5D vs 5DMK2 – ISO Comparison
- August 12th, 2010
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Today my Canon 5DMK2 DSLR arrived and I got busy with some comparison photos. The unit is a refurbished deal from Canon so I’ll be shooting a ton of frames to make sure everything is in proper working order before I send in my old, broke, Canon Powershot S410 for their recycling program. My first test was to provide a comparison, in a good light situation, of the detail differences between the Canon 5D and the Canon 5DMK2. This setup involved my tripod, a release cable plugged into one of my Pocket Wizard II+ transceivers, my Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens, and my oldest acoustic guitar with one of my amplifiers as a background. Both cameras were set to meter the scene’s average exposure in aperture priority (Av) mode with an f-stop of f/11. All images are direct conversions from the RAW files, and all noise reduction settings were turned off. The color temperature range for the full series of shots was +/- 75K. The 5DMK2 appears to be more saturated than the 5D for the same scene, light, and camera settings. My assumption is that this is a function of several different variables, one of which is likely the newer DIGIC processor. I actually took photos at every single ISO option available when the expanded ISO set is enabled in the custom functions menu but I decided to only post ISOs 100, 400, 800, 1600, and 3200 as direct comparisons. The high end, ISO 12800 and ISO 25600, of the 5DMK2 are also included just because I can.
The pictures can do the talking from here, slideshow below. The each ISO is displayed 5D first, 5DMK2 second. The final two slides are ISO 12800, and ISO 25600.
Flickr Slideshow



















