On 17/9/2008 Canon produced the Canon 5D MK2, this camera has quickly proved to be radical for film makers everywhere across the planet - for the first time Canon created an HD full frame DSLR that was efficient at spectacular moving image capture.
This attribute was put in by Canon mainly because journalists have been demanding it for a long time, additionally the unity between stills photography and video inside the same system was rapidly becoming feasible.
Nobody was more stunned than Canon when film maker Vincent Laforet was among the first filmmakers let loose on the completely new camera. His first effort Nocturne would not disappoint, it's no overstatement to say it set the field of film-making on fire. The true reason for this is the way the huge full frame sensor inside of the camera makes it possible for the operator to generate a truly wonderful depth of field that traditional small sensor cameras simply cannot replicate.
The traditional film cinema look is difficult to explain but one of the major factors is the depth of field that a 35mm film aperture creates. The Sensor (or film gate) in the Canon 5D is a great deal larger than the sensor used in a 35mm film camera, in truth it's nearer to filming on 65mm.
Despite this awesome depth of field property and it's very quick usage within the film making community, Canon's 5D MK2 camera has it's problems when filming video.
One of the main issues is line skipping or moire. The canon has to remove information from the thousands of pixels that make up it's sensor so that it can make a 1920 X 1080 HD file. It does this by throwing away every third line of information - line skipping. This could certainly turn out to be disastrous if you're shooting a subject that has quite a few horizontal or vertical lines - as the image steps across the dumped lines of information it can look horrendous. I usually try to keep clear of check shirts!
Another drawback is picture 'skew', this is recognizable when panning left to right quickly - vertical lines bend and twist noticeably - this is a difficulty on all CMOS video sensors but famously terrible on the Canon because it's scan rate from the top to the bottom of the sensor is very sluggish and there is no internal compensation. A solution to this is to simply stay away from any quick pans!
Another obstacle is definitely the 'form factor'. A DSLR is a very awkward form to film with, there is no focused eyepiece so only two points of contact - both hands. In a perfect world three points of contact are necessary to get a stable image whilst shooting hand held video. In the past two years a large number of proprietary camera support devices have been devised by a vast array of companies but they all fundamentally do the same task - supply one more point of contact by means of a shoulder or chest support technique.
The rear LCD monitor is generally problematic to look at in bright sunlight and there are various 3rd party items to cope with this, from low-cost hoods to pricey lensed eyepieces and additional video display units working off the built-in small HDMI port. There are lots of worries with the HDMI supply, most notably, it is quite delicate and fragile. Additionally there is a delay when feeding the image from the dslr to a monitor after hitting record, this means patiently waiting eight or nine seconds before acquiring a monitor visual. This can be maddening in a documentary situation.
The camera records in 8 bit quicktime H264 and even though this generates dazzling pictures it's not considered to be a pro recording data format due to the H264 compression setting. That being said, the camera has been used for a great number of TV dramas, documentaries and features. It's visual image beauty seemingly outweighing it's technical limits.
In spite of the stated problems, many film makers (including myself) put up with these grievances because Canon have turned out a seriously superb, creative, film-making device. When they can improve the stumbling blocks with the MK3 then they're going to have crafted a truly awesome camera at a astounding selling price.
This attribute was put in by Canon mainly because journalists have been demanding it for a long time, additionally the unity between stills photography and video inside the same system was rapidly becoming feasible.
Nobody was more stunned than Canon when film maker Vincent Laforet was among the first filmmakers let loose on the completely new camera. His first effort Nocturne would not disappoint, it's no overstatement to say it set the field of film-making on fire. The true reason for this is the way the huge full frame sensor inside of the camera makes it possible for the operator to generate a truly wonderful depth of field that traditional small sensor cameras simply cannot replicate.
The traditional film cinema look is difficult to explain but one of the major factors is the depth of field that a 35mm film aperture creates. The Sensor (or film gate) in the Canon 5D is a great deal larger than the sensor used in a 35mm film camera, in truth it's nearer to filming on 65mm.
Despite this awesome depth of field property and it's very quick usage within the film making community, Canon's 5D MK2 camera has it's problems when filming video.
One of the main issues is line skipping or moire. The canon has to remove information from the thousands of pixels that make up it's sensor so that it can make a 1920 X 1080 HD file. It does this by throwing away every third line of information - line skipping. This could certainly turn out to be disastrous if you're shooting a subject that has quite a few horizontal or vertical lines - as the image steps across the dumped lines of information it can look horrendous. I usually try to keep clear of check shirts!
Another drawback is picture 'skew', this is recognizable when panning left to right quickly - vertical lines bend and twist noticeably - this is a difficulty on all CMOS video sensors but famously terrible on the Canon because it's scan rate from the top to the bottom of the sensor is very sluggish and there is no internal compensation. A solution to this is to simply stay away from any quick pans!
Another obstacle is definitely the 'form factor'. A DSLR is a very awkward form to film with, there is no focused eyepiece so only two points of contact - both hands. In a perfect world three points of contact are necessary to get a stable image whilst shooting hand held video. In the past two years a large number of proprietary camera support devices have been devised by a vast array of companies but they all fundamentally do the same task - supply one more point of contact by means of a shoulder or chest support technique.
The rear LCD monitor is generally problematic to look at in bright sunlight and there are various 3rd party items to cope with this, from low-cost hoods to pricey lensed eyepieces and additional video display units working off the built-in small HDMI port. There are lots of worries with the HDMI supply, most notably, it is quite delicate and fragile. Additionally there is a delay when feeding the image from the dslr to a monitor after hitting record, this means patiently waiting eight or nine seconds before acquiring a monitor visual. This can be maddening in a documentary situation.
The camera records in 8 bit quicktime H264 and even though this generates dazzling pictures it's not considered to be a pro recording data format due to the H264 compression setting. That being said, the camera has been used for a great number of TV dramas, documentaries and features. It's visual image beauty seemingly outweighing it's technical limits.
In spite of the stated problems, many film makers (including myself) put up with these grievances because Canon have turned out a seriously superb, creative, film-making device. When they can improve the stumbling blocks with the MK3 then they're going to have crafted a truly awesome camera at a astounding selling price.
About the Author:
The Article Author, Mitchell Blatwood is a film maker supplying excellent video material for cinema, broadcast and corporate clients. He operates Tall Man Films and has more than a decade experience of corporate videos bristol. Take a look at the web site for more free guides.
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