I consider myself a film maker, at this point, having spent the last several years trying to develop some skills. I have debated for some time the idea of going with this camera as the next step in my "film" experience building. I took the plunge and ordered one for the following reasons:

1. I need to start working with 35mm style shooting, learning the tricks of that style filming.

2. I have played with various adapters attached to my FX1 with varying success, but wanted something more direct and less complicated. I have no doubt that given the infirmaties of those 35mm attachment, this camera fills that bill.

3. The camera will easily adapt to multiple Nikon lenses I have accumulated.

4. The price is great. I look at it as cheap tuition to learn more about this style of shooting.

5. This camera, will get me to the point that I can consider the next step-- Scarlet with a full size chip.

Of course if someone out there came up with a firmware that would resolve some of the difficiencies of this system, that would be great, but from the footage I have seen thus far, this camera, even without 24p, will provide some decent images and filming techniques to build a reel.

What are your reasons ?

Ok, I'll play. I have two reasons.

1. It Makes Financial Sense -
I was going to buy a second camera to match my XHA1/Letus setup. That camera would likely be an HV20 with a Letus to match the look. The cost of that rig would be more than $1,500. If I sell my DSLR (40D), and getting this instead of the HV20/Letus it starts to make financial sense.

2. I can take it places I can't take a video camera.
If you shoot documentaries, you constantly run into the problem of attracting unwanted attention when your goal is to blend in. This camera will allow me to shoot in locations I could never shoot with my video rig.

Great thread. For me the reasons are (not limiting myself to five):

* Great value compared to the current crop of 1/3" video cams.
* Ability to learn 35mm film making.
* Great low-light response.
* Compatibility with inexpensive, used lenses.
* Simplicity (aside from the lack of manual controls), compared to a 35mm adapter.
* A great photo camera.
* Ability to program different looks on the RAW side of the codec. (Sure, I'd rather have RAW out, but this ain't a RED.)
* Ability to create stunning images. The codec might not be perfect, but it's pretty darn solid.

That said, I'm doing narrative work. We're I doing live sports or other one-chance-to-get-it-right video, I'd have skipped it.

I just ordered mine this morning, so I'll bite. Here are my 5.

1) 35mm dof without having to use a 35mm adapter and making my camera 3.5 feet long. (which I'm selling to fund this purchase)

2) As guerilla as you can get. Will be able to get shots/locations that I never would have with a JVC HD100

3) Light + small. Run, gun, 'n go. a Steadicam Merlin can replace my bulky Glidecam V8.

4) It's a 20 megapixel SLR, which beats my 8mp 1D mk II (which I'm selling to fund this purchase.)

5) ultra clean low light/high ISO stills/video.

Okay, I'll jump in. I'm a long time user of high end Canon still equipment and have only dabbled with video in the past - so I'm one of the many 5D MkII video converts. This is a truly fantastic still camera, but I've had mine since early December and probably 75% of what I've done is video. Part of it is the investment; it would be very hard for me to justify high end video equipment, but with the 5D MkII the starting video camera is free for me. Here's my top 5:

1. I already have the Canon gear

2. Great reason to stop dabbling and to jump seriously into video

3. Practical - small, light, easy to handle and use - and great HD video

4. The dual mode, video/still, makes video even more practical

5. Great match for the aviation and aerial stuff I do

The other side of this coin, if you mainly shoot video the 5D MkII is a chance to experience a very high end still camera.

My expectation is this is gen 1 from Canon and it will only get better.

Here are my five reasons...

1. Amazing shallow DOF!
2. Amazing shallow DOF!
3. Amazing shallow DOF!
4. Amazing shallow DOF!
5. Amazing shallow DOF!

:-)

Did I mention the amazing shallow DOF...

Did I mention the amazing shallow DOF...
Um, yes. ;)

That said, 70mm film is even shallower. You could have gone with that. :)

1- 1080p
2- full DOF
3- I can use my Nikkor, Zuiko, Zeiss and Leitz glass
4- 21mp stills
5- I can sell my Nikon, XL2, XL1, (try to sell my) mini35 and pocket the change...

Control over depth of field.
Powerful light gathering ability (if you use wide apertures).
Very wide selection of lenses.
Convenient and inexpensive recording media.
Jaw-dropping timelapses.

You will also know my biggest reason for switching when you see the photos here (http://www.oynk.com/2009/02/19/an-upgrade-or-an-excuse/). Look at the second photo. My 35mm adapter rig is a beast!

For quick broll shots in tough locations the 5D seems worth its weight in gold.

You will also know my biggest reason for switching when you see the photos here (http://www.oynk.com/2009/02/19/an-upgrade-or-an-excuse/). Look at the second photo. My 35mm adapter rig is a beast!
Nice article, Michael.

Your perspective is spot on. We imagine that the next new toy will change the game. We buy it. Sometimes it pays off. Other times, we end up with a boat anchor.

My guess is that the 5D MkII will suit you well. Testing your experience with your existing photo cam is a good test, but my guess is that it will only feed your gear obsession. Kind of like dating a girl you don't care about to see if you're ready to date the girl who haunts your dreams. You know which girl you'll be thinking about. :)

1. My Canon D30 was getting a bit dated, and I've fancied a full-frame DSLR for a while.
2. It has a 21MP sensor, which is just so geeky cool. It is my excuse to upgrade to Gigabit-at-the-desktop and move to 15K RAID arrays across the board.
3. The 5D Mk II costs a fraction of the 1D, and comes in just under the threshold where wives and accountants start asking questions.
4. All my lenses were Canon*, so I didn't consider any other option other than another Canon body.
5. That Reverie video, that was the deal clincher. 35mm 1080p. I didn't *need*, but I sure did *want*. I sold myself, hey, I can show these videos to my grandchildren, I can tell them "I was there, at the start of the 'DSLR Video' revolution. I was a pioneer! We had to untwist the lens to force an aperture setting". A bit like my Dad telling me about his Betamax video recorder.
6. My mate just bought a consumer 1080p camcorder :)

*Funny thing is, since purchasing the 5D Mark II I now have more Nikon glass than Canon glass, so my next camera purchase won't automatically be a Canon, and I am free to consider if Nikon have a better body when the time comes. Actually, I could probably ebay all my Canon glass and be up on the deal! So, in hindsight, I could also add point 7. - It is not a costly toy, but actually a solid future investment.

1. Lusted badly over the first 5D and told myself I'd buy its successor.
2. Enjoyed using the Rebel and Rebel XT, but ready to move to full frame / zero crop factor.
3. Enjoyed using the Rebel and Rebel XT, but ready to upgrade to a bigger & better D-SLR.
4. A good excuse to own L-series lenses and a 580EX II SpeedLite.
5. That HD movie mode thing sounded kinda cool too.

I'd probably echo most everything here especially owning two big, long HD rigs with 35mm adapters.

The one thing that I'm just in love with that surprisingly didn't get mentioned - shooting tapeless to inexpensive CF cards.

That is revolutionary in and of itself.
It makes our production workflow so much faster and simpler.

THE 5 PROS:

1. It's affordable.
2. It's easy to use.
3. It's incredible in low light.
4. It has very shallow DOF.
5. It's a great still cam.

THE 5 CONS:

1. Lack of 25/24p.
2. No manual controls.
3. Aliasing.
4. Rolling shutter.
5. Bad ergonomics.

5. Bad ergonomics.Bad ergonomics? It's no different than any other D-SLR. Add
the optional battery grip if you want 1D / 1Ds type ergonomics.

Testing your experience with your existing photo cam is a good test, but my guess is that it will only feed your gear obsession. Kind of like dating a girl you don't care about to see if you're ready to date the girl who haunts your dreams. You know which girl you'll be thinking about. :)


Ha! Very apt analogy. I am definitely haunted at the moment.

Bad ergonomics? It's no different than any other D-SLR. Add
the optional battery grip if you want 1D / 1Ds type ergonomics.

IMHO discussion of the cons should be in another thread, but since we're already here, I'll throw my hat in. The ergonomics for stills shooting are excellent as long as you use the optical viewfinder.

But as soon as you start shooting video, ergonomics go out the window. But let's not talk about video: it is a stills camera, after all. So lets talk about just stills.

As soon as you start shooting handheld stills with liveview, ergonomics go out the window. This would be completely rectified with a swing out tilting LCD.

Currently, if you shoot hand held and want to achieve critical focus at f/2.8 or wider, you have to buy an Eg-S screen and focus manually, because the standard focusing screen cannot show any depth of field wider than f/3.5. Furthermore, the stated autofocus error tolerances are wider than that what's needed for critical f/2.8.

By the time you get down to f/2, f/1.4, and f/1.2, it's pretty much required that you spray-and-pray because there are no optical viewfinder screens to get you close enough with certainty (no real ground glass, no split prism, no microprism collar).

Not to mention that some lenses shift focus when stopping down, requiring you to focus with the DOF preview button, which is too dim with the high resolution focus screens.

Liveview is the perfect solution to all these problems: it allows fully critical focus and WYSIWYG. But it's very un-ergonomic to use handheld because you have to hold it up in front of your face like a digicam user. That's hard to do with the 600mm f/4 L IS. ;)

A swing-out tilting LCD would allow handheld stills shooting with all the benefits.

Of course, the biggest benefit would be for video shooters.

As soon as you start shooting handheld stills with liveview, ergonomics go out the window. This would be completely rectified with a swing out tilting LCD. How many D-SLR's have a flip-out LCD though? (admittedly a rhetorical question; because the answer is none that I can immediately think of). In other words, while the criticism may be valid, it applies to *all* D-SLR's, and not just the 5D Mk. II in particular (since it's no different ergonomically than any other D-SLR). My point is that it's hard to label the lack of a flip-out LCD as a "con" since D-SLR's in general don't have flip-out LCD panels to begin with. Live-view enabled or not, there's currently no such thing as a Canon or Nikon D-SLR with a flip-out LCD.

Are we talking about a still camera or a video camera?

I'm hoping to buy a video camera in the next couple of months and, though I'm still reading about this camera, I've pretty much discounted it from consideration largely because of its ergonomics as a video camera.

So, to me, talking about it being a great still camera really doesn't enter into a discussion about using it for video.

My Canon S3 IS takes great looking SD video but its ergonomics suck! (Plus, it ain't even got a jack for an external mic.) For that matter, the picture of my HV20 looks great to me but I can't get used to the tiny size of it.

After saying all that, I'm curious to see pictures of how people are using it as a video camera. I imagine it being some kind of Rube Goldberg contraption with wires and doohickeys sticking onto the tripod--made moreso due to the form factor of its SLR heritage.

If Canon put the same camera in a traditonal camcorder form factor*, I'd probably jump at it. Fingers crossed for something like it at NAB.

*that'd be a wierd looking device

My point is that it's hard to label the lack of a flip-out LCD as a "con" since D-SLR's in general don't have flip-out LCD panels to begin with.

Agreed. As a still camera, fixed LCD is par for the course. Of course, live HDMI output would satisfy that need somewhat, too, via third party LCD and EVF.

A flip out LCD screen would be a great feature - even for a still cam.

Imagine needing to shoot over a crowd as a famous person walks by. If you could tilt the LCD down, you would be able to frame and time your shots.

Bad ergonomics? It's no different than any other D-SLR. Add
the optional battery grip if you want 1D / 1Ds type ergonomics.

I referred to the 5D as a video camera. As a still camera it should work fine.

Liveview is the perfect solution to all these problems: it allows fully critical focus and WYSIWYG. But it's very un-ergonomic to use handheld because you have to hold it up in front of your face like a digicam user. That's hard to do with the 600mm f/4 L IS. ;)


What I'd really like is liveview in the viewfinder, like a video camera! This would be perfect for shooting stills. I find I almost have to double my shutter speed when using liveview as I have no forehead and nose to rest against. So on my 35mm lens, using the viewfinder I can take shake-free shots at about 1/30, but using liveview I find I need to go to 1/60 to get a shake-free shot.

And, what would be even better is 10x zoom picture in picture, so I could frame and focus without needing to switch.

What I'd really like is liveview in the viewfinder, like a video camera! But then it wouldn't be a Single Lens Reflex. The optical viewfinder is the whole idea behind the SLR.

I'd like to have this thread go back on topic (what are your top five reasons to go with 5D MK. II). Because what we're talking about now isn't even about what the 5D Mk.II actually is (it's a specific type of still photo camera -- an SLR -- that happens to have an HD video recording mode). As for wish-lists of what you want to see it morphed into, that's a subject for a different thread.

5. I finally get to own a camera better than my wife's (40D).

4. An excuse to buy the 35/1.4L

3. And the 135/2L

2. I can ebay my FX1 and stop scaring the children.

And finally, the #1 reason to buy the 5DMkII

1. ISO 25600! I'm sure I'll never use it, but its fun to say!

Marc

Just an ice breaker.

I've misunderstood number 5 as I finally get to own a camera better than my wife

And so I jump into conclusion... of what the heck...I'd be better buy this camera right now..

and learned later you are referring to your wife's 40D.

I'd probably echo most everything here especially owning two big, long HD rigs with 35mm adapters.

The one thing that I'm just in love with that surprisingly didn't get mentioned - shooting tapeless to inexpensive CF cards.

That is revolutionary in and of itself.
It makes our production workflow so much faster and simpler.

That was going to by my #6, but the thread said top 5. :)

more or less the same reasons as others.

5) To stop using my 35mm adapters (once a necessary evil)
4) Low light
3) Inconspicuous filming.
2) Skill building. I learned so much when I bought my first video camera (Sony HC1). Owning my own camera allow to me to get into video more than I ever could with borrowing cameras at work occasionally. Again when I got a 35mm adapter, I learn about how shooting films differs than video. With the 5D2 I'm already learning so much more about still photography which is ironically what I started with prior to going digital and led me to video.
1) I'm bad with money.

Fixed LCD is par for the course.

I hope the recently-announced Olympus E-620, with a tilt and swivel LCD, is a sign of things to come for all DSLR cameras.

And it won't be before time. If I shoot an event with the Z1 I can hold the cam way over my head or push it hard down into the bean bag on the ground, all the while looking directly perpendicular into the LCD screen.

Shooting a wedding the other day with my Canon DSLR I was struck with how horribly limiting the viewfinder options are. It was a case of holding and firing, then checking the results and then trying again. And again.

tom.

Here's my 5 and a half reasons.

1. Smaller form factor than my current rig (HV30+Brevis or XH-A1+Brevis)
2. Gorgeous DOF - way more so than an adapter can produce
3. Stills+Video - I can be a photographer - as well as shoot a bit of video at the same time. Or shoot video only. Great versatility.
4. Low-light capabilities
5. The 5DMII is also a great little 'home movie' or tourist camera
5.5 Tape-less workflow

Cheers,

Matthew.