Canon EOS 5D Mark 11 camera review by photography enthusiast

Canon EOS 5D Mark 11 camera review

On a recent trip to Melbourne (Australia), I decided to upgrade my Canon 5D DSLR to a Canon EOS 5D Mark 11. Not that I was unhappy with the Canon 5D camera, which is now being used by my delighted partner. The image quality of both 5D camera's remains excellent!

It's just that I could see several advantages to justify the upgrade, including:

• The sensor now having 21.1 megapixels, matching Canon’s flagship EOS 1Ds Mark III at a fraction of the price. Extremely useful if you're anything like myself and tend to crop a lot of photo's tightly for greater impact. This is particularly useful for macro and animal photographers. Now we can crop to our hearts content, yet still be able to print the resulting image in very large sizes.
  
  
  
  
  
• Video recording in Full HD 1080p format. Now I don't need to pack both my DSLR and video camera on trips away. Obviously a person can only hold one piece of technology at any given time. Now I can easily switch between taking still photographs or video at will.
  
  Click here to view example high quality videos shot with a 5D Mark 11 DSLR camera.
  
  
• A larger and more detailed 3 inch VGA screen. This is particularly useful for zooming in and checking the sharpness of the image on location.
  
  
• Live view, for those who like it.
  
  
• Maximum ISO of 25,600. 3 stops higher than the 5D.
  
  I found on a recent trip to Sydney Aquarium that I could up the ISO to 3200 for low light, hand hold the camera, yet still end up with printable photographs as shown in the examples below.
  
  Click on each photograph for a larger view
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This night shot of Darling Harbour, displayed below, was also photographed with an ISO of 3200 and hand held.
  
  
  
  
  
• Faster 3.9fps for continuous shooting. Useful for photographing children, animals, cars etc on the move.
  
  
  
  
  
  

I won't go into other 5D Mark 11 technical specifications, as they are already listed on the Canon website at: http://www.canon.com.au/products/cameras/digital_slr/eos5dmkII.aspx

However, I can tell you this, one month on and I'm not about to upgrade again any time soon. The 21.1 megapixel sensor, the increase in ISO including the image quality all the way up to 3200, and the addition of Full HD 1080p DSLR video recording, is more than enough to keep me recommending this camera for many years to come.

Do I think it was worth updating my original Canon 5D camera to the Canon 5D Mark 11 EOS? You betcha :-)


Sample photographs taken with a Canon 5D Mark 11 EOS camera

Click each thumbnail below to view a larger version:

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