Director's POV

[George Angeludis]

I have just got the 550D. The battery lasted for 10 minutes as it was empty. I felt like in film school again. This thing is far different from a plain camera. You must know what ayou are doing and I love this. I will post my findings. I bought a Verbatim 16G Class 6 and a Silicon Image 8G Class 6 too, I just shot a random 4-5 minutes. I haven't seen any problems with the cards so far. I plugged the card at the laptop. Instant playback. A little color noise but I think it was a 3200 ISO so it's absolutely normal.

[Sam Kanter]

George - enjoy the new camera. It is amazing what it can do. Awaiting your masterpiece, shot with the T2i...

[George Angeludis]

Thanks Sam. Masterpiece I don't know but I will shot something anyway...

[George Angeludis]

I haven't tried the Silicon image for longer recording but till 4 minutes had not problems. The Verbatim stopped at 9 minutes after the buffer couldn't keep anymore. Till 8 minutes @ 1920x1080 24p I got the buffer some times (more as time was progressing) at the first 2 blocks only but it didn't stopped till the 9th minute. I run the same test twice. At the 2nd time the recording stopped at 12th minute. I don't consider this a problem at all for me as I don't shoot longer takes than 2-3 minutes the most. No overheat problem yet.

A bonus photo.

[George Angeludis]

Verbatim stopped a lot of times (being half full) at 720p. I had to start it 3-4 times before it hold a steady rhythm. This is not the case for the 8G Silicon Image which never stopped (even the buffer showed up 1-2 times) neither @1080 or @720. Even more than half full it keeps on going... It went till the end of the card without even stopping once!
Silicon Image is faster than Verbatim. I don't know if this has to do with storage capacity of each card.

2 things I would like to have.

1) Headphones input or some kind of audio monitoring.
2) Remaining recording time for the card...

[George Angeludis]

If the camera will be set up properly, I don't know what camera can have a better image. The image quality of this tiny thing is beyond words.

[George Angeludis]

At both PAL and NTSC systems, the lowest shutter aperture is 30 (for 24p) and and 60 (for 25p and 30p), Shouldn't be 50 for the PAL system? Or this is irrelevant with the frame rate?

[George Angeludis]

Shot with Canon 550D (kit lens 18-55 @55mm) with no remote controller.
Edited and color corrected on Avid Media Composer 4.

Traffic on Vimeo

[Bruce Foreman]

Originally Posted by George Angeludis

Verbatim stopped a lot of times (being half full) at 720p. I had to start it 3-4 times before it hold a steady rhythm. This is not the case for the 8G Silicon Image which never stopped (even the buffer showed up 1-2 times) neither @1080 or @720. Even more than half full it keeps on going... It went till the end of the card without even stopping once!
Silicon Image is faster than Verbatim. I don't know if this has to do with storage capacity of each card.
.

The buffer bar should never appear.

Never.

With the previous model, the T1i, Canon techs advised folks who were having problems that the camera could be "brand picky" about media. They recommended SanDisk Extreme III for that camera and those who followed that recommendation saw their problems "go away".

Those cards will let you down when you can afford it least.

You spent close to a "Grand" for this camera and it's performance. Don't skimp on the media.

I never even tried anything but SanDisk Extreme III in my T1i and I NEVER saw a buffer appear. Never.

The T1i got sold a month ago and I've had a 7D since Oct, I purchased 3 SanDisk Extreme IV (2 45Mbps and 1 60Mbps) 8GB cards and I have never seen a buffer appear in it. NEVER.

[George Angeludis]

Thanks for that Bruce. Manual says that it can appear though. When I am using the Silicon Image I don't see the buffer. However it is clear that it's only for 1-2 seconds that I "listen" to the 3.7 fps/sec (photo mode). Then it becomes slower. On small samples I haven't lost frames as the audio (lip) sync remains constant. Of course for a short film I will buy the fastest card available. There are some Sandisks that claim 15mb/s but there are Class 4.

[George Angeludis]

Flowers in an Urban Landscape.
Canon 550D with kit lens.

Flowers in an Urban Landscape on Vimeo

[Don Miller]

That lens is pretty bad wide open. I got it in a kit seven years ago. Stopped down it's much better.
The 17-55 costs more than the camera, but it really is the right lens for the quality of the sensor. Unfortunately wide open is where the expensive glass shines. Fortunately expensive glass has held its value well.

[George Angeludis]

Originally Posted by Don Miller

That lens is pretty bad wide open.

This is my observation too. The resolution is far better at a bigger focal length but we always measure resolution at the center of the lenses.

[George Angeludis]

1 Lux test for the Canon 550D.
1920x1080/25p.
Kit lens 18-55 @55mm f/stop 30/5.6.
ISO from 100 to 3200.
Neutral picture profile.

Canon 550D Low Light Test on Vimeo

[James Donnelly]

Originally Posted by Don Miller

That lens is pretty bad wide open. I got it in a kit seven years ago. Stopped down it's much better.
The 17-55 costs more than the camera, but it really is the right lens for the quality of the sensor. Unfortunately wide open is where the expensive glass shines. Fortunately expensive glass has held its value well.

It's a crap lens for many reasons. I would never recommend it to a professional, but it is not the same as the one you had.

7 years ago, it was the mark I, then came the mark II without much improvement, but the IS version is substantially better in a number of ways, not least, sharpness wide open.

Here is the photozone review for the mark II:

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II - Review / Test Report

and the IS:

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS - Review / Test Report

The reason I think it is worth stating is that as you can see here, there is a great deal of difference optically between the two lenses in terms of sharpness:

Mark II:

http://www.photozone.de/images/8Revi...5_3556/mtf.gif

IS:

http://www.photozone.de/images/8Revi...3556is/mtf.gif

You can clearly see that on the lens you had, corner sharpness falls off a cliff wide open, while on the IS, it holds up very well.

In case anyone hasn't got time to read the full review, here is a quote from the summary of the IS:

"There were a few moments when I considered not to publish the results due to "political correctness" because to date it was a quite absurd thought that such a cheap, or better "affordable", lens can perform this good and I'm sure that some will not believe the findings even though they're supported by the published field images. Anyway, the resolution capabilities of the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS is nothing short of amazing. This is also surprising regarding the rather small changes in the optical design compared to the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II. Still - the center resolution is excellent throughout the range even at wide-open aperture. Unlike most dedicated APS-C standard zoom lenses it is capable to keep a very good level even at the extreme corners of the image field. Its resolution characteristic is similar to the (much higher priced) EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 USM IS at comparable aperture settings, quite a bit better than the EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 USM IS and naturally vastly improved over its non-IS predecessor! "