Canon 5D Mark II

I have owned this camera since 2012, its been through a car crash and many other forms of abuse and yet some how, it just keeps on going.

This camera was most well known for being the first DSLR to also capture 1080p video. Although by todays standards the video quality is rather dubious and very soft, it's only direct competitor at the time were DV cameras. The full frame sensor also gave a completely different look to the 1" or smaller sensors that were common.

Shooting

These are very easy to operate cameras and are built like tanks. UX wise I think they are at the pinnacle of Canons design philosophy. They might not look great but everything is very functional, with dedicated per function buttons for all of the core settings like, ISO, drive mode and TTL flash compensation. The body is also wider than modern mirrorless cameras which allows your thumb to easily switch between the rear dial and AF buttons.

It's very much not a discrete camera, the mirror box and shutter are quite loud even for a DSLR, comparable to a Mamiya 645 Pro. But you do get 21MP (approximately 5.6k) at around 10 stops of dynamic range, which results in high quality images.

Overall it's a fantastic camera with a huge library of lenses from just about every vendor and excellent build quality.

Buying

Should you buy an old DSLR in 2026? Yes. If your use case is only photography these cameras are still perfectly functional. The only thing lacking is the AF performance, being only a 9 point contrast detection system it will hunt and fail to find focus in low light situations. Otherwise the image quality is still excellent, with hundreds of affordable lenses available.