We're just about to start filming an ongoing winter project up at Killington and I thought it would be a great to work with the 5DII. Unfortunately, I start this week and after a good deal of research and dealing with my regular suppliers It looked like a no go - can't change formats once we start shooting, and back orders virtually everywhere as y'all know.

So, on a whim I call a couple of small, country camera shops and amazingly Green Mountain Camera at Stowe had one coming in today...which I just came back from picking up....at my B&H price,

So if this tiny shop in the mountains got one today, it's a good chance that the next round of shipments are arriving at the big dealers. For all of those awaiting allocation, yours may be on the way. And for those told to keep calling for availability, maybe it's worth calling.

I just scrambled and got a set of four Nikon/EOS adapters shipped so I can shoot with my prime set, and B&H is over-nighting a 24-105, so it looks like I'll be able to produce this with the 5DII after all. I'll also get a quick sense of operation and battery life in cold weather....daytime highs for the first few days of shooting are going to be below zero at 4000'.

My understanding is that it's easier to find a 5D2 at the smaller mom & pop brick and mortars than anywhere else. Anybody looking for one should check their local camera / photo store.

my local shop here in louisville has about 5 5d2's sitting on the shelves.... good people. I've bought well over 6 figures worth of stills gear from them over the years.

Murphy's Camera (502) 485-1500 ask for Tim

They'll ship anywhere.

You never know. I put my name on a list at a small shop a month ago, and they still haven't received their shipment. I ended up getting mine at Frys after learning that I had missed some arrivals at Best Buy.

I would have preferred supporting the small camera shop, but not enough to keep waiting for the product...

Jim - I just shot my first project (music vid) with the 5D last week - in the COLD. I tried to get a spare battery but they're as hard to come by as the cam. I was able to get the AC adapter but we still had to shoot around battery life which wasn't terrible but I'm used to my A1 which runs forever on a single battery.

Art

Jim - I just shot my first project (music vid) with the 5D last week - in the COLD. I tried to get a spare battery but they're as hard to come by as the cam. I was able to get the AC adapter but we still had to shoot around battery life which wasn't terrible but I'm used to my A1 which runs forever on a single battery.

Art

NJ....you don't know cold Art <g>. It's going to get to -40 (real temp) in some areas up here tomorrow night...it's about -18 at the farm tonight.

Did you take the battery out to warm it between shots?
I had a still photography crew follow us on a mountain shoot last winter. It was way below freezing at sunrise in deeep snow near the summit and the main photographer got frostbite in his shooting finger, his Nikon froze up and then we sent them down on a snowcat.

I saw batteries for around $80 at B&H.

Ironically, I bought a spare battery before I bought the camera! I went into the small shop where I put my name on the list, and they had just received batteries that very day.

Ironically, I bought a spare battery before I bought the camera! I went into the small shop where I put my name on the list, and they had just received batteries that very day.


Haha, I bought my battery grip, spare battery and an m-track ii (for off camera audio) all on the same day I pre-ordered my 5d mk ii. The m-track arrived first, then the grip, then the camera, and THEN the battery finally arrrived. I didn't realize it would be so difficult to get a spare battery.

NJ....you don't know cold Art <g>. It's going to get to -40 (real temp) in some areas up here tomorrow night...it's about -18 at the farm tonight.

Did you take the battery out to warm it between shots?

I saw batteries for around $80 at B&H.

Yeah - I guess its all relative Jim but for us pansies here in NJ 20 degrees is cold enough! No we didn't try to warm the battery but were close enough to places with an outlet where we could charge up while planning our next shots. The AC adapter also worked well for indoor shooting.

Art

I just walked in the studio from a long snowshoe in the mountains with the 5D2. It hit -40 here last night...real 40 below, not windchill. I shot everything with IS on and used the live view AF-ON as the only practical way to work in this cold and with gloves and three layers of expedition weight clothing.

The camera worked perfectly and the battery lasted the whole time. Auto focus was sluggish at best, but for the situation it worked well (I'm guessing the sub zero probably impacted it like everything else.). The first thing I did when I got into the studio was plastic bag it and put it leave in the entryway to stay cool and avoid too much condensation.

Time to feed horses, make coffee and see what I got out there.

I got mine in December from the local camera store as well.

I learned my lesson from the last camera when I was on the Amazon wait list.

Canon must have a system where they preferentially send supplies when they are limited to the local camera stores. At least it seems to be much easier to get them there.

I picked up ours from a smaller local shop too. Glad to support the little guy. They had 6 of the kits and 5 of the bodies on the shelves. The cool thing was that they had a nifty little HAMA EOS to Canon FD lens adapter so I walked out with three additional old skool "cheap" lenses. I'm in love with them. $89 for a use 70mm-210mm and it is sharp! Here's the shop in the Seattle area Kenmore Camera (http://kcamera.com/)

I picked up ours from a smaller local shop too. Glad to support the little guy. They had 6 of the kits and 5 of the bodies on the shelves. The cool thing was that they had a nifty little HAMA EOS to Canon FD lens adapter so I walked out with three additional old skool "cheap" lenses. I'm in love with them. $89 for a use 70mm-210mm and it is sharp! Here's the shop in the Seattle area Kenmore Camera (http://kcamera.com/)

Not to be a snog, but you want to be shooting the nice Nikon primes with those adapters. The 70-210 is way too slow to give you the DOF that is the idea of the adapter/Nikon thing. And it's no where near the IQ of the primes which are also very cheap and look absolutely amazing on the 5D at 1080p. I'm just setting up a full set of primes with adapters on each. I shot with the 105mm 2.5 last night and it looks better than the mini35 on either the JVC or Canon HD cameras.

Again, the 70-210 is a good lens but it won't get you the "film" look that this camera will deliver.

I picked up ours from a smaller local shop too. Glad to support the little guy. They had 6 of the kits and 5 of the bodies on the shelves. The cool thing was that they had a nifty little HAMA EOS to Canon FD lens adapter so I walked out with three additional old skool "cheap" lenses. I'm in love with them. $89 for a use 70mm-210mm and it is sharp! Here's the shop in the Seattle area Kenmore Camera (http://kcamera.com/)

Not to be a snob, but you want to be shooting the nice Nikon primes with those adapters. The 70-210 is way too slow to give you the DOF that is the idea of the adapter/Nikon thing. And it's no where near the IQ of the primes which are also very cheap and look absolutely amazing on the 5D2 at 1080p. I'm just setting up a full set of primes with adapters on each. I shot with the 105mm 2.5 last night and it looks better than the Mini35 on either the JVC or Canon HD cameras.

Again, the 70-210 is a good lens but it won't get you the "film" look that this camera will deliver.

Another reason to go with faster primes is that you can stop them down a bit when you don't need a razor thin DOF, and the image will be crisp and flat to the edges. When you run a lens near its limits, it generally has light falloff at the corners and other artifacts.

Often f/5.6 is all you need. That way you don't have to decide if you will put the right eye or left eye in focus. If you have an f/5.6 zoom, the image will be so-so. If you have an f/2.0 prime, the image will be superb - given good lighting, framing, exposure, composition, of course...

Not to be a snob, but you want to be shooting the nice Nikon primes with those adapters. The 70-210 is way too slow to give you the DOF that is the idea of the adapter/Nikon thing. And it's no where near the IQ of the primes which are also very cheap and look absolutely amazing on the 5D2 at 1080p. I'm just setting up a full set of primes with adapters on each. I shot with the 105mm 2.5 last night and it looks better than the Mini35 on either the JVC or Canon HD cameras.

Again, the 70-210 is a good lens but it won't get you the "film" look that this camera will deliver.

Are you kidding? This lens at the 210mm macro end can toss the background completely out of focus. Awesome for a lot of what we do - product videography. You can see the 70-210mm used in all the rack focuses and on all the close-ups in the video at the bottom of this page Canon 5D at DVcreators.net (http://www.dvcreators.net/canon-5d/) Watch the close up shot of the box. Look at the letters as it racks.

The other two FD lenses I picked up are primes - an 85mm F1.8 and a 24mm F2.8 at around $125 ea. The 85mm is a bit "milky" so that one may be going back. I believe that a Nikon adapter would be the better way to go as the aperture is unfortunately locking wide open on all my FD lenses when using this HAMA EOS adapter. So I do not recommend getting this particular adapter.

Are you kidding? This lens at the 210mm macro end can toss the background completely out of focus. Awesome for a lot of what we do - product videography. You can see the 70-210mm used in all the rack focuses and on all the close-ups in the video at the bottom of this page Canon 5D at DVcreators.net (http://www.dvcreators.net/canon-5d/) Watch the close up shot of the box. Look at the letters as it racks..

Not kidding at all, I'm just throwing out my experience shooting SD and HD with Nikon primes. We shot some of the first commercial work with them and kind of pioneered the whole Nikon prime for filmmaking thing with the first version P&S Mini 35. We did all our first shooting with Zeiss Super Speed cine primes as the benchmark.

I've owned and produced with almost all the Nikon glass, and have had the 70-210 and shot it for tests and it simply doesn't do what any of the quality (but affordable) primes will deliver...that's just a fact.

Put a 50mm 1.2 or the 105mm 2.5 on their and shoot the same scene and you'll see the difference immediately. Again, it's a nice lens, but it was designed as a small, affordable consumer zoom and by definition simply doesn't have the IQ, contrast and color rendition of the AIS and AI primes, plus the speed, number and curvature of blades are what deliver really quality bokeh and there are a few lenses that will give you that - "that" being what all our experience showed comparable to a $15-20k cine prime.

Those lenses include but are not limited to:


24mm 2.0, 50mm 1.2, 85mm 1.4 (holy grail of portrait/one-shot lenses), 105mm 2.5


Other great ones are 20mm 2.8, 28mm 2.0, 50mm 1.4,

From a "if I could only carry three lenses to make movies" standpoint:

Either the 20mm 2.8 or 24mm 2.0 on the wide end.

The 50mm 1.2

Either the 85mm 1.4 or 105mm 2.5

One thing about the 105mm: Even though it's a stop and a half slower than the 85mm it deserves the reputation of one of the best lenses ever made by anyone. It has everything - exquisite contrast and color rendition, gorgeous bokeh and it's a 52mm thread vs a 77mm on the 85mm. It's as well made and sort of the 85mm 1.4 "lite"