5D to blu-ray - Bad Idea?

[Erik Andersen]

I'm producing a blu-ray next month and would love to shoot on the 5D, but there'll be no room for fudging with a 1080p final product! Should I stick to my trusty XH-A1's?

Has anyone out there found a good solution for changing the frame rate from 30p to 24p? I've tried cineform and the workflow recommended by Philip Bloom (Philip Bloom Blog Archive How to convert Canon 5dmk2 footage from 30p to 24p), but am not happy with the results from either. They just looks like exceptionally good frame blending, i.e. blurred goop. I think Sofia's People: Canon 5dmk2 24p on Vimeo came out so well because the motion was so limited. My shooting style is very mobile, a lot of steadicam stuff.

It would be great if someone had a good solution for this!

Thanks,

[Olof Ekbergh]

I think the mkII is great for some things. Steadicam with lots of motion is not one of them.

Slow moves with large areas of frame out of focus is what it does really well. And of course it is the low light champion.

Deep focus, lots of detail, high contrast and fast motion are not its strong points.

I have success fully used it for Bluray intermixed with EX3 footage, this was 29.97 FPS finished project. So that was easy just conform in Cinema tools.

I also have used mkII footage successfully conformed down to 23.98 not using audio and accepting slight slomo part, I like it in fact.

I do have my Stedicam SK rigged up to use the mkII, but I have not used it for production yet, now I usually use the EX3 on it. I am still waiting for the right project to use it on Stedicam, and then it will be a perfect match.

I see the mkII as a special tool that can do things other cams can't. Shallow DOF, Fantastic low light performance and stealth. And it is cheap so it can be expendable.

[Erik Andersen]

Thanks for sharing that, how did the 30p footage look interlaced at 60i?

I think the 5d will do great things on Steadicam (already is for Patrick Moreau ;), especially with a nice wide stopped way way down. Would also benefit from controlled, flowing movements, i.e. planned shots, new for me ;) I'll test that theory on my Pilot this evening.

Also, 40mbit/s is much better than the HDV datarate I'm coming from, so I think high motion with fast moving foreground would really soar where my XH A1 footage tends to crumble. Also going from 1440 to 1920 columns, and from fake to real progressive imaging, is a huge plus in terms of detail.

How would you say the 5d competes with the EX3, aside from the shallower DOF?

[Pedro Martins]

hi Erik

here are an example using the 5d with Glidecam Smootth Shooter 4000 at night:

TEST Canon 5D MKII Running Boy on Vimeo

you may want to take a look

Pedro
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http://www.vimeo.com/pedromiguel

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Erik Andersen

Also, 40mbit/s is much better than the HDV datarate I'm coming from, so I think high motion with fast moving foreground would really soar where my XH A1 footage tends to crumble. Also going from 1440 to 1920 columns, and from fake to real progressive imaging, is a huge plus in terms of detail.

How would you say the 5d competes with the EX3, aside from the shallower DOF?

In theory yes it should be better than HDV. But in going back over old stuff I shot at the San Francisco Bay, Golden Gate Bridge, the XH-A1 made me appreciate how clean, crisp and detailed that camera can be. The codec did not break under the waves and surf at Fort Point. That video is amazing, and rivals my current EX1 at 60i.

My 5DMkII looks amazing in its element, but limited. There's not much obvious benefit from the 40mbps. I've rendered it with the Sony .mxf encoder (mpeg-2 vbr) to 15mbps and was hard pressed to spot much of a quality loss on a 50 inch 1080p Elite plasma, played back from Blu-ray.

My opinion of the 5DMkII as an owner, in the outdoors, daylight, landscapes, it's trumped easily by both the XH-A1 and EX1/EX3 series.

[Mike Williams]

Check out Dave Williams stuff as well. He uses the 5d on a glidecam and creates some amazing work. Philadelphia Wedding Video, Philadelphia Wedding Videographer, High Definition (HD) Wedding Videos, Event Videography in Pennsylvania and Wedding Video Journalist

I used it on my GC 4000 for a few weddings and now that we have manual control It's awesome! No more drop frame syndrome whenever the cam feels the need to stop down!

I played with it and the stops on the iris are about the same as the Z1. Not anywhere near the EX1 in smoothness though. I will miss that.

I did use my canon 16-35 stopped down and got enough DOF to glide without much worry about focus.

[Erik Andersen]

Originally Posted by Tom Roper

There's not much obvious benefit from the 40mbps. I've rendered it with the Sony .mxf encoder (mpeg-2 vbr) to 15mbps and was hard pressed to spot much of a quality loss on a 50 inch 1080p Elite plasma, played back from Blu-ray.

Interesting, too bad 5d doesn't have a vbr codec! By the way I'd love to know if you conformed the 5d footage to 60i as Olof mentions, or went to 24p?

Pedro, Mike, thanks for the links. Went out with 5d/Pilot today, newb at both but finding that a nicely controlled not-so-shallow DOF makes movements a lot more dynamic. Even on my shoddy 50mm 1.8.

[Gilbert Khoury]

When did used the steadicam did you use any follow focus?

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Erik Andersen

Interesting, too bad 5d doesn't have a vbr codec! By the way I'd love to know if you conformed the 5d footage to 60i as Olof mentions, or went to 24p?

I conform to 60i (29.97) with Cineform Neo Scene.

[Tom Roper]

I'd like to get my hands on one of the new Canon Tilt and Shift Perspective control lenses, 17mm L TS-E or 24mm L-II TS-E.

I think there could be some killer opportunities for unique perspectives of the high alpine wilderness, stills yes of course, but also Blu-ray video.

[Erik Andersen]

Originally Posted by Gilbert Khoury

When did used the steadicam did you use any follow focus?

Just stopped down to get more depth of field. One day I'll invent a wired follow focus that mounts on the steadicam itself, with the focus ring wrapping around the post. It'll be called the "Flocus" ;)

Originally Posted by Tom Roper

I'd like to get my hands on one of the new Canon Tilt and Shift Perspective control lenses, 17mm L TS-E or 24mm L-II TS-E.

I'm with you there. Those new TS-E's are my dream lenses. Also great for widening the depth of field.

[Olof Ekbergh]

Originally Posted by Erik Andersen

Interesting, too bad 5d doesn't have a vbr codec! By the way I'd love to know if you conformed the 5d footage to 60i as Olof mentions, or went to 24p?
.

I use Cinema Tools (Apples FCP Suite II) to conform clips to either 29.97 or 23.98.

Then I use either use Compressor or Media100 to transcode to ProRes422 HQ, then I drop it into a program (M100) or a new sequence (FCP) that is 1080p 29.97 or 23.98. Everything works very well this way. The key is to transcode into a good codec.

Sometimes I will drop 23.98 clip into AE and render to 29.97 with pulldown. This slows clips down for 29.97 viewing.

A progressive clip dropped into a interlaced timeline will play fine if interpreted as interlaced.

Obviously these are Mac solutions, I am sure similar workflows exist in the PC world.

In order to match mkII footage to other cams, I always soften it in Color to hide the ugly compression around high contrast areas (like dark bare branches in focus against a light sky.

[Erik Andersen]

So conforming 30.00p 5dmkii footage to 29.97 and throwing it in an interlaced timeline seems like a valid option. I'll try it, may be the way to go until the *next firmware update* if the rumors are true.

But does anyone know of a way to get convincing 23.98 progressive footage from 5d 30p? Don't need help with getting sub-par 24p, with smudgy jittery motion, already know how to do that ;) Who has pulled off the real deal, or something incredibly close? Any fresh workflows no one knows about?

Edit: http://vimeo.com/5223767 seems to show a clean conversion to at least 25p is possible, it looks brilliant in this video by Philip Bloom.

[Steve Henry]

Originally Posted by Olof Ekbergh

In order to match mkII footage to other cams, I always soften it in Color to hide the ugly compression around high contrast areas (like dark bare branches in focus against a light sky.

How do you soften in Color? Thanks.

[Mathieu Kassovitz]

Did you use Twixtor?