What better way to break in the new Canon 5DMKII than to take it on a plane/road trip to visit the family down in Tamworth. Two little sisters, one of which who loves watching the footage of herself almost as much as the rest of us do, a bunch of greenery and lots of fun.
The new Canon 5DMKII only arrived on the Friday afternoon and flying out Saturday morning didn’t leave a lot of time for really investigating the new beasty. I’d used one a fair bit on shoots a while back, but since getting a Canon 7D had been using nothing but. I must say, she’s quite the different animal and on first impression, nowhere near as user friendly as my beloved Canon 7D.
Firstly, (and I know I’ve already rabbited on ad nauseam about this on Facebook, but I’m super excited!) I was stoked to see that the Sigma 30mm f1.4 actually worked on the Canon 5DMKII. Not only did it work, but it brought with it a dirty vignette that I’d never seen on the Canon 7D before (Due to the smaller sensor). It was love at first sight. Now I might not be reaching for this lens next time I have a corporate shoot, but in a more relaxed setting (a glorified home movie), this combo kicks some serious goals in my book! To me it’s a nice effect, with a bit of character, that still looks absolutely fantastic in the centre of the frame. All the benefits of a Toy Camera lens without the drawbacks. So yes, very happy there.
The 30mm focal length on the Canon 5DMKII is really nice too. So much so that I am seriously considering saving the pennies for a Canon 35mm f1.4L. I think in the interim though a Canon EF 35mm f2.0 could find it’s way into the camera bag, according to reviews it’s not so bad a lens and f2.0 is a quick enough for most things. As I said, whilst I love that vignette, it’s not going to work for everything.
My little Canon 50mm f.18 II worked wonderfully on the Canon 5DMKII. Seriously that lens blows me away! I took a photo at f10 on that little beast and it was so tack sharp at 100% it just wasn’t funny. If you haven’t got one of these lenses you are nuts! It’s so good for the price, I can’t see myself justifying the $2K it costs to get the Canon 50mm f1.2L. Even though it’s supposed to be that much of a better lens (well for a start, it’s not all plastic!) I’m not sure it could be that much better. The depth of field is lovely, and when it’s wide open at f1.8 you get some nice vignetting and a little decrease in sharpness towards the edge of the frame. It adds a bit of charm (like a fake chimney).
Now, what was seriously impressive, having come from the Canon 7D, which. let’s be honest, is a rather noisy experience at the best of times, was the low light capabilities of this camera. Now I’m not going to crap on at length about this like every other blog has since the camera was released over a year ago, but I will say this – The Canon 5DMKII looks the way you want your footage to look in low light conditions. It’s still going to be noisy if you push it too far, but it seems it can nicely capture what you can easily see with the naked eye in dim light. Now it might be awesome to have the near night-vision capabilities of the Canon 1DMKIV, but it’s not like you’ll be disappointed if you can’t take a shot of something you can’t see in the first place! For the first time I’m pleased with the quality of the video I shoot when the sun goes down, I can’t say I ever felt that with the Canon 7D.
Now it’s really tempting to start comparing the Canon 5DMKII and the Canon 7D to each other on a minute scale, but I just don’t feel comfortable doing that as yet. I’ve only been using it for a week and I really need to give a red hot crack before I go talking smack about it. I don’t want to give the wrong impression because I haven’t dug deep enough in the custom fuctions or just haven’t shot with it enough yet to make a proper judgement. What I can say, is that I feel the design of the Canon 7D’s body and button layout is far superior to the Canon 5DMKII. More on that in a future blog post. . .
Funnily enough I think I only pulled the Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS USM out of the bag twice on this trip and neither of those shots made it into this edit. The 100-400 didn’t even get a look in.
The song in this clip is by one of my favourite acts of all time, Way Out West. The song is called ‘Just like a man’. Off the album called ‘Don’t Look Now’, this track is just superb. I suggest you check out the entire album if you dig the style. It’s an all time classic electronic release.
It was a lot of fun shooting this footage, my little sister Kendra is a ball to hang out with and it’s always fun capturing funny little moments that go one when we’re hanging out. I know this is not the best footage I’ve ever shot, but this was more about getting a feel for the camera and also just making a nice home movie for the archives. I actually tossed up on whether to put it here on the site, but figured I’d been talking it up so I better actually post it! If you enjoy it even 1/20th as much as I did shooting and editing it (You should have seen the stupid grin whilst cutting in the timeline. I’m a sucker for my little sister) then I’ll be stoked.
More soon. . .
The gorgeous little Kendra.
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Damn, how fast is that lens?! Amazing DOF but i guess thats the magic of Full frame sensor. Did you have to ND the lens too? Really nice feel BTW, still not sure about the wobbly wide of the house (perhaps a bit of slomo?). And what is the wide angle lens, it looks terrific.
Hey Dave,
Yeah the Sigma and that little 50 are dynamite! The full frame is great for high ISO performance too.
One thing I did forget to mention was that I was using my Tokina 11-16 f2.8 for all the super wides. At 11mm it looks like you’re looking through a manhole, but from 15-16mm it’s pretty good, with only a very small amount of soft vignetting around the extreme edges. At 16mm it’s pretty much perfect except from some soft areas towards the extreme edges of the frame. Not a perfect solution, but a perfectly acceptable one for right now. After using the Canon 17mm Tilt Shift lens over the weekend, I think I can safely say that I will be saving my pennies for that if I’m going to go wide. It’s phenomenal!
I also forgot to mention that the Slow motion shots (on the swings in the park) are from the Canon 7D. It was the only time I pulled it out and used it all weekend. The 5DMKII does not have slow motion capabilities sadly, I think I will keep the 7D around for that reason!
Christian
Christian, wonderful video! I’ve had the 7D for several weeks so far and have loved every minute of it. I considered the 5D, but just didn’t have it in the budget at the time. The shot where you were following the girl into the dark room while she was carrying the flashlight, was there any other lighting on her or in the room besides the flashlight she was holding? There was also a bluecast to her. Just curious how much light was used for those shots. The 5D does have an amazing low light performance.
Also, when using the 7D, I notice that when the camera times out and shuts off, the settings I had it set to resets itself to the defaults of whatever setting I had it set to. For example, I have custom settings setup for C1, C2, and C3, but sometimes I tweak the ISO or aperture. When the camera shuts off automatically and I turn it back on, the settings revert back to whatever C1, C2, or C3 setting I had set and doesn’t keep the manual aperture and ISO setting I had it set to. Is there a way to lock those in and keep them even if I turn the camera off and on? Do you ever run into this issue? I’m thinking about setting my auto shut off time higher, but I’m worried about it eating my battery. Thanks!
-Derick
Hey Derick!
Thanks mate, I can’t help but love this video too. Then again, I may be a bit biased due to the subject matter.
Yes, the Canon 5DMKII is great in low light. With those torchlit shots, if you go back and look closely, you’ll see there is also torchlight coming from behind the camera, I was holding a torch up next to it whilst shooting. But the sensitivity in those shots is still pretty amazing. That was on the Canon 50mm 1.8 II, wide open (at around 1600-2000 ISO, I think – I’m certain the last shot in the video was at 3200 ISO). The direct beam of the torch was too bright, I counted on just using the peripheral illumination of it to light the scene, not the direct beam.
These aren’t amazing torches either, their driven by 4 AAA batteries and have about 5 LED’s in them. I got 3 for A$10 at Super Cheap Auto. They are a great solution for small specific lighting applications. The blue cast was deliberate, that could have been corrected with a simple white balance adjustment, however I will say, those torches do vary in colour temperature a little, some more white, some more green or blue. So using a bank of them may yield inconsistent results.
About that 7D issue, I can’t say I’m entirely sure about that one mate. To be honest, I haven’t experienced it myself as I haven’t made use of the C1, C2 and C3 functions as yet. I’ll put the word out and see if anybody else has an idea on that.
Thanks for stopping by…
Christian
Damned … I’ve just discovered your site now … really impressed !
I’m a 5D & 7D user for a moment now … but only for still images (studio & sport). I just begin to start video now ! I’m really impressed by the smooth mouvement you can obtain !!!
Did you use follow focus gears, steady and dolly rails for all that ?
Can we share on these points ?