Canon EOS 5D 12.8 MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)

This camera is awesome. It is great in low light and I can still ghost images which I prefer doing. I've gone to the dark side (digital) and I really enjoy it. This is my first DSLR.

The first time I saw the Canon EOS 5D was back in 2005, shortly after it was released. To me, it represented the logical digital version of a full-frame 35mm SLR at a fraction of the cost of the top-of-the-line offerings from Canon and Nikon. I purchased the kit, which includes the EF 24-105mm zoom lens, for a trip to Japan, with the intent of using this as my primary walk around camera. It performed as expected: the 24mm wide angle was very useful, as was the 105mm. Resolution, color balance, etc. were very good to excellent. Indoor exposures with ISO 400 were excellent, and IS system worked well, since I did not bring a tripod. (I also brought the 100mm macro lens and 100-400mm zoom lens from Canon for the trip).

I have researched for one of the best DSLR cameras without breaking the bank and have found it in the 5D model. A very flexible camera, truly a masterpiece for shooting landscapes and portraits as well as anything in between, the 5D fulfills any needs I had prior to owning it. My only wish is that it had a more flexible bracketing system, such as 5 frames bracketing instead of 3 frames. Still, worth its weight in gold, the 5D is the one DSLR I would recommend for any job and for any serious amateur or pro photographer out there.

The EOS 5D is a terrific digital SLR. Its price point isn't for everyone but if you're a very serious amateur or want to upgrade to a camera that's pretty close to the 1D professional version (several thousand dollars more) - this is the camera. It has far more features than I am familiar with for the time being - but it is not hard to learn. I recommend it if you're really serious about photography. The Amazon price, shipping, and business dealings are excellent.

Beeing a Nikon guy it was a big step for me to move on to Canon. I had a Nikon D70S which was a good camera for me for a long time.

The menu/navigation system was easy to adapt, so no problems there. And it didn't take long before I understood I had a much much better camera in my hands. Without going into details, the image quality is simply very very good. I love this camera.

A thing I hvae noticed is that while the D70S needed very accurate settings for both shutter time and F-numbers in order to take good pictures, the 5D gives good pictures for a wide range of shutter times and F-numbers. Sounds a bit strange, but that's my experience.

I took a lot of pictures late in the evening and using 1600 ISO, the quality was still very good. I have notices that people try ISO 1600 and above when it is good light conditions. Note! This will not tell you anything about how the camera is at high ISO values with little light. You need to have little light to check how good the high ISOs are. And 1600 ISO gave smooth images with this camera.

Battery time was good. I took about 600 images over 3 weeks before it turned flat.

Note! This camera don't have a internal blitz, which off course is because it is a pro camera, but still its good for you to know...

Well. There is 1 problem with this camera. The focus points. They are as other say, centered to near the middle, so very often I need to crop the image in other ways than I had intended, often giving lot of air above the object. Typically I want to focus on the face, giving a lot of blue sky above the head. This is actually very irritating. Also the navigation for focus points are idiotic - every time I want to change focus pint I need to click this tiny button in the corner, before using the keypad. This means that I must move the camera away from my eyes every time I want to change point. Argg... It is also very hard to find the right focus point.

Ahhh, and I just loved the full size CMOS. No more x 1.5 for me!!!

Almost perfect this camera!