The Canon 5D MkII and the Indie Filmmaker

[Ken Wilson]

So how does the release of the Canon 5D MkII (with a full frame CMOS sensor), which can shoot 1080p video, effect the indie filmmaker?

Here's a still camera priced around $2700 (body only) which can shoot full-rez 1080p HD video as RAW files and use all of Canon's interchangeable lenses. With exceptional low-light performance. Would you consider using this camera to shoot an indie film as opposed to, say, a Sony PMWEX3 XDCAM or the Canon XL H1S? Would a camera at this price point make creating your next film financially more feasible? What if you were shooting a documentary?

The following link will take you to a gorgeous short film that was shot in one night in NY City with a pre-production 5D MkII. The images in this film have not been altered. No post processing. No color correction. Straight from the camera to the web (after being edited in FCP of course).

Be sure to watch the behind-the-scenes film as well. Scroll down till you see the guy in sunglasses hanging out of a helicopter over NYC.

http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/

[maria]

I watched the making of "Reverie" but I could not watch the film, but the behind the scenes footage was beautiful. Omgosh! I want one of those cameras! Only if I could afford one : (

[Dre Arkhipov]

There are many problems with this cam that would be a pain for filmmaker. I almost went ahead and bought it, but settled for Nikon D90 instead and I'm glad that I did. One of the reasons is that for filmmaking you should get manual lens.

Zeiss makes excellent manual glass for Nikon. It's very comparable to their PL mount lens. You can check it out.

Both cameras do have the CMOS shutter problem that results in the fast moving horizontal objects to appear to be squashed.. There's no way around that unfortunately.

If you want to see an example of my D90 in action... check out www.davenportsda.com and check the video on the front page (to the top right). I wish you'd see how dark it was there.

I've compared the dynamic range, and I get about 2 stops better range than on our HD110U at work.

[Ken Wilson]

@Dre,

I viewed your video shot with the D90. I really enjoyed the depth-of-field and changes in focus. It gives the video that "filmic" look. Very nice. Great example of how focus can be used to guide the viewers eye. I would like to know what lenses you used to shoot this video.

I would be curious to know what are the problems with the 5D MkII that you feel would create issues for a filmmaker. A list of the issues or a reference to an article would be helpful to other readers of this post.

I would agree that Zeiss manual lenses would be an excellent choice for someone shooting a film with a DSLR. I checked the Zeiss website and they have just released two manual lenses for the Canon EOS cameras. Here's a link to the Zeiss web page with the information:

http://www.zeiss.com/c12567a8003b58b9/Contents-Frame/8a72b8dcac1607...

Thanks for your input. This exchanging of information and "crosstalk" helps us all become better filmmakers.

[Dre Arkhipov]

Don't get me wrong, I would recommend these cameras to both experienced and beginners alike. But you have to jump through a couple of hoops to compensate for the deficiencies.

1) One of the obvious one right now is the lack of the decent sound input. So you have to go the old way of external recording and the synch-ing up in the post. I think that with advent of digital we got spoiled with "embedded" audio... so I don't necessarily think it's a deficiency, but something to keep in mind when thinking about doing a film with these cameras... you'll need a decent external audio recorder. If you are into phidget programming like myself... you can rig something up that will synchronize the recording buttons on both devices.

2) One of the annoying things is the CMOS electronic shutter. So, you can rule out shooting flashes of light, or fast horizontally moving objects. With flashes of light... you'll get it a half frame at times, and the fast horizontally moving objects (or pans) distort the object that are moving. Which really becomes pain when shooting hand-held. You have to be fairly steady to avoid artifacts.

3) No manual iso/shutter speed controls :(. This is the unfortunate reality right now. I found a way of getting around it in D90... but I find it even more tricky to do in 5d. Both cameras kind of pick the best adjustment of exposure/ISO/shutter speed for you. Both cameras will also adjust exposure in a similar manner as the lighting situation changes. Fortunately, you can lock the exposure to avoid these exposure adjustments while filming. I kind of came up with a workflow that gets the shutter speed down to 1/30 on the camera, and it does get decent amount of motion blur comparable to 24fps film. Be prepared to load up on ND filters if you like to have both motion blur and shallow depth of field.

4) One of the biggest problems is that the sensors do overheat and will lock the live view until cooled down. That happened only once to me after shooting for about an hour on and off. But keep that in mind, bring and ice-pack if needed :).

Just a side note. 5d does not shoot 24p, which is unfortunate, since it does have a better compression scheme. But, let's hope that firmware updates for both cameras will fix some of the annoyances.


But, in spite of the above, I was really excited for this advance. Especially since I've had tons of Nikon lens that I got for my nikon mount modded Konvas. The DOF adaptors really annoy me as far as set up and calibration goes. So, this is really what I needed. I really appreciate lightweight rigs... as I do prefer to just run and gun. So, I can pretty build all of my stabilizers, jubs and pan-tilts to be much lighter.


As far as lens go. The ones that I used were Nikkor 50mm f1.4, Nikkor 135mm f2.0, Nikkor 35mm f2.0. I do have more, but these are the ones that I use the most right now while I'm drooling over the ZF ones :).

[Dre Arkhipov]

You can check out couple more d90 vids on my wife's site... http://eleanor.devolvedmedia.com