My first entirely 5dmkII straight news report published

On Youtube here YouTube - China: Rising unemployment hits migrant workers

I've done alot with the 5dmkII but up till now I've not done a straight TV style news package so I thought I'd try it out. I normally use my Sony EX-3 for this. It went on the front of the Guardian website (in low res of course) for a good while today so I'm quite happy. The important bit is that the sound is all straight into the camera too (apart from the voice overs), I used a Sony radio mic which has a headphone jack in the reciever so I could at least monitor what was being sent to the camera. Usual selection of Nikon lenses were used.

I'd be really interested to know what people think.

Dan

[Jay Bloomfield]

Originally Posted by Jim Giberti

Jay, I don't think asking for a the most limited amount of control over shooting HD on an otherwise state-of-the-art camera has got anything to do with being "perfect for doing a feature film" That's way over the top hyperbole. "Duhhhh" is a really unnecessary way of talking down to intelligent people.

Right now, many people used to at least rudimentarty manual controls on about every camera available in the past decade are just frustrated that they cannot even keep a consistent shutter speed from shot to shot or maintain an exposure from shot to shot which makes work tedious and uncreative and makes a consistent look virtually impossible.

No one I know is asking for XLR audio or headphone amps or zebras and color bars...just the simple ability to choose what shutter speed you're filming at and the ability (like every other camera DSLR or video that I'm aware of) to maintain the settings you've attained (even if you have to "trick" your camera with a flashlight) once you've set them.

There's auto control and then there's limiting your customers beyond reason and I think there is a real flaw in Canon's development in that regard - and there's a reasonable compromise that I'm about to post under " A Reasonable Compromise" thread.

I would hope that this forum would stay with the substance of what is posted, rather than getting into critiques of style or whether one is "talking down" to people.

Personally, I wish that the 5D MKII had manual control also, but that was not Canon's intent in marketing and selling this DSLR. Unfortunately, I beleive that it is very wishful thinking that Canon will provide a firmware upgrade to provide full manual control and it is even more delusional to think that even the large army of hackers will be able to do so. Even the modest amount of public discourse with Canon staff on the topic of upgrading the firmware to add manual control, has only produced evidence that Canon is at best, disinterested in the idea.

A similar situation occurred when Canon introduced the groundbreaking HV-20 consumer HDV camcorder. The HV-20 produced excellent video for the price and with a little bit of tinkering (blinding it with bright light, using the exposure lock, etc.), one could coerce it into a "semi-manual" mode. Now, tons of HV-20s were sold worldwide and users started clamoring for firmware hacks and also for Canon to upgrade the firmware to full manual. But did Canon do so? Of course not, because it would have undercut their more expensive prosumer camcorder lines. The HV-20 has been transformed into the HV-30 (with 1080/30p) and now the HV-40 (with native 1080/24p). But at no time did Canon hint at adding full manual control. Further, hackers, to date, have only been able to change the firmware version of the camera (to something nonsensical), despite the lure of the challenge and various pots of money that were raised on the Internet as incentives.

However, I do suspect that Canon may produce a "Euro" version of the 5D MKII that will shoot in 25p, as that is an obvious oversight, from both a technical and marketing standpoint. Canon may also produce both higher and lower level models with similar HD video. But more likely, they will eventually produce a full frame camcorder that uses interchangeable Canon glass. But until then, everyone will have to work around the camera's limitations. It's a DSLR that incidentally shoots very good HD video.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Originally Posted by Jim Giberti

Well if you're in the creative business Jon - time is money.

Absolutely! Don't get me wrong. Manual control is my #1 request to Canon, and I asked this forcefully (and mostly respectably) at CES.

And you're wrong that "they are obtainable". 1/60 shutter speed is pretty critical to quality work at 30p. It's the default setting in fact as is 1/48 in 24p. There is thread after thread around the net regarding the near impossibility to achieve 1/60 at all, or repeatedly.

You're right. Not all settings are obtainable, and that's a shame.

By "they are obtainable", I meant that "repeatable settings are obtainable."

Specifically, I was responding to your earlier statement that
>"they cannot even keep a consistent shutter speed from shot to shot or maintain an exposure from shot to shot"

To summarize,
1) You CAN get consistent settings from shot to shot, so the camera is viable; however,
2) the current implementation drives us to Nikon lenses,
3) the gyrations that we go through to make it work are unprofessional and annoying,
4) our creative choices are overly limited, even with the annoying gyrations. (For instance, I would personally choose 1/80 for normal use, if I could, but that's a topic for another day...)

There's another issue beyond manual control, which is that the actual shutter speed doesn't match what is displayed. (As I've shown, 1/40 and 1/50 are actually about 1/45, and 1/60, 1/80 and 1/100 are actually about 1/80.) Personally, I'm okay with that. These choices are probably based on sensor properties, bandwidth, clock speeds and other limitations. I don't reasonably expect Canon to change the actual available shutter speeds with a firmware update.

And again I apologize, as this thread is about Dan's video. Hopefully this will be a temporary detour, rather than a hijack, as the discussion continues here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/canon-eos...ompromise.html

[Dan Chung]

Hijack away, I share all of the frustrations about manual control. I hope Canon, Nikon, Sony and Panasonic all look at this forum and take note, that way we will finally get the solutions we crave.

Dan

[Dan Chung]

I've just posted this in Vimeo as well, again I'm interested in which version people think is better quality. News video shot on 5DmkII - The Economic crisis hits China on Vimeo

Dan

[Yang Wen]

You guys are forgetting one thing. These companies do not care about us. They only care about how their product offerings affect their bottom line. If they could, they'll just produce products of minimum evolutionary quality and get by. I mean, just look at Nikon for all the years prior to D3 they've had with their DSLRs with inferior sensors. Thank goodness for competition.

Don't bet on getting all tehse features enabled via firmware.. they'll offer another model with the 5D2's sensor that's geared towards videographers and charge like $6000 for it.. Just you watch

[Jon Fairhurst]

Originally Posted by Yang Wen

They only care about how their product offerings affect their bottom line.

That the 5D MarkII drives us toward Nikon lenses DOES affect their bottom line.

[Alain Lumina]

Absolutely brilliantly done within the constraints, both informative and artistic, you could feel what the interviewees were feeling; and the shooter seemed to keep a reasonably respectful distance instead of barging into the crowd

Totally pro, with feeling.

[Peter Chang]

Originally Posted by Dan Chung

I've just posted this in Vimeo as well, again I'm interested in which version people think is better quality. News video shot on 5DmkII - The Economic crisis hits China on Vimeo

Definitely the Vimeo! Great work.