Heather and I have both owned the Canon 5DMKII now for around 4 years and I would have to say it’s been an all around great camera with no limitations. I know a lot has changed since we dropped a large sum of cash for these two bodies, but this camera is the gift that keeps on giving. I would still recommend this camera and now that the Canon 5D MKIII is out the price has dropped dramatically making it still a serious item in the market. As a CANON 5DMKII owner, I see the new 5DMKIII as a gap camera, but if you don’t have the CANON 5DMKII and your considering a new camera, I would defiantly look into the MKIII. Canon has given it loads of new autofocus points, 1 more megapixel, which at 22 is nothing to sneeze at, and loads of other features to improve performance and usability.
Check the prices (Canon EOS 5D Mark III | Amazon)
WHY I WOULD BUY THE CANON 5DMKII –
Four years ago this was the camera to own, it was a game changer, and for those that own one now it still holds it’s place. The full frame sensor makes amazing use of all of canons beautiful lenses. Giving you an incredible amount of sharpness and at the same time the creamy out of focus areas that film had. It’s durable and feels great in your hand with no cheesy bits or pieces to mess around with. It had and still has one of the best video for dSLR shooters, and because of it’s popularity not only as a video camera, but as a still camera as well, loads of accessories have been made for MKII. The file sizes are huge which means prints are great. We’ve shot photos which were printed as billboards with no problem. All in all, it’s everything I hopped it was when I bought it and the Canon 5DMKII still performs as the best camera in my arsenal.
WHAT WE WOULD USE THE CANON 5DMKII FOR –
EVERYTHING EXCEPT PROFESSIONAL SPORTS! (At 3.9fps, it’s not really a sports camera)
Seriously, there is no limitation as to what we have used this camera for, we have shot everything you can think of with the CANON 5DMKII, except for professional sports and underwater. I’m sure it would do fine underwater if we had a housing.
TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY: It has been our main travel photography camera, up until our recent trip where we decided to take our new FUJIFILM system. Check our our Fujifilm reviews!
PORTRAITS: In the studio it rocks. It has a SYNC CABLE PORT for connecting to lights! Which is something we still use regularly even though most systems are wireless now.
FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY: This is where I would really suggest it. For those that really want creamy out of focus areas when using a large Depth of Field, this is the camera for you. Full frame chips give you all that you want in that area, and for the price you can get the CANON 5DMKII at now, it really can’t be beat.
TIME LAPSE: Again the full frame chip and fast processor, makes the CANON 5DMKII a serious time lapse machine, check out my video JEBAL to see what I mean.
Jebel from Skyler & Heather Burt on Vimeo.
WHAT ANNOYS US –
Most people say that the lack of auto focus points was a big downside to the CANON 5DMKII when it came out and this has always been a hot point. For us we don’t care to use AF, but if it’s a big deal to you then consider the MKIII. The new MKIII has 61 AF points versus 9 in the CANON 5DMKII. The MKIII also has dual CF card and SD slots for more memory storage and 6 frames per second which is double that of the CANON 5DMKII.
Most of the food photography you see on this site is made with the CANON 5DMKII. Check out some of the travel photos we’ve made it!
Check the prices (Canon EOS 5D Mark II | Amazon)
Check the prices (Canon EOS 5D Mark III | Amazon)