Movies with the 5DII?

[glenerrolrd]

My daughter and wife are both quite interested in shooting movies with DSLR. Elizabeth uses a hand me down 5d and has a nice collection of L glass primes plus the 24-105/4L . Just purchased Son s 5DII .

For shooting a summer evening wedding ..mostly the before and after (since its Elizabeth s wedding)......is it reasonable to use say a 50 prime lens for video ? This will surely be activities around the wedding with guests and family as opposed to the ceremony .. I am concerned that the zoom will be too slow and its clunky . Carolyn (wife) will be the shooter.

Any advice appreciated.

 

[kevinparis]

roger

putting aside the point that making movies is really hard work Its definately more involved than just pointing a camera and hitting record.

I have a 5D Mk2 and have done some experimenting with it

this was shot in 5 mins using a contax 50mm - editing probably took an hour after that

http://vimeo.com/9156040

things to consider

1) Video uses the liveview - so you have to compose and focus using the LCD. This can make for awkward handholding of the camera - shakey video is very distracting.

2) If you are looking to record sound - I would recommend an external mic - Rode do an excellent stereo VideoMic that will fit on the hotshoe - I am sure there are others. Also make sure you upgrade the camera firmware to the latest version which offers useful audio level meters.

this was done with the Rode mic - actually the footage here is from the 5D and the Olympus E-p1 - i wanted to see how the footage from the cameras could mix - excuse the guitar playing

http://vimeo.com/9618688

3) Think about how you are going to edit the footage - the file format is tricky to edit right out the camera. The output is in a H264/MPEG 4 format which is compressed in such a way that unlike a traditional film, each fame is not captured in its entirety, but rather i captures a full keyframe and then just the differences until it needs a new keyframe. What this means is that when you come to editing if you want to say cut on frame 997, the computer has to look back to the last keyframe and calculate all the changes before letting you see the frame - this can tax a computer

I work on a Mac and have access to Final Cut, and my workflow is to convert to a larger ProRes 422 format which does have a complete image for each frame and allows for faster editing and real time visual effects. You may want to look into this aspect a little more

4)you could shoot just with the 50mm , but the zoom is probably the better option - not that you should zoom while filming, but it just offers more framing opportunities. F4 should be plenty fast as the canon produces very acceptable results all the way up to 1600 ISO


I don't know what your experience level is with shooting video, but this online resource is probably worth a look at - scroll to the bottom to find the "Start Module 1" button

http://www.bbctraining.com/onlineCourse.asp?tID=5914&cat=2781

I actually did a 4 day course at the BBC, and much of what we covered is in this online resource. Obviously it geared at program making, but a lot of the basic principals are covered


I am sure there a thousand other things i should be saying - but hopefully this will get you started

cheers

kevin

 

[glenerrolrd]

Thanks Kevin very useful information. My wife is the videographer in the family and she has had some good luck with what she can do with the older C lux and now the Nikon d90. So we are talking "home movies" . She has mastered the editing enough to produce a decent product but the 5DII is a real opportunity to improve the quality.

The tip on the zoom is probably right on . She is right at the level where we need to invest in Final Cut but thats a project in itself.

 

[kevinparis]

you may also want to check out Final Cut Express and indeed the version of iMove that came with iLife 09. Both of those i know can handle HD footage, though they transcode to yet another format called AIC ( Apple intermediate codec) for speed of editing. Don't know if they will work with the 5D footage, but I am sure a google will come up with the answer to that

K

 

[ftbt]

I use FCP and transcode the H.264 files to ProRes for editing. (Basically H.264 is a delivery codec and was not really designed or intended as an acquisition or editing codec.) With that said, before you go out and invest in either FCP or Final Cut Express, you might want to take a look at the new Adobe Premiere CS5 that was introduced last week at NAB. Apparently it is a real game-changer. With its "Mercury Engine," (in conjunction with an Adobe approved graphics card), supposedly it will edit several streams of HD in real time, including H.264 files without transcoding to an intermediate format.

The other things you may want to consider are camera support/stabilization. A tripod or monopod with a fluid head and possibly even something like a Glidecam Pro 2000 or 4000 will do wonders for the "production value" of your video.

 

[spotmeter]

As someone who has shot video professionally with both the 5D2 and dedicated camcorders, it will be much easier to shoot your daughter's wedding with a video camcorder. They are designed to sit on the shoulder, the viewfinder is right at eye level, they have a much better microphone than the 5D2, and the footage is easy to capture and edit. With a smaller chip and autofocus, you will have more usable footage with much less bother.

Hopefully this will be your daughter's only wedding. As a father, I can tell you that there are tons of things that need attending to in a wedding. Why add to the stress by trying to use the 5D2 as a video camera? It was designed as a still camera, with video added.

 

[PeterA]

Kevin - I enjoyed the snowflakes in Paris - loked like a photographers take on moving images.

 

[kevinparis]

thanks peter

It was a completely spontaneous thing - it started to snow, I grabbed the camera and pointed it out the window. Even the black and white was accidental, that just happened to be what i had set the camera for

cheers

K