Will Patterson wrote:
Except the 5D can "only" record up to 12 minutes at a time, if I remember right.
Right, in full 1080p mode its limited to 12-15 minutes. IIRC, if you reduce the video quality you can record longer clips.
This actually a limitation of the FAT32 file system that is used on camera storage media. The FAT32 file system has a single-file maximum size of about 4GB; thus 12-15 minutes of 1080p video runs into the 4GB limit. Also, the camera starts and stops up recording nearly instantly, so its really not all that big of a deal and as many have mentioned, for serious video work, you don't shoot for longer than 10 minutes to a clip anyway.
Now if they could only read out the central 1920x1080 portion at 30fps , my lenses would be 3x longer and I could get great HD of those distant wildlife critters....
Seth Tower wrote:
So, as I said earlier, I imagine that they will be heavily revising the user manual to incorporate this new found "power". I wonder if they'll send us current users revised hard copies. Doubtful.
skibum5 wrote:
and how many films have longer than 12 minute takes?
Having flown with a big name Hollywood stunt/camera helicopter pilot, if I remember right, the film cassets used for big budget production only shoots for a minute or two before running out. Clearly, that doesn't keep Hollywood from producing block buster hits year after year.
On the otherhand, not very many "average joes" have the luxury of having a dedicated film/memory loader person to follow them around everywhere they go.
This release is timely for me. I was starting to think about whether to get the Singh Ray variable ND filter to give me some level of control without having to change filters.
AJSJones wrote:
Now if they could only read out the central 1920x1080 portion at 30fps , my lenses would be 3x longer and I could get great HD of those distant wildlife critters....
yeah that would be awesome, I sent in that suggestion
to allow two modes, the FF mode and the reach mode
the reach on video is pretty poor as is so you need looooong lenses for birds, like ROmy's crazy lenses. But if they just recorded the central 2MP.... nice!
not sure whether the hardware can handle the readouts like that, maybe a firmware hack can do it, maybe not.
im sure we will see it eventually, maybe even in the next 1 series, if not surely in the second generation tries (70D/1dmkV,5dMkIII)
beewee wrote:
Having flown with a big name Hollywood stunt/camera helicopter pilot, if I remember right, the film cassets used for big budget production only shoots for a minute or two before running out.
Super 8 film came in 50-foot cartridges that ran for 3 minutes 20 seconds at 18fps. That's home movie stuff, of course.
Typical 35mm motion picture film rolls are 1000 feet long, and at the SMPTE-standard of 24fps will roll at 90 feet per minute for a run-time of 11 minutes. Longer and shorter rolls are available for special use. If you were to buy or rent an Arriflex camera, for example, your supplier would likely have 200 foot, 400 foot, and 1000 foot magazines in stock. The compact 200 foot magazine would be good for about 2 minutes of shooting.
Typical shots are measured in minutes or even seconds. There are exceptions, of course. 1992's The Player was famous for an 8-minute continuous tracking shot in which the characters were talking about films with long tracking shots.
If you've seen that film, you know how long eight minutes can seem!
Yes you are right about the the duration of the unprocessed clips there is no need to be biger than 5 minutes and this is obvious for everyone that is in that job. But comparing the whole situation with Arriflex camera workout seems so wrong. 5D MarkII its a DSLR with HD video capabilities but as an HD video camera stands between pro and amatuer. Sure its going to be more close to pro with Manual shutter ISO aperture control but still it records heavely compressed material. That means that you make only low budget HD video clips. Not bad at all at this time of economic crissis. I am happy that my 5D MarkII will be an even better tool but I have to wait next week to test the Manual mode
Woohoooo! was my first reaction. I didn't think Canon would do it but I was still hopeful and was even more hopeful when rumors kept on coming. Makes me glad I stuck with Canon despite the waning enthusiasm.
I noticed that in the latest issue of Esquire magazine they mention that the magazine images of their model were for the first time taken with a movie camera, the RED one. They plucked the images for the magazine from the movie shots, and posted part of the movie on their web site. Perhaps Canon took note of that as well as customer complaints.
Yakim Peled wrote:
Does anyone recall hearing Canon releasing something and saying it's because of customer request?
Happy shooting,
Yakim.
I don't remember anything like the Canon promotional piece pre-announcing the firmware upgrade (been using the Canon system since 1987). But, the world is changing and the web has introduced a new level of interactiviity with customers. I welcome the change and consider it one of the most positive signs I've seen from Canon in recent years. I also think that the way Canon pre-announced the upgrade was a nice, classy move. Anyway, the marketing and engineering staff scored a lot of points with me on this move.
