Video from the Canon 5DMkII

Well I guess we can all throw away our AVCHD video cameras. The test video from the 5DMkII is just simply fantastic... especially with interchangeable lenses. I'm impressed by Canon. I still want 120fps.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/movies.dpreview.co...II/MVI_5514.MOV

http://s3.amazonaws.com/movies.dpreview.co...II/MVI_5500.MOV

Warning these files are over 200MB.

Not bad...12 mins it can record for is that correct?

Downloaded the first one, H.264 is abit hard to edit at full res preview with this size so converted it to Canopus Lossless (1.4 GIG in size) then like editing Mini DV.

Pretty good, nice and sharp, but need to see it on some more moving stuff though.

Downloading second one now but looks like this is the way the DSLR's are going.

No wags... about 30 mins... pretty much like a AVCHD camcorder... Opps that's VGA. 12 mins of 39mb/s 1080p (that's XDCAM EX bandwidth) but with much better lenses! It's a little over saturated and really I wouldn't put it at real broadcast pro-quality just yet but the dynamic range and DOF is very nice. 4:2:0 still but for underwater, it's really awesome to have dual purpose in the same camera, and it looks smooth like film. Still resolution isn't perfect and I'm sure the CMOS rolling shutter will rear its head. I'll be playing with a sample on Friday.

The capture limitation seems to be the 4GB file limit of FAT32 on flash cards. I guess due to heat they couldn't risk continuous recording. Still, my sequences are from 5-8 minutes. With 16GB cards out there and 32GB UDMA cards coming out, maybe a firmware correction to continuously record past the 12 min limit.

Had a look at that second clip....that is nice ain't it.

Still want to have a look at how it shoots when it's moving though.

Do they play smoothly in FCP as is?

Plays fine when converted to Pro Res... no point editing in H264. I just realized it's VBR so it could go from 8-30 minutes depending on content, based on that bit rate. Apparently shutter speed is auto only (1/30 to 1/125) and aperture can be selected but not adjusted during capture(which doesn't make sense but hey it's a DSLR). There's even rudimentary AF, AWB and MWB With the picture styles, highlight tone and all the other goodies, the auto adjustments may be good enough. Then it's just a matter of post to get the look right. Lowlight wide angle will be awesome, since the 24/1.4 or the Sigma 20/1.8. Now we need to find a big enough port to handle fstops of 1.4-7 without killing the edges

This is so cool. I shoot both stills and vid underwater. Could the days of lugging two sets of housings etc be numbered?

Will be interesting to see how it handles motion. Now if i can just find a way to cram it into my existing 5D housing.....

Fergus, it should fit in your housing... since you shoot video, you won't need your VF... which is good because it's different from where the old one is. You won't have controls either cos they've moved too... except maybe the shutter... so you can just shoot video

Quite a few people have emailed/PMed me regarding this phenomena of merging genres of ViDSLR or DSLRideo (sorry I've been busy and can't come up with a snappy new term yet) and how big it's going to get (Also why is it you guys can't post a question here instead of contacting me? You get quicker service out here ). I have to say right now it is in its infancy. The H264 codec looks pretty darn good at 39mb/s (4.8 MB/s). It's more film like than HDV or even the XDCAM EX and the color looks comparable to 1080i DVCPRO HD. For B camera broadcast, I doubt any one would say no. Principle capture? Well, the engineers in broadcast have pretty stringent and strange criteria for codecs, and they can't seem to separate acquisition codec from editing/delivery codec.

Right now, the best offering is in the Canon 5DmkII. The best in the sense that it is available with interchangeable lenses and that a plethora of DSLR housing manufacturers will be covering this model. They have the port systems to work with pretty much every lens useable u/w. There is very little that is known about the way the 5D shoots video in terms of modes available. Shutter is auto between 1/30 to 1/125. I can't find anyone who's handled the camera to say how to control exposure except via AV mode. Apparently manual aperture control is possible. but with a small range of shutter speeds, it's more a club than a scalpel. For underwater, the lens choice will be an awesome boon with 1:1 easily available as are FE and rectilinear WA lens. The problem I'm guessing are the length of recording (4GB file limit), battery life and for the housing manufacturers, stability. Shooting a still is easy so handling has never been as crucial to DSLR housing makers. Many just add float devices to keep the housing from being too negatively buoyant. However, with video, handling is doubling crucial for a steady picture. Notice all the demo vids from canon are all locked down tripod shoots?

I'm trying to get my hands on the camera soon and will report more but it seems to be adequate for run n' gun shooting that a news journalist on location in a war zone or something. The verdict is still out on its usefulness underwater.

Ok from Canon's mouth via Chuck Westfall:

When the EOS 5D Mark II is used in Movie mode, all settings for ISO, shutter speed and aperture value are controlled automatically by the camera. The only exposure controls that are available are exposure compensation and AE lock, both of which should be set before movie recording begins.

So basically you are at the mercy of the Digic 4 for pretty much everything except focus. Still from the demo videos, the quality is very nice and the use of all those lenses may be worthwhile to develop workarounds. And Canon may release firmware updates to give more features as it develops.

For kicks, I put those clips into FCP 6.0.4 and tried to edit them native... had no problems. The bitrate was 4.968MB/s... which essentially is better than XDCAM HD HQ bit a tad since MPEG4 is VBR and about 30-50% more efficient than MPEG2. I can't find out if it is 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 but with this bit rate, it seems likely to be 4:2:0.

It's still a great start and one can assume the 1D series may look into 1080P as well.

Did you have to drop the preview quality down low to edit them realtime in FCP?

Nope, but I only tried basic editing to see if it would work for kicks. I just wanted to analyse the clip to see what the data rate was. I'd never edit in H.264. Once I get my dailies set and labelled, I'd convert what I want to Pro Res 422 and edit that way.

Yes converting to another codec is the way to go for easy multi track smooth editing.

That bird clip took about 90 seconds to convert here.

Actually I'll do them again and get the exact times.

Well in analyzing the clip, I found Canon's editor made a BIG mistake. They left some imperfections in the clips that show that the CMOS sensor does have skew and slant of rolling shutter... and quite obvious too. In the last 9 or 10 frames of the MVI_5500 clip, you can clearly see the video breaking down when the camera was moved. That clip was shot with the 300mm which is equivalent to 2100mm in 1/3" sensor crop, so rolling shutter is going to happen. There is no such thing as perfection. Just to find something wrong with the camera and curb your enthusiasm.

Are yes I just zoomed right in and can see it too.

So as long as you leave it on a tripod or the ground you are okay

Well in analyzing the clip, I found Canon's editor made a BIG mistake. They left some imperfections in the clips that show that the CMOS sensor does have skew and slant of rolling shutter... and quite obvious too. In the last 9 or 10 frames of the MVI_5500 clip, you can clearly see the video breaking down when the camera was moved. That clip was shot with the 300mm which is equivalent to 2100mm in 1/3" sensor crop, so rolling shutter is going to happen. There is no such thing as perfection. Just to find something wrong with the camera and curb your enthusiasm.

From my understanding this problem is inherent in CMOS sensors; so is it something that can ever be eliminated in A DSLR using a CMOS sensor?

It's not the CMOS sensor but how the "shutter" scans the sensor. With CMOS, it's more practical to use a rolling shutter, whose results you can see is not pretty. Red and Sony have done a lot in dsp to try a minimize the problem, but since it's a design issue, it'll always be there. Going to play with it right now.

I don't know much about video, but I was looking at the second clip and it looks really choppy on my machine. Is that the way others are seeing it, or do I need some other software to check it out? Tried both Quicktime player 7.5 and Premiere Pro CS 3.

Mike

Drew you get to play with all the new toys.

See if you can post some footage from it moving.

Mike your computer might not have enough grunt to play that file smoothly.

Trying viewing it in QT at half size.

That clip was shot with the 300mm which is equivalent to 2100mm in 1/3" sensor crop

If one were planning to use this underwater, changing to video would be like changing lenses correct? This could be a problem I imagine not being able to shoot the same perspective as you are shooting stills. Would there be any present lenses that shoot wide angle video with this?

If Nikon implements this in their FX cameras, then their present option of being able to use DX lenses will be helpful. Am I correct?