I wrote a first impression mini review about the Canon 5DmkII the other day, and I’m following it up with this post with a a couple of very important posts.

I’ve shot about 300 frames with a 5DmkII in both daylight and at night – I felt that I need to point out 2 things that I think 95% of the 5dmkII reviews are missing.

1) Don’t pay attention to the specs or reviews from people who never owned a Canon 5D. I am here to announce that the Auto Focus on the 5DmkII is better than the original Canon 5D, especially on the outside points. Yes, the 5DmkII AF is better than the original 5D’s focus. It’s not as good as the D3 or the D700′s, but it works and it is good enough for me for sure.

The outside AF points are much more usable on the 5DmkII than the original 5D – there’s definitely a lot less hunting for a good focus. In bright light, the outside points lock on very quickly with no problem at all, and even in dark scenes with decent contrast the outside points work nicely as well.

I’ve seen some tests say that the AF is the speed same as the original 5D, but in real world scenarios, the focus on the 5DmkII is slightly faster to lock on than the original 5D on all points.

2) In real world scenarios, the higher ISOs are extremely usable despite pixel peepers pointing out flaw that don’t really matter. Here’s a sample at ISO 3200, 1/160th sec, f2.2. I’m even including a full resolution image that’s pretty much a straight Lightroom conversion from RAW apart from a crop. Here is the full res pixel peepable version – please do not use without permission.

A blacksmith works with iron at Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta, Georgia. It was literally freezing that night… the fast 1/160th shutter speed @ ISO 3200 really helped me avoid camera shake.