The first Polaroid Land camera came out in 1948. For the first time in photography, the photographer could see his/her photos only a minute after taking them. Color Polaroid film was introduced in the 1960s. The general public bought up Polaroid cameras like hot cakes and professional photographers used Polaroid film and film backs to take test shots before using their regular negative or slide film to capture the final image/s.

By the the late 1990s, digital photography was beginning to take off and started to cut into the Polaroid market. After Polaroid’s recent announcement that they will stop making Polaroid film at the end of this year (2009), it seemed that Polaroid’s run as a special player in the photography market was finally over.

But digital photography only replicated one feature of the “Polaroid experience”: the instant viewing of a photo just taken. What about the instant *print* feature? Sure, you can connect a digital camera to a printer and get a print reasonably easy; but you still need another piece of equipment to make the print possible.

Apparently Polaroid finally realized the initial inspiration for the Polaroid Land Camera still had some mileage to give them. So they’ve come up with the new Polaroid Pogo which is a digital camera with a mini printer build into it! You can print a nifty 2″x3″ print right in the camera and hand it to your friends and family to “ooh and ah” over. The camera has a 3.0″ LCD on the back; so unlike the original Polaroid film camera, you can sort through the images and only print the ones you like. It’ll be available this June (2009).

I don’t how much it’s going to cost or how good the images or prints will be, but I have to say they’ve done it again! They come up with a product that rekindles the original Polaroid magic and I, for one, would like to take a look at one once they become available…:-).

Visit Michael's Art Photography Portfolio at SaatchiArt.com!

I just got a Canon 5D Mark II in my hands from an official Canon source that I shall not mention here. Here’s the question I had: is there any difference between the Canon 5D and the new Canon 5D Mark II at 1600 ISO and 3200 ISO? The 5D Mark II can also shoot at 6400, 12800 and 25600 ISO. But I wanted to know if any improvement had been made at the two highest ISOs they share: 1600 ISO and 3200 ISO.

I shot photos of one of my kids’ rain boots laying on the basement floor in very dim natural light. I used a Canon 24-70 f/2.8L lens on both the 5D and the 5D Mark II. I shot all photos at 51mm and f/2.8. All photos were shot in RAW format and then prepared for this report with Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS2. Now, I know the 5D Mark II comes with some new fancy algorithms for reducing image noise. But if you shoot almost everything RAW, like I do, those don’t really matter much.

The one thing I did that some people might object to was crop the same amount of the scene for both cameras, even though a true 100% magnification section would take in less of the scene with the 5D Mark II compared to the 5D because it has 65% more pixels per image. (At the end of this test I’ll include one of those comparisons in case you’re interested.) My reasoning was that if I were looking at a specific object in a 5×7 print from each camera (for example, the bride’s face when she’s with the groom on the dance floor at the reception), I would be interested in the amount of noise I saw in her face in the 5×7 image, which would be the same size for each camera (more pixels doesn’t change the relative size of objects in the same 5×7 photo!).

Note: I didn’t use a tripod for these tests; so you can’t tell much about the resolution of details from these photos; but some camera movement will not affect the amount of digital noise in the image. I did no sharpening when preparing these images for this report.

At 1600 ISO

 

Canon 5D Mark II at 1600 ISO (a higher quality version of the above image)

Canon 5D at 1600 ISO (a higher quality version of the above image)

The details are a bit clearer in the Canon 5D Mark II shot; but it’s not clear whether that is due to the greater number of pixels in the 5D Mark II image, or whether there was more camera shake when I took the 5D shot. Regardless, the point of this test is to compare the amount of noise in the two images. Look at both the shadow and highlight areas. Do you see any significant difference? I don’t.

At 3200 ISO

 

Canon 5D Mark II at 3200 ISO (a higher quality version of the above image)

Canon 5D at 3200 ISO (a higher quality version of the above image)

Somewhat ironically, the image from the 5D has the better detail in this comparison, probably due to camera shake. But again, this would not affect image noise. So, if you look at the noise in the highlight and shadow areas, which camera is best? Is there really any difference?! I think it’s truly a dead heat.

Now, the 5D doesn’t offer the higher ISOs of the 5D Mark II….6400, 12800, and 25600 ISO. So, let’s look at a similar image taken at 6400 ISO with the 5D MarkII:

Canon 5D Mark II at 6400 ISO (a higher quality version of the above image)

Pretty noisey. Makes me wonder if I underexposed a shot at 3200 ISO with a 5D by one stop if I’d do any worse once the exposure level was raised in Lightroom?

Anyway, let me show you the 100% magnification crops for the 5D and 5D Mark II at 3200 ISO so you can see if it makes a difference–i.e., if it makes the difference between the 5D and 5D Mark II any clearer:

Canon 5D Mark II at 3200 ISO 100% magnification

(higher quality version of above image)

Canon 5D at 3200 ISO 100% magnification
(higher quality version of above image)

The 100% magnification view doesn’t make much of a difference to my eye. Let me know if you see something I’m not.

Conclusion

 

I think there’s the assumption out there in the Canon user community that the 5D Mark II probably has less image noise than the 5D at 1600 and 3200 ISO because it can take relatively “acceptable” photos at 6400 ISO, and can also take photos at 12800 and 25600 ISO. The results of this test have convinced me that this difference doesn’t actually exist. And unless I want to take a bunch of photos at 6400-25600 ISO, have an extra 8 megapixels per image, and shoot HD video, then a lightly used 5D selling for $1300 versus the 5D Mark II selling price of $2700, might just make a lot of sense!

-mgm

Addendum: I made the statement that the noise reduction in the 5D Mark II doesn’t affect RAW images. While I believe this is true, I can’t find mention of this in the 5D Mark II manual. So, in the interest of full disclosure, I will include the fact that the 5D Mark II’s high ISO noise reduction setting was at “standard” for these tests, which is second only to the highest setting: “strong” noise reduction.

Note: you may also be interested in my follow-up blog post describing my experience using the 5D Mark II to photograph a wedding.

Note 2: I finally got a hold of the 5D Mark II again and did a follow-up comparison of images at 1600 and 3200 ISO with those from my 5D. My results were a bit different this time…

Visit Michael's Art Photography Portfolio at SaatchiArt.com!