shatterkiss
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 p.1 #11 · Flashback .. 5D2 sux for video :-) | |
Man, you just don't get it.
I think I understand your perspective here. You don't currently do any work with video, right? So you're coming from the position of a photographer who sees an opportunity to add video to your arsenal...not from the position of a videographer who has to evaluate each and every tool on the level of "will this be appropriate for my client work?" So all you see are net-positives because you don't have any actual needs. Never having been in a professional video production situation you just don't understand the relative weight that these pros and cons carry.
Hanging an outboard mic off of a DSLR doesn't fix the audio problem: it's an unbalanced mini-jack, it doesn't push phantom power and will still require a preamp, it's only a single mic source (as opposed to the 2-4 that video cameras support), it still has no gain adjustments or level meters...so, for professional use, you still need an audio tech sitting between your mics and camera with a mixer managing the audio before it hits the camera. You might be able to overlap that body with a boom op role on some shoots, but then again you might not: when I go out on single-cam ENG shoots there usually isn't an audio tech and there's the expectation of mixing two mics on-camera. Again, using my job in LA last week as an example, everything I shot required manually-mixing two wireless lavs on-camera by keeping a close eye on their relative levels and tweaking slightly when necessary. You can't do that exclusively by ear...it would be like not having a histogram on your DSLR. And don't get me started on things like the lack of timecode, which is a dealbreaker in a lot of situations.
Adding a $400 viewfinder to the camera doesn't fix things...honestly, you want to get back to the base ergonomics that a dedicated video camera offers, you're buying Zacuto's "DSLR Precision Shooter" kit, which is a $5,300 expenditure. You need the LCD, you need geared zoom and focus, you need to stabilize the camera and get your hands off its body...you need more than just attaching a handle and an eyecup. There's a reason why video cameras have one shape and still cameras have another.
And let me reiterate: my mind isn't going to be changed, not because I haven't given the product a chance, but because of what the product is. I've tried it. I've tried the 5D2, I've tried the D300s. I've tried to use them from a video perspective. They're both able to create a better picture than my current video cameras...but only within certain very narrow circumstances, and even within those they make it much, much more difficult to do. And they're totally inappropriate for 90% of the video work that I do, which is fairly general work indicative of a wide swath of the video production industry. I would love if they were appropriate for it, as it would mean that I could go out on combo photo/video jobs with a fraction of the kit, but they just aren't there.
So far, the only video work that I do that they would be appropriate for are the kind of "behind the scenes" footage I take at fashion shoots, like the video I posted in the Lighting forum a couple of weeks ago: it's MOS, short clips are fine, you're working in low and imperfect light, you're shooting for atmosphere rather than content, you don't need to do a steady hand-hold for more than a few seconds, camera moves don't have to be perfect, action happens repeatedly so you don't have to be johnny-on-the-spot every time. If Nikon came out with a D700s that did 1080/30p I'd pick one up and use it for video, but it still couldn't replace my other camera kits for all the reasons I detailed above.
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