Canon EOS 5D Mark II

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M1chae1 said:
How can it not be true? You're buying more equipment. Nuff said.
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You were talking about hiring people and equipment. There is zero difference between the number of people needed. And the difference in equipment cost would depend wildly on what equipment you're using in the first place. The 7D is thousands of dollars cheaper than the HVX and about $1K cheaper than the DVX. I could buy THREE Zoom H4Ns for that money.

Again, if it's a matter of preference, that's one thing. The idea that it saves money is simply not the case.
 
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Beeblebrox said:
I have a Bogen tripod that's been thru 3 cameras already. Also, a Cobra Crane and skateboard dolly wheels attached to a 2x4' particle board.



For this project, we mostly used our 1K Fresnel and a white bounce card.n We also have two 650 fresnels.



AT835b shotgun mic to a Zoom H4N.



A regular cheapy shoulder mount.



Final Draft is the only software I really recommend for screenwriting.

Beyond that, it's just writing the scenes, doing a breakdown, and prepping a shotlist and other prep work from there.
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can you elaborate on: AT835b shotgun mic to a Zoom H4N ???
Is the AT835b shotgun plugged into 5D and the H4n is elsewhere in the room ?
How do you balance then the 2 audio tracks with the video ?

also, i found this was not aware of:
(http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1032&thread=29384141&page=2)

The sync problem isn't solved with a simple clap -- if only it were! It's much more complicated than that. The sync problem also isn't solved with a simple codec, say, like you get when you download an avi file and the sound is off, etc. It's much more expensive than that. The sync problem also isn't solved with a simple software solution like GoldWave etc (e.g., sync problems when someone took out a commercial from a TV rip). Nor is it simply caused by a processing delay or random errors that happen with the hardware. It's much more....well, you get the idea.
The problem is actually inherent in the way video works. Audio records in *real* time, but the video doesn't. It is off by about 3.59 seconds for every hour. The solution has to do with timecode drop frames, and you need good software (or digital audio equipment with timecode).
In the 5DII case, 30p is really 29.97frame/s. Your audio will be off and before too long it will be really annoying. That said, some people say that it only records 12 minutes (although the Canon site says 30min), so if you do a small clip people may not notice the sync problem between your external audio and the video.

is it easy to correct for this ? what is the workflow ?
i've FCS Pro 7 and Adobe CS4 suite with After Effects.


Interesting mic test on 5D mark 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc03RYIRkl8

oh, so is this one a STEREO mic ?
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/534023-REG/Sennheiser_MKE_400_MKE_400_Compact_Video.html#reviews
 
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photographer said:
can you elaborate on: AT835b shotgun mic to a Zoom H4N ???
Is the AT835b shotgun plugged into 5D and the H4n is elsewhere in the room ?
How do you balance then the 2 audio tracks with the video ?
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The AT835b is wired directly to the H4N, which is recorded independently from the 7D. The sound is then synced in post.

also, i found this was not aware of:
(http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1032&thread=29384141&page=2)
is it easy to correct for this ? what is the workflow ?
i've FCS Pro 7 and Adobe CS4 suite with After Effects.
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In long and short takes, we never experienced anything remotely approaching a sync issue. We were recording 23.97 1080p.
 
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Beeblebrox said:
The AT835b is wired directly to the H4N, which is recorded independently from the 7D. The sound is then synced in post.

In long and short takes, we never experienced anything remotely approaching a sync issue. We were recording 23.97 1080p.
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Glad to hear the sound issue is not really an issue in real world filming...

So the H4n is also mounted on the 5D while linked to the 5D? That way you get focused sound at disrtance and also ambient sound from the H4N ?
Which shoulder mount do you recommend ? please link...

The short film was then shot with 5D mk II and 7D ? Do you have identical setup with both cameras - meaning the shotgun mic with H4N ?

Really appreciate your advice on all, i've done very little filming, nothing required sound yet, so it's a bit intimidating how to get decent sound.
 
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photographer said:
So the H4n is also mounted on the 5D while linked to the 5D? That way you get focused sound at disrtance and also ambient sound from the H4N ?
Which shoulder mount do you recommend ? please link...
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You CAN mount the H4N on the 5D/7D, but we chose not to do it that way and instead had the sound person monitoring with the H4N near him.

The short film was then shot with 5D mk II and 7D ? Do you have identical setup with both cameras - meaning the shotgun mic with H4N ?
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We didn't use a 5D, just a 7D, but the sound setup is the same since it's independent of the camera. Regarding the sync issue, I can only speak to the 7D not having any problems. FWIW, I've never heard of anyone having issues with the 5D either.
 
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I've seen some of the videos from this camera and they are awesome, that said a lot of people shot a lot of shallow DOF on this camera. From what I've been reading and talking to people it seems for a few reasons.

1. There regular video camera can't do the DOF so they use the 5D MII for those shots.
2. They are a photographer, and as I photographer I can tell you we don't push the aperture past f8 most of the time, so shallow DOF is almost a given in most of our shots.
3. It seems to be the "in" thing to do in videos now a days.
 
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Beeblebrox said:
You CAN mount the H4N on the 5D/7D, but we chose not to do it that way and instead had the sound person monitoring with the H4N near him.

We didn't use a 5D, just a 7D, but the sound setup is the same since it's independent of the camera. Regarding the sync issue, I can only speak to the 7D not having any problems. FWIW, I've never heard of anyone having issues with the 5D either.
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Sorry for being so ignorant. So the only audio from the short film was obtained through the shotgun mic on 7D ?
H4n for monitoring of sound levels to adjust the shotgun mic gain on 7D ? But not used to actually record audio ?
 
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photographer said:
Sorry for being so ignorant. So the only audio from the short film was obtained through the shotgun mic on 7D ?
H4n for monitoring of sound levels to adjust the shotgun mic gain on 7D ? But not used to actually record audio ?
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Shotgun mic to the H4N recording the audio.

No sound was used from the 7D itself. We synced the audio from the H4N to the picture from the 7D, and experienced no sync or sound drifting issues at all.
 
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photographer said:
are you encoding the default .H264 codec into Apple prores or other before editing ? is that just for speed purposes ?
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We transcode all of our footage into Prores BEFORE editing, yes. I find that it speeds up the response time and is generally a more robust codec to work with.

does it lower the quality to encode it into different format ?
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Not that I've noticed. It shouldn't degenerate the footage to any appreciable degree.
 
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i found this review of various rigs:
http://www.cinema5d.com/news/?p=1474

indeed expensive !

you mentioned you have a shoulder mount and tripod setup ? could you post a picture with description and price ?

btw. what is the best technique to manually focus precisely, i find it quite challenging to be spot on. and AF in film mode is unusable. i'm talking about smooth gradual focus on moving objects, or moving following and object (walking with the camera)
 
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photographer said:
btw. what is the best technique to manually focus precisely, i find it quite challenging to be spot on. and AF in film mode is unusable. i'm talking about smooth gradual focus on moving objects, or moving following and object (walking with the camera)
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You need to get a follow focus for that. Philip Bloom has a review of two different options on his blog.
 
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