After running the new 5D Mark II through some successful testing yesterday, I opted to make it my primary camera on a shoot I did today for a regional magazine. The assignment was to shoot images to accompany a feature article on a high end steak house. I must say that I am very pleased with the results.

I paired the body with my main lens, the Canon 24-105 f4L, and went to work. I was assigned to get images of steak, a portrait of the manager and an interior shot of the restaurant. The camera performed flawlessly in taking on this task.

On the food and portrait settings I used monolights at ISO 100 just as I would have done with my original 5D, but on the restaurant interior I used existing lighting at ISO 1000. I would have never pushed the speed that high with the 5D but with the Mark II the results were fantastic.

The exposure and color represented in the RAW images straight out of the camera were great. I did very little adjustment in the RAW conversion. On the image shown above, the only editing I have done to it outside of the conversion in Adobe Camera Raw was to add a high pass sharpening layer.

The only thing I don’t like about the Mark II as of now is that I don’t have a battery grip. I have been using grips on my cameras for 25+ years (I had motor drives on my old Nikon 35mm film bodies) and am really accustomed to holding the grip for vertical shots so it took a little adjustment today. The grip for the Mark II (Canon BG-E6) hasn’t arrived yet at Pictureline. As soon as it comes in it will become a near permanent fixture to the body.

Next up for the new camera, submitting some images from it to iStock.

Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/160 second, f/6.3, ISO 100

LeggNet’s Digital Capture
© Rich Legg, Inc. All rights reserved.