Today, I’m going to highlight a bunch of reviews that I’ve found lately.

Today, this one was released from Nature Photographers Online. Canon EOS 5D Mark II Review Text and photography copyright © Ian Plant. A really good hands on review with some excellent images to boot.

Another was just posted: A weekend with the 5d Mark II by David S - his thoughts after shooting his first wedding with the 5D mk ii.

And from Steve Huff: My 5D review and samples

Tommy Zablan gives his feelings in this article Almost A Masterpiece: Canon’s 5D Mark II

A French Review from Focus Numerique (translated to English)

ITReview reviews the Canon EOS 5D Mark II

And last but not least, Dan Mitchell gives his opinions on Canon EOS 5D II: Early Observations on Image Quality

UPDATE: PNT found another new review… Canon 5D MkII Review - Part 2 - The Video Camera - Edmond Terakopian

Professional Photographer reports they’ve selected the Canon 5D Mark II as DSLR of the year for 2009

Canon EOS 5D Mark II Wins Best Digital SLR in PP’s 2009 Product Awards

“Every year, Professional Photographer magazine opens the Hot One Awards competition to hundreds of professional products, from cameras and software to online services and studio gear. This year 60 photographic products and services won first place in their category.”

Check the who has stock page

Please remember that buying goods from our vendors helps support this site (and 50% is donated to charity) and doesn’t cost you anything other than a click… so if you think you’ll be buying software or a computer or of course that Canon 5D mk ii or any accessories, please click the links on this site to help planet5D.

Part 2 of the improvements to planet5D is complete. The blog is now moved over to the new server. That means the long urls are getting shorter and we’re going to be improving that even more when i move over to wordpress for the blog. Hopefully, you might notice that it has improved in terms of the speed. Not a major redesign yet, but we’re getting there piece by piece.

One impact tho for some of you may be the change in RSS feeds. If you got the RSS feed before i started using feedburner, then you’re not going to be getting the latest updates. You’ll need to update your RSS reader to use the link supplied by feedburner (see below). If you are already on feedburner, you have nothing to do because I’ve moved the feed for you.
Subscribe in a reader

If you’d like to subscribe to the RSS feed, simply click the ‘subscribe in a reader’ link above. Then even when I switch over to wordpress, you won’t miss a beat because I’ll handle everything for you!

What is RSS?

In case you don’t know what the heck I’m babbling about, here’s a primer on RSS from Google.
Basically, RSS is a way for you to use an “RSS reader” (there are many out there) to get your news from planet5D or from any other site that supports RSS. So instead of you needing to come to planet5D to read the latest news, you can be alerted in your RSS reader that new news is available and you can read it right there.

Please come back often to see how we grow!

Check the who has stock page

Please remember that buying goods from our vendors helps support this site (and 50% is donated to charity) and doesn’t cost you anything other than a click… so if you think you’ll be buying software or a computer or of course that Canon 5D mk ii or any accessories, please click the links on this site to help planet5D.

The other day, i posted this blurb about a Nine Inch Nails video that had been posted:

“Just a little while ago, Rob Sheridan, Art Director for Nine Inch Nails released this quick video taken at last night’s NIN concert in Sydney - there was a power outage and the clips are from the forced intermission. Interesting stuff indeed. I believe Rob will be posting more video soon.”

Well, Rob’s just released another video of a full NIN song he filmed live on stage!

Please note, tho I’ve embedded the video, clicking the link below will get you to the Vimeo site where you will be able to watch in HD

1,000,000 Live from on stage, Sydney 2.22.09 [HD] by Nine Inch Nails

 
1,000,000 Live from on stage, Sydney 2.22.09 [HD] from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

Rob also just posted this on twitter: “BTW, all focusing is manual in 5DM2 vids. Feels like a drawback at first, but is actually a fun challenge & makes for very organic footage.”

Too bad they didn’t allow the full size to be available for download.

UPDATE: the download is now available! ** Do a right click and “Save as” to download (please note, on vimeo, full size is only 720p - not the full 1080 that the camera supports)

Update 2/27 - yet another video on Vimeo:

Please note, tho I’ve embedded the video, clicking the link below will get you to the Vimeo site where you will be able to watch in HD

Burn Live from on stage, Melbourne 2.25.09 [HD] by Nine Inch Nails

Burn Live from on stage, Melbourne 2.25.09 [HD] from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

Download the full HD version on the vimeo site as well.

UPDATE from @rob_sheridan:

“For all those asking, the audio on those live videos is from soundboard multitracks, and is mixed by our audio wizard Blumpy. The audio is added in post with Final Cut, since we have @blumpy mix it first so it doesn’t sound as dry as raw soundboard.”

What is planet5D?

For those of you new to planet5D, we’ve got more 5D mk ii information and reviews/still/video samples than anywhere else on the planet. Please look around before you go and come back to see us again!

Check the who has stock page

Techwatch on twitter alerted us that Gizmodo has just posted a story where they’ve spent several months testing both the 5D mk ii and the D700 side by side.

“For the last few months, we’ve been shooting with the two hottest cameras on the market. Now it’s time to pit them against each other. Which one will take home the prize for ultimate awesomeness?

Yes, let’s just get this out of the way: Both give you more for your dollar in terms of features, image quality and overall excellence than anything else we’ve used. Period. We know not everyone is prepared to drop $2,000 to $3,000 on a camera body these days, but if you’re thinking of investing for the long haul and, more importantly, have a good collection of either Nikon or Canon lenses, these are the two cameras you want to look at.
Obviously, you’ll need to read the entire post to see how it comes out.


Check the who has stock page (updated 2/26 6am)

Please remember that buying goods from our vendors helps support this site (and 50% is donated to charity) and doesn’t cost you anything other than a click… so if you think you’ll be buying software or a computer or of course that Canon 5D mk ii or any accessories, please click the links on this site to help planet5D.

I also found a new iPhone/iPod touch application this morning that you’ve got to see. A pretty good idea - “Handi 5Dmk2”

“The perfect on-the-go companion to your Canon EOS 5D Mark II DSLR camera! Handi 5Dmk2 is a handy (no pun intended) quick reference guide on the iPhone, covering most of the commonly used functionalities available on the Canon EOS 5D Mark II DSLR, including all Custom Functions and menu settings.”

Well, ok, that covers stuff not in the wiki, but heck, you can have access to the wiki from your iPhone directly thru Safari for free

Check the who has stock page (updated 2/26 6am)

Please remember that buying goods from our vendors helps support this site (and 50% is donated to charity) and doesn’t cost you anything other than a click… so if you think you’ll be buying software or a computer or of course that Canon 5D mk ii or any accessories, please click the links on this site to help planet5D.

Interesting reading this morning from PathosBedlam on twitter:

I wanted to let you know they are now not allowing SLR cameras at the AFL as I had to stop people bringing them in.

Also not allowed was glass, cans, umbrella’s and prams. Caused all sorts of greif for people last Saturday.

I am in Tasmania Australia. What rules do you have in other places for sports grounds.

@mollyfud From what I was told on the day, at Aurora Stadium, it’s any Professional looking photographic gear, SLR, Video, etc.

@mollyfud They said they were trying to protect their Broadcast Rights. Due to some SLR’s like the Canon 5D being so good, I don’t blame em.

So, as i suspected, the camera is causing a stir all around the industries. It didn’t take them long. Now there are still lots of people who don’t realize my dSLR can do video, but it won’t be long i guess.

Now based on the discussion above, maybe we should start a protest. After all, anyone can sneak in a camera phone (one of the new phones i saw is doing 720p HD?) and some of the small HD video cameras easily fit in a pocket, so now the larger cameras are going to be discriminated against just because they look ‘professional’?

It seems to me that this is a stop gap measure that isn’t likely to survive long. As cameras advance and get smaller, they’re just not going to be able to stop the recording of shows/sporting events etc.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments below (and yes, i know some of you can’t see the comments box - I’m moving to new blog format in the next week or so to fix that and other issues… please be patient)

UPDATE: I added a thread on dpReview if you want to discuss over there

UPDATE 2: isn’t the following image ironic?



Check the who has stock page (updated 2/26 6am)

Please remember that buying goods from our vendors helps support this site (and 50% is donated to charity) and doesn’t cost you anything other than a click… so if you think you’ll be buying software or a computer or of course that Canon 5D mk ii or any accessories, please click the links on this site to help planet5D.

Hey y’all - i know many of you are hunting and hunting for batteries for your 5D mk ii. Well i can finally announce that my friend Barry over at CameraLensRentals.com in Indiana has 50 batteries that will be arriving at his shop next week!

He also has 2 5D mk ii kits and 3 bodies in stock!

To order, go to his new order page. The Batteries are shown under “Body Accessories” on the navigation on the left side of the page.

I got my 5D mk ii body thru him and i also got my spare battery thru him as well. Everyone I have talked to raves about him so I know there’s no gouging going on.

If you are able to get a battery or a 5D2 thru Barry, please make sure he knows you came thru me and, please tell all of your photography friends of planet5D - thank you!

UPDATE: I see that B&H also shows stock available for the Batteries - I’m sure this won’t last long either. Please click this link to go directly to B&H.

UPDATE 2/26 am - B&H is out of batteries

Check the who has stock page (updated 2/26 6am)

If you’ve visited the wiki in the last 12 hours, you might notice that it has improved in terms of the speed. Well, my friend David (from WolfSnap.com) has begun the process of helping me move the site to shared servers and to get it off of my home equipment. A much needed move indeed!

We’ll shortly be moving the blog to wordpress as well as getting it off of my mac.

The final step, and probably the biggest, will be a re-design to unify the look and feel of all the pages. The goal is to keep down time to a minimum during the moves.

Please come back often to see how we grow!

Check the who has stock page (updated 2/25 9am)

Please remember that buying goods from our vendors helps support this site (and 50% is donated to charity) and doesn’t cost you anything other than a click… so if you think you’ll be buying software or a computer or of course that Canon 5D mk ii or any accessories, please click the links on this site to help planet5D.

I keep reading stories and tweets from people who seem to think that there are just too many limitations in the 5D mk ii to be able to really shoot video. Yet, time and time again, I’m also seeing great examples of people just blowing past any ‘limitations’ to get the job done.

Just a little while ago, Rob Sheridan, Art Director for Nine Inch Nails released this quick video taken at last night’s NIN concert in Sydney - there was a power outage and the clips are from the forced intermission. Interesting stuff indeed. I believe Rob will be posting more video soon. (Ok, so the image above isn’t of NIN - i don’t have any photos of them LOL - Vanessa is the only ‘star’ i have any concert photos from a show to share)

Yet another example is this story i found this morning from a spanish site. TV commercials being filmed with an SLR? shocking indeed!

And let’s not forget people doing blogs with the 5D mk ii. Here’s askDane.com’s episode #5 filmed on the 5D mk ii by the Bui Brothers.

Or maybe this craigslist posting from someone looking for shooters on a 5D mk ii HD video project.

And then again, there’s Tyler Ginter who’s testing the 5D mk ii for the military media… here are two examples: Fast Roping at Exercise Southbound Trooper IX and 55th Combat Camera Airborne Jump. Simple tests i grant you, but people are indeed using the 5D2 for real work out there.

Check the who has stock page