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Canon 5D Mk II


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I've been testing the hell out of this camera the last couple of weeks, and even though I've talked a little shit in earlier posts here, it's won me over, (Sort of.) Steadicam actually eliminates one of the more serious problems in relation to shooting video, in that ergonomics are no longer a factor... There's problems everyone knows about, in that the ISO/shutter/aperture are all on auto in video mode, but it's being looked into by Canon, so we'll see if they can come up with (Hopefully just) a firmware fix... When you play with the camera, you realize why they set it up that way, it makes perfect sense, but I still want control over it. I can't argue with the results... I have a lot of experience with the entire HDCAM line of Sony cameras, and this thing can look better than most of what I've used in the Sony line, the only limiting factor in relation to that I've seen is the codec, really, and that only becomes an issue here and there... It blows away every ENG camera in terms of shallow depth of field, but the camera controls can make this a double edged sword.

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Yes, actual job. Would love to hear some of your notes Sydney, the camera's growing on me too. We shot a few test will in Dubai, we hoped over to Jamira during our 7 hour lay over and was truly amazed at the performance. would upload a few, but prep has been hell and the internet is soooooo freakin' slow in Nairobi.

 

Must get sleep now!

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The most useful accessory I've found for this camera so far has been Singh-Ray's Vari-ND filter... It's like $400 or something, but since the camera wasn't built originally as a video camera, ND is sort of a problem. It basically allows for variable ND from 2-8 stops. It's really smooth. That filter allows you to sort of trick the auto aperture function on the camera by dialing the ND up to 8 stops, then freezing the camera's exposure, while dialing the ND back down to as low as 2 stops... It sort of works like a pseudo-iris in a way a still lens's aperture can't.

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it's slowly creeping into waayy too many jobs. just flew it for 2 avon spots. nothing like being tethered with an hdmi cable and bnc (for return sd signal for my monitor).

imagine the camera on a fisher dolly with cinetape and the whole 9 yards. my cell phone pics dont do it justice. hilarious to say the least.

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So are you saying the camera dosn't have a normal composite output? I suspect I will probably be flying one of these at some point, so the HDMI only thing would be a bit of a problem. Are there any on board down converters that would work for the 5D rig?

 

 

Pete.

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Hi Peter,

 

The camera does have a composite output--one of those mini to rca cables made by canon. The only issue is that you cannot output both HD and SD at the same time. So when video village wants an HD feed you have to figure out a way to get sd for your monitor. For me/us it was getting an SD feed back from vtr land. I'm not sure about an hdmi downconverter.

 

We tried an aja hdmi-hd/sdi converter box on the test day but it could only take up to 5 volts so that was no bueno for my sled (12/24). But that was also just to see if we could eliminate the hdmi cable from the equation--not to downconvert. A blackmagic box was found that would work so that lived at video village. VTR land then had ur average aja box that allowed me to get the sd feed from the hd/sdi signal.

 

If you have more questions, or If im causing more confusion, I could get you the vtr guy's info as he and I learned as we went in terms of what would work. He was incredibly helpful and great to work with.

 

-Mike

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  • 2 weeks later...
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For anyone interested, Canon just announced manual control of all the functions...

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controll...fcategoryid=139

I'm not affiliated with them, but I've been doing a lot of testing with this thing...

 

Hey Sydney,

 

Would you happen to have your hands on a pre-release beta of this firmware?

 

-Alfeo

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