Anyone video pros here? Canon 5D Mark 2 1080p video opinions

[pRICE cUBE]

Anyone video pros here? Canon 5D Mark 2 1080p video opinions

Link is to a video that is pretty big showing what the 5D Mark 2's video mode can do.
http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?...ArticleAct&articleID=2086

I would appreciate any comments from Mac using video pros. I have only started doing my attempt at serious video for 6 months now. The low light capabilities are looking pretty good.

1920x1080 16:9 up to 12 minutes QT H.264 38.6Mbits/sec
4GB max file size
PCM Sound
30fps
3.5mm mic jack

[mattkime]

Looks awesome. my video friend agrees.

[vision63]

Based on how "that" looked, I'd say that's a good deal.

[Ombligo]

Danny,

We have a videographer in my office from one of the local TV stations. I showed him the video and he was amazed. He said the difference between it and the HD camcorders (even hi-end) is the lens. The better quality glass makes a huge difference compared to the zooms on the dedicated video gear.

He observed that while the professional HD video gear used by TV stations is better, it also costs upwards of $50k for a camera and lens. He could see smaller market stations looking at the 5D mkll at a cost of $2700 plus some lenses (say another $4k) as a very attractive cost savings. An entire staff of a small station could be outfitted for what one HD pro setup would cost.

That this a first generation serious attempt at merging professional level DSLR and video gear, I can't imagine what we'll be looking at in 3-4 years.

[anonymouse1]

Reportedly better than the Nikon N90 (something 90? 90 something), which makes verticals wiggle when you pan in HD video.

[x-uri]

The guy totally shoots like a still photographer ^.^,

Every shot (with the exceptions of one tilt and one spinning overhead) was a static handheld, or a locked-down from some kind of support. I wonder if that has to do with the weird ergonomics of trying to move-and-aim a camera with the SLR form factor, or if he just thinks in terms of static frames. In the making-of video on his blog, you can see him trying to get a hand-held "dolly" shot of his male actor running. It doesn't look like he put it in the final cut, though.

Even the aerial shots and car-mount shots didn't have much moving or changing in the frame. I wonder how it would handle a fast pan?

I'd want to see how the color resolution compares to a 3-chip camera, and see how it does in changing light conditions, but the image control of a DSLR lens is pretty much out-of-reach for most video prosumers. The stuff he got with the tilt-shift lens is stunning -- so it might be a good deal. Then again, a good tilt-shift costs as much as most of the 3-chip cameras in the prosumer space, so it is going to be an apples and oranges kind of thing; a still photographer who can justify the expense of the 5D is going to have more lenses than a videographer would know what to do with.

I am curious about what options it has for sound recording -- it is a pain in the ass trying to synch up audio from a separate source with MPEG4 footage.

All together, I could probably do something as pretty as "Reverie" with my XHA1, a Letus35, and the tens of thousands of dollars worth of glass, lighting, and camera supports he had at his disposal. I'd also have been able to get dialogue, location sound, and camera movement that didn't require a helicopter.

I know this short duration shoot, and was about testing the camera as a video platform, but I could also make a more interesting short with a my 12 year old Sony Hi8 Handycam.

Edit: Typos, typos, typos...

[papercup]

The new Nikon D90 is getting a bad wrap on some of the sample videos out there, and the Canon people have not confirmed if the same issue will be problematic on the new 5D2

Nikon D90 "Jello Motion Issue" : http://s477.photobucket.com/albums/rr134...ction=view¤t=DSC_0012.flv

[Mike V]

It has some serious limitations, like no way to change the frame rate or shutter speed.

This has more ramifications for PAL countries with 50 Hz power than it does for you guys in the States though.

Look quite promising.

It's impossible to judge the quality of the video without seeing it straight out of the camera.

Once it has been resized and recompressed there is no way of knowing if the artifacts on the video are from the recompression or were on the original footage.

The global shutter effects (i.e. jello-cam) on the 5D Mk II seem to be surprisingly minmal.

[x-uri]

Mike V wrote:
It has some serious limitations, like no way to change the frame rate or shutter speed.

This has more ramifications for PAL countries with 50 Hz power than it does for you guys in the States though.

Being able to under- and overcrank is a nice-to-have, but the lack isn't a deal breaker for folks buying video cameras.

It would, however, be weird not to be able to set the shutter speed.

I am not sure I understand why either of these features would matter more to the rest of the world than they would to the US and Japan?

The global shutter effects (i.e. jello-cam) on the 5D Mk II seem to be surprisingly

minmal.
The skew on the pan (the jello clip to which papercup linked), is a rolling shutter effect and it has to do with the way the data is read-out from the CMOS sensor. The sample video appears free of skew and squash -- but it also appears free of the fast pans and tilts that would exhibit these artifacts.

Again, I wonder if this is because the shooter just doesn't think in terms of pan, tilt, dolly, track... or if the panning footage was unusable.

The low-light capabilities of the camera appear to be the low-light capabilities of some pretty fast lenses. He lists eleven lens changes for the short -- with relative apertures down to f/1.2.

It would be interesting -- in a purely academic sense --to compare the footage from the 5D.2 to footage from a an XL-H1 mounted with the same lenses.

More useful and informative would be to put this camera into the hands of a videographer and see what most annoys him or her.