My Canon 5D Mark I camera for sale

Hi, just a note to let people know that I’m selling my trusty Canon 5D Mark I camera body. Price is $1000, which is a good deal considering they are selling it used at www.keh.com for over $1200. I’ll include all of the original stuff — the CD, the manual, cables, and the battery charger with 2 batteries. The camera’s in fine shape and would be a great way for someone to get into full-frame sensor photography affordably. Full-frame sensors offer four advantages for any photographer.

The first is to help you obtain shallow depth of field, which is great for portrait or nature photography when we want that dreamy selective focus look. All factors being equal, crop factor cameras such as the Canon 7D will produce more depth of field for a given shot than a full-frame sensor body such as the 5D.

Second, full-frame sensors are great for wide-angle landscapes because your wide angle behaves like a wide angle. Your 28 mm lens, for instance, gives you a true 28 mm field of view rather than behaving like a 45 mm lens as it would on a Rebel or 7D. And a 20 mm lens will give you that super wide angle look rather the 32 mm lens look you’ll get with the same lens on a 7D or 60D.

Third, full-frame sensors have larger pixels that are more efficient at gathering light, resulting in a higher signal to noise ratio, which in the real world means cleaner images at higher ISOs.

And fourth, diffraction (the loss of sharpness that occurs at small apertures like f22) is better controlled in full-frame sensors. You’ll see diffraction kick in less early on a full-frame body than on a crop factor body.

So, should you sell your 7D or 60D to buy my 5D? I don’t think so — the smaller sensor cameras are great and offer plenty of advantages in their own right. I look at the 5D as a perfect landscape camera complement to a 7D or 60D or as a great entry body for someone getting started with landscape and/or portrait photography.

So, you say you can afford the Canon 5D Mark II? Great, go for it! It’s a fantastic body with some notable upgrades over the 5D. But if you want to get into full-frame sensor photography for less than half the price of a new 5D II price, my 5D I camera just might be for you.

Canon 5D Mark I images are of fantastic quality. I used this camera to take the chachalaca photograph that was honored in this year’s BBC/Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and many of the images at my exhibit a couple of years ago at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, MO. The 5D images looked great, even for prints at 30 x 45 inches!

Here’s a gallery of some of the images I currently offer as poster prints and luxury aluminum prints that I took with this very camera. I’ll continue to offer these images confidently as fine examples of my work for years to come!

So, if my 5D is so great, why am I selling it? Well, I’m making some gear adjustments at the moment in preparation for a big coffee-table book project on which I’ll be working next year. I have some expenses related to that, and I also find I’ve been using the camera less and less since I purchased the Canon 1D Mark IV. It hurts to let go of the 5D but it has to be done!

Just drop me a line if you’re interested, and don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you have any questions. By the way, I can ship the camera from the US, so there won’t be any exorbitant shipping costs.

Cheers,

Greg

BTW — The picture of the camera above was a quickie done in our kitchen with the Mark IV, the Canon 50 mm f1.8 plastic fantastic, Canon ST-E2 wireless flash transmitter, and a 430 EX Speedlite flash fitted with a mini-softbox. I shot handheld at f2.8, 1/200 second, and ISO 500. I shot in manual mode to render the Christmas lights a nice bright color. This left the camera underexposed. My son Josh held the flash above right to provide fill on the camera. The flash was set in slave mode and TTL at -1 flash exposure compesation. I imported directly into Lightroom, made a few minor tweaks, and inserted it in this post.

About the author: Like all photographers, Greg Basco loves the gear. He’s seen and shot with lots of different equipment, both Canon and Nikon. Check out his fine art prints, stock images, and photo tours. Contact Greg for more info on image licensing or on location photography assignments.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 22nd, 2011 at 11:57 am. It is filed under Photo Gear and tagged with 5D. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.