Not sure this is the appropriate thread or not.. But thought it might be of interest to a few of you that are anticipating using the video mode.
I just tested the video mode for about an hour tonight. It seems to work very well. When using an IS lens (and enabled on the lens) it does work and VERY WELL. You do get motor noise in the mic (which is right below the [5D] label.
The audio recorded via onboard mic is mono, but the line in is stereo.
Ok, here is the skinny concerning manually setting exposure (at least from everything I can figure out) and contrary to Vincent Lafort\'s blog.
You can NOT manually set your aperture/Shutter/ISO for video.. You can set it for still capture during video mode. You can, however, use the * exposure lock to set exposure so that it does not ride up and down when something bright enters the frame, etc... This is very useful.
Something that concerns me a bit (at least until I learn differently)...When shooting in normal indoor light (well.. tungsten night light), The camera will automatically drop to the widest aperture and drop shutter speeds to 1/50-1/60th and crank up the ISO. While this is fine for video viewing, it does wreak havoc with DOF. In other words, if you are shooting in lower light, it is going to use the shallowest F stop and you cannot override that. You can manually change the EV, but that doesn\'t necessarily change your aperture.
Now.. let\'s say your shooting outside in bright light... (I haven\'t tested, but I did point it directly at my lamp)... Your F stop will increase (lets say F5.6).. Well suppose you want to shoot a scene with shallow DOF like F2.8 and rack focus between subjects? As far as I can tell, you can\'t...because you cannot override the AUTO Aperture.
So to sum up.. The video looks great and while it automatically controls exposure very well, the manual control over such is very lacking. I am guessing when shooting short film or setting up for particular scenes, you will have to light it carefully and use a lens which max aperture is the max you desire (ie, if you want a deeper DOF, you might put a F4 lens on...and light it accordingly. Otherwise, if you have a fast prime..let\'s say 35 F1.4...and shooting indoors...My guess is that it will bump itself to F1.4 (need to verify that) until you pump up enough light. The camera itself will decide when the light is bright enough to raise F Stop and/or shutter. I figure the same scene with a F4 lens at 1/60th.. would likely register F2.8 1/125 with a F2.8 lens...The results will be a shallow DOF that you may not desire (then again you might). It just seems to me that slower lenses might actually be helpful in some situations where you want to trick the camera OR...better yet.. Use ND Filters to force wider F-Stops in bright light.
I realize this is the first generation of such a feature and it will only get better. It produces a beautiful image, but the lack of control could be a killer for certain types of shooting. Perhaps they will give us a firmware update that will allow AV/TV control...But I am not holding my breath.
Anyway.. these are just rambling comments after a few minutes (edit: couple of hours) of testing. I haven\'t tried to edit anything and need to update my software a bit in order to process for the web... (these MOV files are HUGE) so I don\'t have anything to post yet.
And for anyone that is thinking...\"Show me a still image, it is afterall an SLR\".. I will in time. I just wanted to specifically address some questions that have been fuzzy about the video capabilities.
Have a good night!
Dec 04, 2008 at 02:03 AM
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