I finally got my hands on the Canon 5D Mark II.  My first image with the camera was manually focused – in the dark.  And when I say dark, I mean the “I can’t see the buttons” kind of dark.  And, yes, it’s a little soft on the focus, primarily because I could barely see the subject and maybe a little camera shake mixed in as well.

This image isn’t intended to show off image quality or anything other than the capability of this camera to transform a very dark scene into something with some potential perhaps – a proof of concept, if you will.

Canon 5D Mark II and 50mm f/1.4 USM @ f/1.4, 1/15s, ISO 25,600 – JPEG – Straight Out of Camera

The lone light source was a small night light on the other side of the room.

Is there some noise? Sure, plenty of it. Could I ever use something like these lighting conditions? Sure, for the right situation and use. Will I use this every day? No way, but it’s nice to know it’s there if the going gets tough – especially considering the advantage I would have if I shot RAW and implemented some noise reduction software, like Noise Ninja, into my workflow.

The Canon 5D Mark II has better low light sensitivity than my own eyes.  I couldn’t see anywhere near the amount of the detail produced by this image.

To give you an idea of how sensitive the 5D Mark II is at ISO 25,600, here’s a short video taken with the Flip MinoHD just a couple minutes later showing off the light source and the subject under the same conditions.  This was much closer to my own eyes’ capabilities.

As a final caveat, Large JPEGs crest the 20MB file size limit on Flickr.

Expect lots more coverage of the Canon 5D Mark II here at Photography Bay.  In the mean time, check out the Canon 5D Mark II Reviews and Resources for the latest and greatest on this killer camera.