvements and fixes.

1.Fixes a phenomenon in which the aperture exhibits abnormal movement when shooting movies in manual exposure mode and Aperture Priority AE (Av mode) using some Canon lenses (such as macro lenses).
2.Fixes a phenomenon in which the exposure level shown in the LCD panel differs from what is shown in the viewfinder when shooting still images in manual exposure mode.
3.Fixes a phenomenon in which the Wireless File Transmitter (WFT-E4 or WFT-E4 II) may not automatically power off when used for FTP transfers.
These phenomenon only occur with the Version 2.0.4 and Version 2.0.3 firmware.

The Version 2.0.7 firmware being released this time is for cameras with firmware up to Version 2.0.4. If the camera's firmware is already Version 2.0.7, it is not necessary to update the firmware.

Download here http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/firm-e/eos5dmk2/firmware.html
 
The movie shooters will be pleased as they've been mashing their collective teeth since 2.0.4 at the aperture feature. Good to see canon are keeping up with the updates however i'm still holding out for a decent auto ISO upgrade!
 
Probably mentioned elsewhere in here but thought I'd jump in as a Nikon shooter to say how amazed I was with the image quality of the 5D MKII video, as demonstrated by the season finale of House on sunday just gone. Never seen footage outside of a web compressed film so to see it broadcast in full on HD really made it shine. Very very impressed.
 
The 5D2 is a legend in the pro/serious amateur video market for being able to produce HD video (at 24p with the latest firmware) at a quality that equals or betters dedicated video kit costing several times more. You only have to look at the plethora of DSLR Steadicam-type rigs to see the level of interest in DSLR video.

Canon will be exploiting this market for all its worth - they'll shift a lot of 5D2's to people who want it for its video capability first and foremost. Hence the effort that's gone in to releasing firmware updates to improve the video functionality.

Better auto ISO would be nice, but it probably wouldn't result in increased sales for Canon, so I wouldn't expect to see it high up on their priority list.

A.
 
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WOW the mirror slap is like an artilary shell compared to the rattle of my 9mm 50D.
 
The 1.4x II is here for the 70-200. First impressions are that it's great! I haven't had much chance to play with it but my initial shots don't seem to be degraded in IQ by very much at all - they still seem to be pin sharp and, rather nicely, the AF is still really fast too. All in all, it's a nice addition.

 
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Just experienced the flash, shutter curtain sync problem, *** have been talking about, it was til I looked back on 10 or so shots that I realised the dark right edge of the exposure. I can't remember if I saw it or not, but is there a firmware out to correct this??
Tres annoying!

Still loving the camera ***!!!
 
The native flash sync speed of the 5D2 is only 1/200, and with some wireless triggers it will only sync at 1/160. Are you saying you cannot even achieve those speeds? I don't think there has ever been a firmware release to do anything with the sync speed. It is what it is. If you want better than 1/200 then the 5D2 is not the camera for you.
 
No it while I with a friend studio equiptment, I realise I was getting a dark edge on the right hand side of the shot. It was really bad at 250, and still visible at 200, so maybe I will only be able to sync it at 160th..... Ah well
 
tysing said:
No it while I with a friend studio equiptment, I realise I was getting a dark edge on the right hand side of the shot. It was really bad at 250, and still visible at 200, so maybe I will only be able to sync it at 160th..... Ah well
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I've never shot with studio strobes, only Speedlites, but from the little I have read, I thought people would typically shoot in the studio at around 1/125, since the studio would be darkened and ambient light would not be an issue. Is there a (good) reason you need to shoot at faster than 1/160 with studio strobes?
 
tysing said:
No it while I with a friend studio equiptment, I realise I was getting a dark edge on the right hand side of the shot. It was really bad at 250, and still visible at 200, so maybe I will only be able to sync it at 160th..... Ah well
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Max x-sync is 1/200sec. If you go faster than that, you will get a dark band at the bottom of the picture (camera held horizontally) which is a shadow of the second shutter blind returning ahead of schedule.

It sounds like you were using a studio radio trigger. These introduce a tiny delay and as Tim says you will need to knock it down to 1/160sec at least, probably 1/125sec to be safe. Some tiggers with duff batteries are well slow.

This reduced sync speed is a timing thing, not mechanical, so in theory it could be sorted, though maybe not just with firmware. The new auto-TTL Pocket Wizard radio triggers can actually increase the x-sync slightly above 1/200sec but only to 1/300sec or something. It's a limitation fundamental to all focal plane shutters.
 
Ahhhh.............now to sit back and read through this lot:D
 
Just read from about page 5 through... 5DII will (hopefully) be delivered tomorrow courtesy of Wuffstuff.

Are people still finding issues with non-Canon batteries or are most of them on the market now the 'chipped' sort?


Dave
 
I can't speak for others, but I'm yet to find a chipped non-canon battery.

Having said that, you could shoot an entire wedding on a single battery in a 5d Mark II, so having a single spare battery is about all you'd ever need.
 
markrichardson said:
I can't speak for others, but I'm yet to find a chipped non-canon battery.

Having said that, you could shoot an entire wedding on a single battery in a 5d Mark II, so having a single spare battery is about all you'd ever need.
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Went to a show the other day, fully charged canon battery shot 874 photos with 39% battery left and half of those useing a 300mm with IS on & back screen on & the other half with ab 70-200 none IS.

Bought 2 batteries off ebay for £18 inc charger and neither of them charge so sending those back and going to buy 1 Official canon battery its worth it tbh.
 
mine came the other day, and I'm pleased with the results so far.
 
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