Hands on experience with Canon 5D Mark II

I got my hands on the new Canon 5D Mark II that came equipped with every pro Canon lens you can imagine, plenty of batteries and cards and a photographer (my friend, the owner) eager to help out and learn a bit about filmmaking.

I really wanted to see how this camera would perform under the stress of on-location shooting rather than on a simple test shoot, so I decided to ask my actress friend to come over and do a short film.

The set-up was pretty basic. The camera on top of Bogen HDV501 head. The camera was mounted to some basic rails to support an HD monitor (with HDMI connection) – in this case Ikan V5600 5.6″. From my experience of working with HD I knew that 5.6″will be too small for really exact focus but it should be “good enough” for the purpose of this test.

After a few initial mess-ups (we had to run and purchase HDMI to Mini HDMI adapter at the local electronics stor as the Canon has Mini HDMI out) we were up and running. I had Zoom H4 recorder installed on top of the camera to record the audio with a simple hand clap used as the sync slate.

Working with the camera was wonderful as right away we were seeing a great image. Then… When I pressed the record button I was surprised as the HDMI output started outputting an SD signal rather than HD that it was while in the stand-by mode. In other words no “run and gun” abilities with this rig as there is simply no way of focusing by looking at the image (ANYBODY that tells you that you “kinda can” with the SD signal doesn’t have enough on-set real-life experience). SUCKS!

We kept the focus on the shots where the actress was moving back and forth by marking the lens and pulling the focus the traditional way rather than by looking at the monitor.

Here another thing became very apparent. The camera is so lightweight that if not properly stabilized while pulling focus you run into a possibility of taping the body thus shaking the image. I would say this minus can be a real plus too as the rig is very portable.

Watching the images on a large flat screen TV I noticed another major issue, the image compression. The camera uses H264 compression which in my view is heavier than your standard fare HDV compression. The circuitry the camera uses has to very “simple” as the image does look compressed (at times very heavily). So if you are thinking of doing a heavy color grading in the post you might not have enough information before it becomes noticeable. In other words get the image to be as close to what you want in camera otherwise the compression will eat you alive.

Another thing to consider is that the H264 compression is very dependent on the amount of movement and details in the shot so if your ISO is too high (even at ISO800 I started noticing some nasty artifacts) the image will degrade even more as high ISO produces lots of moving noise (or tiny details as the compression circuitry sees it as). I probably wouldn’t recommend shooting with anything above ISO 400 if you want to get a clean image.

Another image quality issue I noticed is a significant amount of sharpening (though it tends to be more apparent in some images rather than the other).

After the shoot I rolled a quick clip in the most extreme situation using ISO of 6400. Well, it did produce some kind of image but for sure it wasn’t pretty.

As you might know the camera records 30p (NOT 29.97) which is an issue if you are used to shoot at 24p (the new Canon 7D is coming out with abilities to shoot with variety of different frame rates). The 30p is not a huge deal for me as most of the projects I do get delivered at 29.97 or simply posted to the web, however if you ever wanted to print to film you would run into some issues.

The above is just a list of complains but there are some superb qualities about this camera’s video mode:

— despite the compression and the sharpening the images are beautiful!

— with high latitude in the highlights you really don’t have to worry too much about over exposing your images as you did with regular video

— the camera is tiny and very light so you can move very freely and stuck the body in any place you can image

— the ease of use allows for the shutter, ISO, F stop, white balance adjustment in seconds

Final verdict, when they get the HDMI to output HD signal during recording, I’m getting this baby.

ISO200, 50mm, F2. Notice some compression artifacts in the hair details.

ISO400, 24-70mm, F2.8.

ISO200, 24-70mm, F2.8.

ISO800, 24-70mm, F2.8. Notice that the high ISO produces unwanted compression artifacts in the dark part of her face.

ISO400, 24-70mm, F2.8. Notice the sharpening artifacts where the highlights of the window meet the darkness of the wall.

ISO400 (if I remember correctly), 24-70mm, F2.8.

ISO1600, 24-70mm, F2.8. Notice extreme amount of dancing noise in the shadow areas of the image.

ISO6400, 24-70mm, F2.8. Only lit with the computer screen, but notice the amount of noise in the dark areas.

ISO6400, 24-70mm, F2.8. Be aware that the illumination comes from a tiny 28w fluorescent bulb! And, the only over exposed area is the little bit of wall around the bulb. Impressive!