167 replies to this topic

[Jolly]

Canon now hosted full resolution out-of-the-camera clips from Reverie:
http://www.usa.canon...;articleID=2127

Julian

[Jolly]

Given that the 5D MkII only offers fixed 30fps rate, does anyone have any insight into how problematic the conversion to 25fps is likely to be for those of us in PAL land. Thinking about mixing in 5D MkII footage with HDV etc.
I've heard mixed reports- anything from 'no problem it is easy to convert with high quality results' to 'it's a nightmare and leads to serious degradation of footage'....

I think converting to 25fps would only make sense to have common footage with your HDV cam as you say.
In general I think there is no need to stick to 25fps for PAL regions anymore when it comes to HD stuff. All TVs and displays capable of HD resolutions also accept 30fps. It would only make sense to convert to 25fps if you want to do a DVD copy of the footage.
I guess 25fps will start to die some day.

Julian

[scaper]

I took the full-rez original clip of the actor washing his face and processed it in Virtualdub with the deshaker plugin. This really highlights the wobble and skew in the image. Of course the camera shake itself is high enough that I think that is what most people will see in this clip. I know the HV20 has some rolling shutter issues, but I have only noticed this problem once or twice with my HV20. I wonder how the MKII will compare with the HV20 in this regard. How much wobble will we see if we are using a wide angle lens, 20 to 24 mm, and tracking a fairly fast moving large fish (while holding the camera steady of course)? The image quality itself is breathtaking, outdoing anything I have seen with my XH-A1.

Pat

[Drew]

I think converting to 25fps would only make sense to have common footage with your HDV cam as you say.
In general I think there is no need to stick to 25fps for PAL regions anymore when it comes to HD stuff. All TVs and displays capable of HD resolutions also accept 30fps. It would only make sense to convert to 25fps if you want to do a DVD copy of the footage.
I guess 25fps will start to die some day.

Julian

Julian, that may be true for personal projects but you also have to think about broadcast. The EBU has standardized 25fps (1080/50i/p, 1080/25p, 720/50p) as their broadcast rate. Like it or not, 25hz/fps is here to stay. What I really hope happens is 24P dies and a minimum of 50p takes over. Anyone watching sports or action will appreciate 50/60p. The funniest thing is that BluRay has left out 25/30p as a standard, so you have to wonder if Canon is just smiting Sony with 30p.
We also have to remember that the 5D2 isn't finalized yet... they could yet bring out 24/25/30p capability.
Also note that the LaForet videos, while not having any POST done, had in camera jpeg settings to affect the picture.

[Jolly]

Drew,

you're right about broadcasting. But if you don't produce exclusively for PAL regions, would you rather convert 30fps to 25fps for the PAL broadcast world or 25fps to 30fps for NTSC world export? I would prefer shooting with 30fps if the final stuff could be shown in both regions. But you're right, if your target is european broadcast -> 25fps.

I do much more suffer from 24fps with Blu-Ray. We were spoiled with PAL speedup DVDs and smoth playback at 50i. Now 24fps looks terrible if you don't own a 24fps display/TV and have to stick with 3:2 pulldown. I've been told Americans have been used to that before already :-)

Julian

[Drew]

Julian
In truth, with the advent of the Alchemist Ph.C converter, it's largely academic to choose what frame rate to shoot for broadcast. Look at the various sporting events like the F1 last night. All of it was shot in 25fps (some with high frame rate slomo) but when broadcast to the US and Japan, it is put through the Alchemist and 99.9% of the people will not know the originating fps.
It's a matter of convenience. If you live in PAL regions, doesn't make sense to shoot 30p and have to deal with conversion since it's an extra step and possible additional cost to convert.
Yeah you have smoother DVD playback but your movies are shorter by 4% too But then again, it could be 1000% too slow for some bad movies

[Drew]

Here's a music video by a preproduction 5D2 with various fast lenses including the 50 1.2 and 24/35 1.4. The video is very clean.

[Walt Stearns]

Yes the footage looks very clean, even in low depth of field/wide aperture settings.

So far, everything that I have seen shot with this camera in terms of video has been done from a rock solid tripod, and in one case mounted on a gyro-stabilizer.

What will be rendered from handhold shooting (no gyro stabilizer), that will be real interesting.

[Drew]

Walt, it's already been established that the 5D2 like all other CMOS sensors suffer from skew/wobble effect when it gets shakey.

[Walt Stearns]

So I have been hearing. The question is, how will, and to what amount of shake/wobble when shooting underwater will effect the the image?

[wagsy]

I suppose when someone gets their hands on one to move it around slowly while recording.
Like up and down and side to side which would simulate slow underwater movements.
Also zoom in tight onto something handheld and see what it does.

I think the skew/wobble thingy is going to be a problem.
It's a moving picture camera but don't move it while recording moving pictures.

[Drew]

I have disagree to a point, Wags. Rolling shutter Effects (RSE) rears its ugliest when they are linear subjects like buildings etc. The underwater equivalent would be wrecks. That is when you can see the skew easiest.
With reef subjects, it's more difficult to see the effect, due to the rapid movement of subjects and also the "busyness" of the background. You've been shooting with the A1, which is a big CMOS sensor and it has the same skew/wobble as other CMOS camcorders. I've never heard you complain about it underwater.
The only time I "easily" spotted RSE was when I was shooting pygmy seahorses at full zoom with a diopter and higher shutter speed so I could do slo mo in post.
The 5D2 is a bit more susceptible to RSE due to the DSP which only does video as an after thought. With the SLR config, getting a balanced housing will be tougher but keep it still enough to prevent RSE shouldn't be that difficult. Who constantly pans that quickly underwater anyhow? (well except for special emergencies)

[AndreSmith]

I haven't had any replies to this post - hope you dont mind me posting it here again:

This is the very expensive HDMI cable for video output recommended for the Canon 5D mark II: http://www.adorama.com/CAHTC100.html

Can I not simply buy any mini HDMI cable which I can get for less than 10 bucks, or is there something magical about the HTC-100 cable???

Thanks for any advice

[Drew]

Here's another video showing the CMOS wobble with hand held shots. The latitude of the camera seems to be pretty contrasty and limited but I think that's all in the settings. Doesn't make sense that the 35mm sensor with at least 9db range would be that limited. I'll test it once I get my hands on a production model.

[Drew]

The industry release info on how the 5D2 achieves exposure is a little disappointing. It is fully automatic and the order of adjustments is ISO, shutter then finally aperture. This really limits how you shoot wide angle action shots as the problem is it will force the camera to use the widest aperture first (eg 24mm at f1.4 or 20 at f1.8 etc) then readjust aperture once ISO and shutter speed has hit the limit. AF is available in evaluative mode. This means focus will be critical as DOF will probably be limited unless lighting conditions allow the camera to use narrower apertures. I suppose we can trust in auto and just shoot but the DOF will be limited unless we use superwide angle lenses like the 14mm or FE. No such thing as a free lunch I suppose.
The good news is that the ISO can be expanded to 12800, which combined with a 35mm sensor and fast (f1.2-1.4) lens means the camera will shoot in some pretty dark places.
For those wanting to shoot stills during video, the bad news is there will be no flash trigger.
Btw, here is another video from Canon by Bruce Dorn:
http://www.usa.canon...;articleID=2327

[scaper]

The industry release info on how the 5D2 achieves exposure is a little disappointing. It is fully automatic and the order of adjustments is ISO, shutter then finally aperture. This really limits how you shoot wide angle action shots as the problem is it will force the camera to use the widest aperture first (eg 24mm at f1.4 or 20 at f1.8 etc) then readjust aperture once ISO and shutter speed has hit the limit. AF is available in evaluative mode. This means focus will be critical as DOF will probably be limited unless lighting conditions allow the camera to use narrower apertures. I suppose we can trust in auto and just shoot but the DOF will be limited unless we use superwide angle lenses like the 14mm or FE. No such thing as a free lunch I suppose.
The good news is that the ISO can be expanded to 12800, which combined with a 35mm sensor and fast (f1.2-1.4) lens means the camera will shoot in some pretty dark places.
For those wanting to shoot stills during video, the bad news is there will be no flash trigger.

I'm hoping the 17-40 F4/L will help with this problem. With a max aperture of F4 and a more lenient circle of confusion for HD versus a full 21 megapixel image, it may be that you can get pretty significant DOF at 17 to 20 mm.

Pat

[loftus]

Purely speculative at this point, but what are the thoughts, if any, on the RED DSLR 'replacement' camera. Following this thread it appears that the 5DMkII may not be ready to replace dedicated videocams just yet, where do you think RED will fit in?

[Drew]

I do think Canon held back on the 5D2 due to the processor requirements and also eating into the 1D series sales. Their excuse of blade noise from aperture change is valid to a point but anyone shooting serious video will have an external mike. I mean IS is noisier and that's on all the time with video mode. I do think they will do more surprises with the 1DIII update which is about anytime soon now.
Re: Red's DSLR (fuschia is my codename for it )... I don't speculate on vaporware!

[meister]

http://www.robgalbra...cid=7-9318-9723

http://cinema5d.com/index.php

http://cinema5d.com/...037a9db29422808

Edited by meister, 11 November 2008 - 05:32 PM.

[Drew]

ROFL not even released and they already have an entire website forum based on it. That's impressive. Does show the popularity of the camera or at least the exciting possibilities. Although I think many people will be disappointed.