Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Sharpness

When testing for sharpness, Imatest factors out raw megapixel count and instead measures line widths per picture height, a reading of the camera’s ability to resolve minute details in a defined area. With this system, a lower-megapixel camera will often outperform a higher-megapixel model, since the larger light receptors of the lower-megapixel sensor can gather light more efficiently and suffer from less interference across cells.

We found the 24-105mm kit lens produced its sharpest results at the widest-angle setting, right in the middle of the lens, with 1482 lw/ph measured horizontally and 1780 lw/ph measured vertically. Moving out from the center of the lens, sharpness drops significantly around the midway point, then picks up again as we reach the outer edges. More on how we test sharpness.

Image Sharpness and Chromatic Aberration

Focal Length:

24.0mm

60.0mm

105.0mm

Click blue squares to change sample crops below
f/4 f/9 f/22
f/4 f/9 f/22
f/4 f/9 f/22

Image Stabilization (3.13)

The in-lens optical image stabilization that the Canon 5D Mark II uses did a decent job of compensating for hand shake, but it is far from perfect; at faster shutter speeds and with particularly bad hand shake, we found that it actually made things worse

Our first test is for a low level of hand shake, such as when you are trying to hold the camera steady with two hands, or braced against a wall. In this situation, there is only a small amount of movement, but still enough to make a picture blurry, especially with a lower shutter speed. In our tests, we found that turning on the IS feature on the 24-105mm L USM lens that we used in this review made a significant improvement with horizontal motion (such as the camera shaking side to side); with a shutter speed of between 1/250 and 1/30 of a second, the images were much sharper. However, the IS feature had the opposite effect with shutter speeds at the ends of the range. At 1/500, 1/15 and 1/8th of a second, the images were less sharp with IS turned on; the correction that the camera is making is actually making the images a bit less sharp. To be fair, though; if you are shooting at 1/15 or 1/8 of a second hand held, you’re asking for trouble. We also found that the IS system had relatively little effect with the vertical shake; when the camera is moving up and down, there was very little difference between IS on and IS off.

Image Stabilization Comparison Table			Expand
	Low Shake IS Off	Low Shake IS On	High Shake IS Off	High Shake IS On
1/500
1/250
1/125
1/60
1/30
1/15
1/8

When compared with other SLR cameras, the 5D Mark II has middling performance. As the graph above (which shows the low shake, horizontal sharpness improvement for three cameras) shows, both the Sony A900 and Nikon D700 had significantly better performance. Both cameras were more consistent than the 5D Mark II, with improvements in sharpness at all of the shutter speeds we test at. The Canon 5D Mark II only beat the other cameras at 1/250 of a second; at all of the other speeds, the VR (Vibration Reduction) feature of the Nikon D700 and the SteadyShot feature of the Sony A900 did a more effective job in our tests.