The Canon 5D Mark II's illustrious career is coming to an end. The DSLR, which Canon Rumors calls "Quite possibly the most popular and influential DSLR in history," has been added to Canon's official list of discontinued EOS products over in Japan.
Astrophotography enthusiast Don Marcotte wanted to find out whether the Canon 6D or Canon 5D Mark III was more suitable for his area of photography, so he pitted the two cameras against one another in a few noise tests at his local camera store. He simply shot long exposures without any light (the cap was on) in order to see how much noise would show up in the frame.
If you’ve been wondering how the Canon 6D compares to the 5D lineup in terms of size, control layout, …
San Diego-based photographer Robert Benson had a curious problem a while back. He had a $6,500 Leica Noctilux 50mm f/1 lens, but no camera to use it on. Not being able to afford the Leica M9 at the time (and unsure if he wanted to ever buy one), he decided to make massive modifications to his Canon 5D Mark II so that it would accept any Leica M lens without needing an adapter. The frankencamera above is what emerged from the brand-change operation.
Two interesting Canon rumors are currently floating around. The first has to do with the 46MP DSLR that Canon is reportedly field testing and may be planning to unveil in late October. Northlight Images received a tip saying the camera's body will be 1D-X-esque:
In an update to the high MP info, we're told that a camera will eventually appear in a 1D X derived body, in the same way as the 1D C. The information said that the actual designation was not known, but it would essentially be a '1 series'. There was also a warning that there would be a long wait between any 'preview' and any cameras being annouced and subsequently shipping.
If true, this means Canon is going for the larger pro-style body rather than following after Nikon's 36.3MP D800.
The folks over at NoFilmSchool recently did a low light comparison of the Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 5D Mark III, and Nikon D800. The cameras were used to film the same dark candlelit scene with the same settings, and the ISO was slowly pushed up to the cameras' respective limits.
Photographer Clemens Wirth wanted to dive into microscopy, so he attached his Canon …
London-based photographer David Wilman recently did some experiments in which he used a Canon 5D Mark II as a digital back for his MPP 4x5 large format camera. He placed his lens-less 5D at the back of the camera at the film plane and then placed a black cloth over the two cameras to prevent any light from spilling onto the sensor. Light from the Schneider Kreuznach Xenar 4.5/150mm lens entered straight into the open mirror box of the DSLR without any physical link between the two cameras. Wilman was surprised to discovered that this pairing produced quite a respectable macro setup.
Director Jason Bognacki had a Contessa-Nettel Piccolette German folding camera from 1919 sitting around on his shelf for ages, and decided one day to bring it back to life by attaching it to his Canon 5D Mark II.
Here’s a helpful video that shows how you can optimize your Canon DSLR for video recording based on …
Nikon caused a stir this past weekend after it was revealed that a promo video shown during the D800's launch in Bangkok actually contained footage that was both used without permission and that wasn't even captured with a Nikon D800. After a recording of the promo was uploaded to YouTube in mid-February, people began coming forward with reports that Nikon had used their videos without permission.
For a recent advertising campaign to bring attention to its hydrogen-powered cars, Mercedes-Benz decided to make a car “invisible” …
A Swedish hacker and robotics student named Björn Mabrö is claiming that he has successfully developed a custom firmware for the Canon 5D Mark II that adds Apple's Siri voice assistant to the DSLR. Mabrö claims that the hack allows the camera to respond to 124 different voice commands that control everything from the shutter to changing values in settings.
Colin Mika and Brandon Vedder of All Cut Up Films created this amazing …
Many extreme athletes these days use helmet-mounted HD cameras for photos and videos captured from a first person point of view, but photographer Justin Olsen does things a little differently: he uses a chest-mounted DSLR. Using a custom rig created for him by a local sewing shop, Olsen snaps his unique photos using a 15mm on a Canon 1D Mark III or a 5D Mark II, and a PocketWizard to trigger the shutter wirelessly.
On 11/11/11, Gerald Donovan aimed his Canon 5D Mark II and 14mm f/2.8 at Downtown Dubai and set it …
Photographer Samuel Cockedey spent a year photographing the …
Here’s a test comparing the 1080p HD video recording capabilities of the iPhone 4S and the Canon 5D Mark …
Flickr user Alex12Ga turned his Canon 5D Mark II into a DIY digital view camera by mounting a Novar-Anastigmat 75mm f/3.5 lens from 1949 with its original bellows. He mounted the bellows to his camera using an aluminum plate and an EOS mount ring that he salvaged from a broken Sigma lens.
It’s no secret that Hollywood directors are using DSLRs more and more these days to film scenes that traditional …
Film student Zach King and his sister made this creative mock commercial for the Macbook Air using a Canon 5D Mark II, some string and a lot of imagination.
Here’s yet another painful-to-watch example of what the powerful lasers used at concerts can do to your …
Apparently some people are becoming so rich through China’s economic boom that they’re …
Photographer Josh Owens spent a little over a month staying at various hotels …
Reddit user Bryce Hoeper recently broke an old Zeiss Ikon Contina L he purchased for $7 from Goodwill after it took a nasty tumble down some stairs. After being bummed for a while, he stumbled upon Timur Civan's experiment with sticking a 102-year old lens on a modern DSLR, and decided to attempt the same thing. He spent a few hours taking apart the camera body to extract the lens, then super glued it to a Canon body cap that he cut a hole in, allowing the lens to be mounted to his Canon 5D Mark II.
Between late 2010 and early 2011, photographer Dominic Boudreault visited Montreal, Quebec City, …
This time-lapse video was shot by Nate Bolt using a Canon 5D Mark II, a 16-35mm lens, a tripod, and an intervalometer on an Air France flight from San Francisco to Paris. The camera snapped a photo every 2-30 seconds throughout the 11 hour flight, roughly capturing one photo every two miles of the journey.
Cinematographer James Miller spent two years developing a technique for converting 8mm footage to digital by beaming it directly onto the sensor of a Canon 5D Mark II. He replaced the bulb on an old projector with LED lights, and used elements from a disassembled lens to focus the light. You can read a step-by-step walkthrough of this project here.
When's the last time you saw some amateur video shot from inside North Korea? There's a good chance the answer is never, given how secretive the country is and how tight the policies are for what outsiders are allowed to do. Photojournalist Steve Gong, however, captured some really high quality video from inside the country using a Canon 5D Mark II.
Do you like movies that make you think and make more sense the second time around? If so, “Tick …
High quality video on consumer DSLRs is changing how journalism is being done. Kevin Roach, the VP of In …
urbanscreen discovered this strange string-wobble effect when shooting a bass player with a …
You know you’re a professional photojournalist when you try to take good care of your cameras but they still …
Davy and Kristin McGuire created a magical …
This is a low budget music video directed by sixtwelve for the song "The Better Man" by Cayetano, and filmed with a Canon 5D Mark II. The story centers around an old Polaroid 636 received as a birthday present.
You may have heard that the Canon 5D Mark II has been used to film an episode of "House" on FOX. Now NBC is using a 7D for an upcoming Christmas episode of "Community". On Thursday, Dec. 9th, 2010, they're going old school and doing a Rudolph-esque claymation episode.
Tor Even Mathisen created this stunning timelapse video of the …
Surf wear maker Rip Curl recently teamed up with Timeslice Films for an ambitious project of shooting surfers in "bullet-time", the effect that many people first saw in The Matrix. They used a crazy camera array of 52 Canon 5D Mark II Rebel DSLRs in order to capture the same shot from 52 different angles, stringing them together for the final footage.
Back in 2009 there were rumors that the upcoming Iron Man 2 would make use of Canon's 5D Mark II DSLR for certain scenes, and now details are emerging as to how exactly the the camera was used.
Cinematographer Matthew Libatique used 5D Mark II DSLRs to shoot parts of the Monaco Grand Prix scene in the movie in which Tony Stark is attacked by Ivan Vanko (AKA Whiplash) at the historic race. 5D Mark IIs were mounted to all four sides of a moving vehicle to capture moving background plate footage that was later combined with race car footage shot in Hollywood.
Photographer Timur Civan had a project that required vintage-looking photographs. Originally planning to shoot the project on a 4x5 large format camera, he abandoned that route after calculating the cost for equipment and processing. His lens technician friend then discovered a 1908 Wollensak 35mm F5.0 Cine-Velostigmat hand-cranked lens in a box of spare parts, and spent 6 hours helping him make the lens fit on an EF mount for Civan's 5D Mark II.