Q: Canon DSLR's shooting video - jam timecode possible?

Hello,

Forgive me for this sort of "newbie" question...

I've spent about 30 years in the Television Industry.

Shooting multi-cam events, and jamming timecode to each camera is
an everyday ocurrence - hardly give it a second thought.

I have a friend who is wanting to shoot an event, multi-cam with some
verson of Canon DSLR's (X* series or the pro bodies - don't know the budget yet)

So, my question to you all,

Is there any sort of option either on the prosumer or pro versions of the cameras that will allow you to jam timecode?

If not, how do you folks that have done such a thing deal with syncing up the multiple cameras?

I'm thinking it can possibly done film-style, with a clapper, or a digital clapper

thoughts, opinions, speculations?

thanks!

Bill

There's no clock either direction on the dSLR bodies. You'd have to sync via clapper or comparable system in post.

Yup, Clapper or Strobe Light

There's no TC Input on a dSLR (that I'm aware of.)

in theory.... if magic lantern can work out a way to remove all on-screen display from the hdmi output, you could use the HDMI port to an external recorder that has timecode. AFAIK though that's still not possible.

Clapperboard or any sound/vision sync device would suffice as long as all the cameras can see it, but with the limited record time on the DSLR's you'd have to make sure you could do it every 12mins or so.

The other alternative is trying to sync manually which is feasible, but depending on the footage can be a royal pain. We shot an event earlier this year on 3 traditionally timecoded cameras with 2 DSLR's... luckily there was enough budget for an assistant editor who did a couple of days on the ingest and worked wonders syncing up the DSLR footage manually.

Next time I would assess whether the shoot required DSLR's and ditch them if not. They are not ideal for multicamera setups (especially with long takes).

Does trans-coding via cineform retain the data? I know you can slap on the trans-coding onto the footage, don't know if it will do what you are looking for. Maybe email them.

altwebid wrote in post #12756052
Clapperboard or any sound/vision sync device would suffice as long as all the cameras can see it, but with the limited record time on the DSLR's you'd have to make sure you could do it every 12mins or so.

The other alternative is trying to sync manually which is feasible, but depending on the footage can be a royal pain. We shot an event earlier this year on 3 traditionally timecoded cameras with 2 DSLR's... luckily there was enough budget for an assistant editor who did a couple of days on the ingest and worked wonders syncing up the DSLR footage manually.

Next time I would assess whether the shoot required DSLR's and ditch them if not. They are not ideal for multicamera setups (especially with long takes).

If youre recording audio on both the camera and an external recorder, as long as that external recorder can pick up the sound from a clapper or popper or something and the two mics werent too far away from each other, why would you have to have the camera actually see the clapper?

So you can set sync. You can't do it by sound alone...

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #12764991
So you can set sync. You can't do it by sound alone...

though theoretically the 5dii's on-camera microphone's track will stay in sync with its own video track. I'd still prefer the visual to be sure.