5Dmk2 Video Shooting tips?

[DeCeccoNET]

I've had this camera for a month or so now, and this weekend I volunteered to shoot some stills and video of a leadership workshop.

Although I was initially excited by the promise of shooting video with the 5Dmk2, I have been finding myself "fighting" against the limitations of the automatic settings during my testing.


My 2 main concerns are depth of field and focus.

Essentially my primary goal is recording video of a keynote speaker most likely from across a classroom. I picked up a shotgun mic that I am happy with, but with my experimentation regarding the DOF, i am finding it to be razor thin. (admitidly, i have only tried my 16-35 & 24-105 so far).


Does anyone have any tips which may help to achieve a sharp video with a depth of field that allows "reasonable" movement from the speaker? (should it come down to focal length please note that i will only have access to the lenses listed in my sig)

Thanks in advance!
-John




(ps. for what its worth regarding audio, I recently picked up an Azden smx-10 and found the line noise to be unaceptable... i returned it for a Sennhiser Mke 400 based on a recent B&H newsletter review and am much happier with its quality and physical size... although the 5dmk2's automatic audio gain control still seems to create line noise).

[Matatazela]

http://blog.jdphotography.co.za/?p=349 Watch how these guys do it and drool!!!

[DeCeccoNET]

The video is amazing, as I find many to be. But I cannot figure out how to achieve a (deep?) depth of field such as the one with the groom, the sky and what appears to be the entire frame in tac sharp focus (and in this case during camera movement too!)

[osv]

using a zoom mic for this purpose will never give you optimal results, you really need a wireless remote mic or wireless lapel mic.

you can't turn the canon agc off?? not good... even my little $800 canon hf11 has manual audio control.

i believe that dof decreases with distance, the best you can hope for is to raise the aperture to f8 or above, and maybe increase the iso to compensate for less light.

i have heard that there are limitations on full manual control of the video with this camera? is there an aperture priority mode?

[JBaz]

nope, completely automatic. To open the aperture up, you have to use ND filters if you are in a bright scene. anyone knows how to set the exposure lock of where you don't have to hold the button down?

[DeCeccoNET]

Long story short, I shot the keynote on saterday using my 5dmk2....

Unfortunitly what I thought was going to be a 10-20min speach was closer to 2 and a half hours so I learnd a few things...

Not having known the time, i figured i would shoot in HD. Obviously the 4gb limit came into play quite a bit and i had to constantly monitor my time as there was little warning when the recording stoped. Furthermore, the exposure had to be re-locked every time i started recording agian.

Focus and depth of field wasnt so much of a concern as i was afraid of. In the end, i pre-planned and got a good spot and used my 70-200f4 and had decent results. Later when i knew the speaker was going to be answering questions i switched to my 24-105 so that i could get more of the audiance. Obviously i had to remain on top of my focus at that point which ended up in akward strained hand movements.

IS HAD TO STAY OFF! otherwise even with the senheiser shotgun, the motor noise was still very noticable. Furthermore, i had my tripod at maximum height to shoot over the audiance's head which lead to a strained neck. Next time, i will have a chair or some sort of an external monitor sollution if thats even possible with this camera in video mode. Also, from what I could tell, the 5dmk2's screen does not show action or title safe guides when shooting video. (If i was framing for standard definition broadcast, i could have been in a lot of trouble as a result of heads being chopped off on some TVs)

Going back to the audio, thank god i had a shotgun! I picked up the senhiser mke 400 after an abysmal experiance with the Azden smx-10. I was origionally looking into wireless options, but i just couldnt justify shelling out that kind of dough at this time. Furthermore, having done professional video in the past, i know very well that there are settings (NYC) where it may be near impossible to find a clean frequency. Also, from my research the analog to digital tv switch has started to cause interfearance with wireless stage mics and theater systems. I did not want to purchase somthing that operated at a frequency that could become difficult to work with until the dust settles. The inability for me to monitor my audio at the camera level was a deciding factor to go with the shotgun at this time. Even though the sound was still distant, as was to be expected (i did not have room access and could not run audio cables), the camera mic simply would not have made the cut. Furthermore a lacross game was being played right outside, and the shotgun did an excellent job of rejecting it. The auto audio levels on the camera killed me though. The 5dmk2 wants to jack everything up so much that there was a very noticable line noise (if youve shot pro-video and worked with levels, you probably know what i mean). Unfortunitly, there is no way for me to monitor the levels while i was shooting so i was praying for the best, but i think it is workable.

Lastly... this camera eats batteries for breakfast in video! In the end, my last battery died and my THIRD 16gb card were reaching capacity so i had no choice but to shoot her closing remarks and some after pictures with my powershot 880.

With regard to post...

My Intel iMac with 4gb of ram and final cut pro studio 2 just laughed at me when i tried to work with the HD footage and (god forbid) playback in realtime. I actually found iMovie 09 to be able to handel the footage better (after the 1hr import process) and let me work with it. I then rendered out to DV 720x480 16x9 to take back into final cut. This render process compleated after close to EIGHTEEN HOURS.

Long(er) story short... The video quality of the 5dmk2 is amazing. But in the future, and it has been said before on this forum, I will think twice before using it for this kind of a job again. I love the camera for its photographic abilities, but the video, at every turn left me wanting more control, and lacked providing the necesary feedback to reinfornce that my audio or video would be acceptable in the end.

[Kagemaru]

The Mark II video is great for short documentaries, brief interviews, BTS etc.. For anything else, you need a dedicated Video camera. If you want more control over DOF, get a Nikon to EOS mount and use Nikon lenses, they have the aperture control on barrel of the lens so you can at least control that.

[JBaz]

^OH, very good idea! I wonder how well that will turn out.

[Firestarta]

None of the scenes in that video have been taken at night...
I love my 5D MK2 during the day.. but when it comes to shooting at night, the noise/grain is a disaster.

I also can't change the ISO while shooting video.. it's always set on 3200, and it changes automatically sometimes depending on the light. Any idea why that is?

Thanks

[bacchanal]

None of the scenes in that video have been taken at night...
I love my 5D MK2 during the day.. but when it comes to shooting at night, the noise/grain is a disaster.

I also can't change the ISO while shooting video.. it's always set on 3200, and it changes automatically sometimes depending on the light. Any idea why that is?

Thanks

There are basically no manual controls in video, but you can sort of get around this. You can set your exposure by pointing the camera at something that will give you the exposure you want and then hit AE lock. If shooting at night, take a flash light and a piece of paper or something like that to use for an AE lock target. Also, if you get lenses with manual aperture control, you can force the camera to use a certain aperture regardless of AE lock.

[DeCeccoNET]

You can use the AE lock to stop that (and lock the exposure). You still retain the exposure compensation controll using the wheel, but as soon as you stop and start recording, you will have to re-lock the exposure again.... which I found VERY annoying!