I did it. I am now a very proud owner of the Canon 5DMKII. It took months (years) of deliberation (pretty much since Scott wrote this article) and I finally pulled the trigger. I know the rumors are swirling about Mark IIIs and the etc, but once I heard about the upcoming 24fps firmware update I decided it was time. No more waiting. I’ve been shooting on a Nikon D40 since I started school and it was definitely time for an upgrade. (Though I still love the SB 600 flash — took the photo above)
As soon as I pulled it out of the box I was in awe. People say that Canons feel cheaper due to the construction materials, but I disagree. This thing feels like it could level a small village if thrown at the proper angle. Pair the body with the kit lens (24-105) and you have one serious piece of machinery. I purchased through Adorama because they seemed to have the best package deal. Just about everyone sells the body for $2499 at the moment; Adorama throws in a shoulder bag and a 16GB card. (Update: Or at least they used to…it must have been a temporary special price because now that package is listed higher. Keep an eye out in case it comes around again.)
My shots so far have been decent. Honestly I’ve only had it for a few days and have yet to really take it for a photography spin. I’ve mainly been experimenting with the HD video feature (a large part of why I bought the camera). After numerous videos of my shoes and other random subjects I decided to test it out in a music video scenario. Nothing crazy, just a acoustic performance like I usually do on Youtube (till now I’ve been shooting on an embarrassingly old MiniDV camcorder that is almost twice the size of the Canon). You can view the result here.
An unexpected issue with the completion of that video was the post-production file format mess. Apparently Canon had no interest in making things easy on us (although that looks like it will change this month). I ended up following the steps outlined here on Vincent Laforet’s blog with great success. I imported to the desktop, converted H.264 to Apple Prores (tanked my drive space), imported to Final Cut, sent to Color and back, exported using Quicktime H.64 compression, then uploaded to Youtube. Kind of a long roundabout process, but things went smoothly. As is true for the still shots as well, you immediately notice how much more control you have over the image in editing mode. Edits that used to crunch up image quality or produce unwanted noise no longer do so at all. The picture is so clean that you can tweak away to your heart’s content without ever losing the integrity of the image.
As I said, I’m just getting my feet wet with this thing and I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I field test it a lot more. I’ll be going to Japan in May and am looking at that trip as a great opportunity to take thousands and thousands of pictures and crash my hard drive with absurd amounts of footage. As I continue to experiment with this wonderful object I’ll put together a more complete review. In the meantime, for my sake, cross your fingers Canon *doesn’t* come out with any shiny new cameras anytime soon.
I often like to click on ISO50 commenters links connected to their names just to see what there all about and recently clicked on AndresM and found out what they(I guess a couple shares this account? :] ) wanted for Christmas hah, It was this close to affordable alternative to a Super 8mm video camera but in digital called a Zumi. Here is a pretty decent example of footage, not bad for the 170USD price tag:
Now for the music, I think everyone will be very happy to hear this Swod song and give this Lusine track a try, the second half of it builds like a Lusine classic.
I just got home from Portland after playing the Emrg-n-See festival on Sunday night. Thanks to everyone who made it out, I had a great time playing and the energy was amazing. I had the honor of sharing the stage with two artists I have a lot of respect for: Flying Lotus and Daedelus. Luckily I brought my little Canon SD780 Elf and in between setting up my gear backstage, I was able to catch a little bit of Daedelus’ set on video (Sorry they’re so short, time was really tight).
The SD780 really is amazing for it’s size; it cranks out HD and takes some great still shots too. If course, it’s not the greatest in low light situations so take the above examples with a grain of salt. I will post some daylight stuff this week that show it’s real capabilities.
Introduced in 1976, the Leica R3 was a compact SLR based partly on the Minolta XE (the MOT — pictured above — being the motor driven variant). These can be had on the cheap via ebay, would make a great secondary camera for film stuff.
So I stumbled onto the deleteyourself blog the other day (same guy who runs Photololz) and in turn found his Flickr. There were some nice shots up there but what really struck me in particular was the vivid clarity and tone of the photos. So I took a look at the EXIF data and sure enough, they were all shot with a Canon 5D MKII. As you may well know, I have been trying to decide whether to stick with Nikon for my next camera or make the leap to Canon. I think that decision is becoming much clearer now; after seeing what Tim Navis did with the EOS 30D and now this, Canon is way out in front for me. Of course, he’s also using the $1500 Canon EF 16-35mm, but I suppose a camera like the 5D deserves only the best. At any rate, these shots drive home how good the 5D is at transforming otherwise mundane scenes into exquisitely detailed compositions of incredible depth and tonal range.
On a side note, that second pic looks like it was taken right around the same place I took this one, flying into Phuket Airport. I effected the hell out of mine, so it’s hard to compare the two, but I assure you that even in it’s raw form, mine was never anywhere near this detailed and dynamic. I’m not sure how much post processing he is doing with these, I’d love to know how much Photoshop had to do with the end results. Whatever the case may be, Photoshop can’t just synthesize out of thin air the kind of clarity and depth found in these shots; I would bet there’s just some simple color balancing going on. I’m also really liking the vignetting in a lot of these, can anyone out there with a similar rig testify as to whether that is a natural artifact of that particular lens or something he did in post?
"Mindblowing Full HD" was how Gizmodo yesterday described the newly announced Canon 5D Mark II’s video capabilities. Vincent Laforet, who calls the 5D "the best camera ever", was one of the first to take the new camera for a spin and the results are undeniably striking. The stills you see above are from video he shot using the $2700 body and $25,000 in lenses (a list of the lenses he used are at the Gizmodo post). The video, while still not official available, has leaked onto YouTube giving us at least a glimpse of the quality we can expect from the final (view video below).
Gizmodo had this to say about Laforet’s experience creating the video:
"That and a $2700 DSLR body. A testament to its ease of use is that Laforet is a photographer; he has no professional film experience and had never used the 5D Mark II before, yet was able to storyboard, cast, shoot and edit the clip in just two days, with less than 12 hours notice. In particular he noted that dumping the MPEG-4 video takes way less time than it would with an actual HD camera. The only issue that would stop a person from shooting a TV pilot solely with this camera is sound matching, he says. If that’s covered, you’re gold."
I think that’s the most compelling aspect of the 5D: it’s accessibility. Such a powerful tool which yields such amazing results will empower scores of artists looking to break into motion work. I realize that at $2700 the 5D sits at a price threshold a little beyond the grasp of a lot of us, but high-end video of this caliber has never come this cheap and when you take into account the fact that the 5D also more than covers your DSLR needs the whole package starts to look like a sound investment for photographer and videographer alike.
I don’t know about you guys, but the argument for 5D supremacy is becoming more and more convincing as Canon slowly reveals what it’s capable of. I am still holding out for a head-to-head versus the D700 which, although lacking in video capability, is apparently a low light performer. Whatever the case may be, such a versatile tool as the 5D would make a welcome addition to any graphic designer’s kit.
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04/26/10 - 
