t2i/7d/5d on the big screen?

[niik000]

hay guys, a you know the DSLR's are getting more and more popular every day, and people are ven useing them as a b camera on red shoots and for television b roll. But i keep running into non-believers who admit that the footage looks fantastic in the view finder and on youtube but they claim that if you blow it up and project it it will look awful compared to a traditional HD camera. This dosn't make much cense to me because we are talking about the same amount of pixels being blown up right? 1080 projected is 1080 projected but i hear skeptics all the time knocking down the DSLR craze. Is this a snobby misconception or is there some truth to this that i don't understand?

 

[Cracker Funk]

yes, but what about the case of the untallented tool?

You mean like me?

I've seen my T2i footage on the big screen. I've seen footage from numerous different cameras on the big screen. As good as it looks on the small screen -- that's how good it will look on the big screen. Good cinematography still looks good, and mediocre cinematography still looks mediocre. Just bigger. But there's no problem with the resolution -- it's perfectly fine, in that respect.

 

[Scoopicman]

All the truth, right here:

Good cinematography still looks good, and mediocre cinematography still looks mediocre.

I'll take the well shot VHS footage and good story over badly shot RED and terrible writing, any day.

 

[calif0rnian]

All the truth, right here:



I'll take the well shot VHS footage and good story over badly shot RED and terrible writing, any day.

Truth right here!

 

[Colin Gama]

Since this thread is about Canon DSLRs... and maybe this question has been already asked a hundred times, but can someone please tell me what are the advantages of having a Full Frame Sensor??.. I already searched the differences, but, does it really worth it?... Does it really gives you less noise than the APSC sensors when raising the ISO to let's say, 1600?... because that's what I've read.. What would you do, go and buy a couple of good lenses, or change your camera body??...

 

[chilipie]

Since this thread is about Canon DSLRs... and maybe this question has been already asked a hundred times, but can someone please tell me what are the advantages of having a Full Frame Sensor??.. I already searched the differences, but, does it really worth it?... Does it really gives you less noise than the APSC sensors when raising the ISO to let's say, 1600?... because that's what I've read.. What would you do, go and buy a couple of good lenses, or change your camera body??...

Better in low-light (less noticeable for video than for stills), no crop factor (much better selection of lenses that are both wide and fast), shallower depth of field at the same field of view (which may be a plus or a minus). I love FF for stills, but for video a smaller sensor makes focusing easier, and the trade-offs of a crop sensor would be well worth it for a nice selection of lenses.

 

[PaulGriffith]

Since this thread is about Canon DSLRs... and maybe this question has been already asked a hundred times, but can someone please tell me what are the advantages of having a Full Frame Sensor??.. I already searched the differences, but, does it really worth it?... Does it really gives you less noise than the APSC sensors when raising the ISO to let's say, 1600?... because that's what I've read.. What would you do, go and buy a couple of good lenses, or change your camera body??...

All the pro's (Larofet and similar) say that you can run a 7D to 800 ISO without much grain, a 5D MkII to 1600 ISO and a 1D MkIV to 3200 (that's why it's $5k). They also say, and I agree, that if you have to shoot wide open (night time) and still can shoot in 800 or less ISO, go with a 7D. Like chillipie said, the 5D sensor is really hard to keep focus on especially when you're running a fast prime wide open.

Look at the episode of House they shot on the 5D. These guys are pros and the shots were constantly in and out of focus.

A good cinema lens (like the Zeiss compact primes) helps to follow focus because it has constant interval marks on the lens. That means if you turn the focus ring a half inch you change focus 3 feet, if yo doit again it's another 3 feet, etc. On photo lenses, that's not the case. The first inch might be 3-5 feet, the next inch 5-10 and the last 10-Infiniti. The compact primes by Zeiss are the cheapest cinema lenses you can get new, and they're about $3700 a pop.

In daylight, most people still prefer the 5D because you can stop down the lens and still maintain a shallow DOF. On my 7D, in daylight if you wan shallow DOF you have to go open (or close) and stack ND filters on to fight the sun. Nobody likes the 1D in daylight, it's too expensive then and it's color is a bit funny. Again, for night time it's the best DSLR there is. It can actually see more into shadows than the naked eye.

 

[chilipie]

A good cinema lens (like the Zeiss compact primes) helps to follow focus because it has constant interval marks on the lens. That means if you turn the focus ring a half inch you change focus 3 feet, if yo doit again it's another 3 feet, etc. On photo lenses, that's not the case. The first inch might be 3-5 feet, the next inch 5-10 and the last 10-Infiniti. The compact primes by Zeiss are the cheapest cinema lenses you can get new, and they're about $3700 a pop.

Not quite… the CPs and other cinema lenses have accurate markings, not constant ones. The distance you need to turn the barrel to rack focus by a specific measurement always increases as focus closer to the camera - if this wasn't the case, it would be nigh on impossible to pull focus accurately at the closer end of the scale as the depth of field becomes substantially shallower. However, the accurate focus markings and long barrel throw make proper cinema lenses much easier for your focus puller than any of Canon's EF range.

 

[trueindie]

I just bought a second T2i (on it's way). You guys seem to be talking about 7Ds and 5Ds. Is it safe to blow up the T2i to 35mm?
Thanks
Aveek

 

[chilipie]

I just bought a second T2i (on it's way). You guys seem to be talking about 7Ds and 5Ds. Is it safe to blow up the T2i to 35mm?

Video from the 550D/T2i is virtually identical to that from the 7D. The latter has more features (especially in stills mode), but is also more prone to overheating due to its weather-sealed body and dual processors. That said, if I could afford a 35mm film out I probably wouldn't choose to shoot on a DSLR.

 

[Colin Gama]

All the pro's (Larofet and similar) say that you can run a 7D to 800 ISO without much grain, a 5D MkII to 1600 ISO and a 1D MkIV to 3200 (that's why it's $5k). They also say, and I agree, that if you have to shoot wide open (night time) and still can shoot in 800 or less ISO, go with a 7D. Like chillipie said, the 5D sensor is really hard to keep focus on especially when you're running a fast prime wide open.

Look at the episode of House they shot on the 5D. These guys are pros and the shots were constantly in and out of focus.

In daylight, most people still prefer the 5D because you can stop down the lens and still maintain a shallow DOF. On my 7D, in daylight if you wan shallow DOF you have to go open (or close) and stack ND filters on to fight the sun. Nobody likes the 1D in daylight, it's too expensive then and it's color is a bit funny. Again, for night time it's the best DSLR there is. It can actually see more into shadows than the naked eye.

It seems the advantages aren't that good because of the focusing issue you guys said... I rather buy a couple of fast lenses... and BTW, what does stop down the lens means??...

 

[PaulGriffith]

Stop Down = close the iris = let less light in. You might need to shoot at f/1.8 for the depth of field you want on the 7D, where the same DOF might be able to be obtained at f/2.8 or something on the 5D.

There are depth of field calculators out there than fan give exact measurements and increments if you're interested.

 

[RED_One_rental]

A big thing that people fail to put into the equation is that nearly every 1080p camera above say $4000 has significantly higher measured resolution than the DSLR's. I shot an entire feature with the Canons and I was very happy in 90% of the situations. Some issues were never quite solvable though. I have an EX1 , RED and 60D and the pictures are all very different but in terms of pure resolution at 1080P the DSLR's are significantly soft. That doesn't mean the image is bad or worse. but calling them 1080p cameras is not accurate.

 

[RED_One_rental]

Video from the 550D/T2i is virtually identical to that from the 7D. The latter has more features (especially in stills mode), but is also more prone to overheating due to its weather-sealed body and dual processors. That said, if I could afford a 35mm film out I probably wouldn't choose to shoot on a DSLR.

The monitor out over HDMI has been the most irritating to me on these cameras.

 

[RED_One_rental]

Just because a lens has focus marks doesn't mean they are consistently spaced. All cinema lenses have logarithmically scaled markings. 10-20' might only be millimeters whereas 2-3' might be half an inch. What's good is that they do stay consistently accurate distance wise and have hard stops at the ends.

All the pro's (Larofet and similar) say that you can run a 7D to 800 ISO without much grain, a 5D MkII to 1600 ISO and a 1D MkIV to 3200 (that's why it's $5k). They also say, and I agree, that if you have to shoot wide open (night time) and still can shoot in 800 or less ISO, go with a 7D. Like chillipie said, the 5D sensor is really hard to keep focus on especially when you're running a fast prime wide open.

Look at the episode of House they shot on the 5D. These guys are pros and the shots were constantly in and out of focus.

A good cinema lens (like the Zeiss compact primes) helps to follow focus because it has constant interval marks on the lens. That means if you turn the focus ring a half inch you change focus 3 feet, if yo doit again it's another 3 feet, etc. On photo lenses, that's not the case. The first inch might be 3-5 feet, the next inch 5-10 and the last 10-Infiniti. The compact primes by Zeiss are the cheapest cinema lenses you can get new, and they're about $3700 a pop.

In daylight, most people still prefer the 5D because you can stop down the lens and still maintain a shallow DOF. On my 7D, in daylight if you wan shallow DOF you have to go open (or close) and stack ND filters on to fight the sun. Nobody likes the 1D in daylight, it's too expensive then and it's color is a bit funny. Again, for night time it's the best DSLR there is. It can actually see more into shadows than the naked eye.

 

[ItDonnedOnMe]

A big thing that people fail to put into the equation is that nearly every 1080p camera above say $4000 has significantly higher measured resolution than the DSLR's (...) but calling them 1080p cameras is not accurate.

That's not really a big part of the equation in the real world though. Measured resolution vs. file resolution has always been all over the map, even pre-hd, and has never been a factor in what the camera was described as - 1080p has always referred to the image resolution of the files produced, not what is resolved in those images, so in that respect it is entirely accurate.

Anytime you are going to mix cameras in a project you need to do actual side by side testing to find out if the resolution and other image qualities can be made to match, but if you are working with only a single or multiple very similar cameras in a project I don't think measured resolution has much real significance. I've seen my DSLR footage projected from 720p h.264 files on a Christie 2k and I thought it looked amazing - and more importantly the audience did too. If I'd mixed it with a camera that resolved more actual detail then maybe it would have seemed soft in comparison, but if you're not doing side by side work like that nobody will notice - especially if you've hit the more important points of story, acting, lighting, composition and sound.

 

[Colin Gama]

Stop Down = close the iris = let less light in. You might need to shoot at f/1.8 for the depth of field you want on the 7D, where the same DOF might be able to be obtained at f/2.8 or something on the 5D.

There are depth of field calculators out there than fan give exact measurements and increments if you're interested.

Oh.. that's why it's so complicated to keep in focus your shot with the 5D at night... or under low light conditions... and what about the rolling shutter??.. Does the Full Frame Sensor makes it less noticeable?... or is the same issue as the APSC sensor??...

 

[PaulGriffith]

Woops, I'm wrong about the equal distance focus marks. Sorry.

You won't notice a difference with the rolling shutter between the full frame and crop sensors.

 

[Gonzo_Entertainment]

Oh.. that's why it's so complicated to keep in focus your shot with the 5D at night... or under low light conditions... and what about the rolling shutter??.. Does the Full Frame Sensor makes it less noticeable?... or is the same issue as the APSC sensor??...

Full frame has the same rolling shutter issues.