Did I find a bug in the 5DII?

Or is it an interesting feature. Last night I was bored and playing around with a crystal spark ignitor. I broke out the 5D and the MPE-65 and wanted to capture the spark close up. I set everything up, set aperture, ISO, and shutter speed to 3 seconds. With the lights on I used live view to focus on the tip where the spark falls. Then turn off the lights, press the shutter button thinking I had 3 seconds to trigger the spark but the camera took the picture right off. Checking the settings it was set to 1/30 of a second. A little more investigation shows that the minimum shutter speed with live view engaged is 1/30 of a second.

Playing around a little more this morning I notice that when LV is set to stills+movies, the shutter is limited to 1/30 but when set to stills only I have the full range. The 7D does not work this way (running off to check just to make sure) and I could find nothing in the manual about limiting the shutter speed when in LV while set to stills+movie nor anything here on POTN. It's sounding like a bug to me.

I would think shooting movies at slower than 1/30s would be a bug in the 7D.

Absolutely Mr. Bohdan - although I suppose 1/24 would be fine if one were shooting in 24P!

But in all reality, if the camera is imaging 30 times per second (1920x1080 30p), then the slowest compatible shutter speed is 1/30s. If the 7D allows you to select a slower shutter speed, there's no way it can honor that once it physically starts shooting video.

I honestly prefer this behavior, since when shooting tethered you can tell it to jump to the slowest shutter speed, and rather than jumping to 30s (!), it goes to 1/30, which lets in plenty of light for live-view tethered focusing, etc., without having to go chasing all the way back to 1/200 from 30s.

Other than that, how are you liking your 5D2?

I'm not shooting a movie, I'm shooting a still. I can understand setting the shutter speed to 1/30 if I were shooting a movie but I would think that it's smart enough to know that I have not pressed the movie button so it shouldn't assume I'm in movie mode.

If 1/30 is a limit, then the setting should be called LV-Movies and LV-stills, not LV movies and stills.

I've shot a few videos with the 5DII but I do not pretend to know all the settings. I think Still + Movie allows you to capture a still while it's recording a video, hence the speed is dependent and limited by the video function. That's why there is a Stills only setting in LV.

bohdank wrote in post #11743288
I've shot a few videos with the 5DII but I do not pretend to know all the settings. I think Still + Movie allows you to capture a still while it's recording a video, hence the speed is dependent and limited by the video function. That's why there is a Stills only setting in LV.

Hmm.. Would have been nice to call that out in the manual. They do state that in Movie+Still, stills can be taken but nothing at all about limiting the shutter speed.

Easy solution--don't use Live view. If you've already aimed the camera, it adds nothing. Just aim, set for a 2 second shutter delay (or 10 if it takes you a while to set up the spark), and fire away. When you hear the mirror flip up, hit the spark.