5D/7D comparison

EOSHD said:
you're right it is very off putting. I hadn't expected the lack of respect, it's only my first post... and a mod laughs at me? wtf?

I think this discussion would do well to concentrate on people's subjective reasons for liking one or the other, and what jobs one or the other are better suited to, rather than new people (who come here for advice, yes?) being patronised with chart tests and '12 years of shooting 35mm blah blah blah'. Some here seem to have a very high opinion of their own opinions!!!!

Another thing I noticed with my 5D versus my 7D (which is now being sold) is the degradation of the image in the shadows. The 5D holds onto more colour in dark gradients and resolves more a lot more detail in both video mode and in the still photos. Plus it's a pain putting a nice wide 20mm SLR lens on a crop body.... cinema dogma or not it still aint wide.
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Look, Spike. What is off-putting (to me) is that you are far too emotionally invested in this site, and the long threatening email you sent me of a personal nature, and that you have a personal axe that you are so intent on grinding that you would continue to rejoin here using anonymous i.p's, etc (newsflash, that doesn't really hide you) soley for the purpose of grinding that axe, and/or continuing your vendetta.
 
andrew00 said:
Imo, the 7D is the closet to replicating the characteristics of 35mm film at the moment due to it's crop sensor giving the equivalent field of view of 35mm film.

The 5D however I feel is the better camera, side by side, esp w/25P coming, as it's bigger sensor produces slightly better images from a noise/quality pov.

Therefore, the 7D is the more 'filmic' camera in that it's look is closer to replicating 35mm film, but the 5D is the camera capable of producing higher quality images.
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Agreed 100%.
 
Jason Ramsey said:
Look, Spike. What is off-putting (to me) is that you are far too emotionally invested in this site, and the long threatening email you sent me of a personal nature, and that you have a personal axe that you are so intent on grinding that you would continue to rejoin here using anonymous i.p's, etc (newsflash, that doesn't really hide you) soley for the purpose of grinding that axe, and/or continuing your vendetta.
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Wow...BUSTED!!!
 
Jason Ramsey said:
Look, Spike. What is off-putting (to me) is that you are far too emotionally invested in this site, and the long threatening email you sent me of a personal nature, and that you have a personal axe that you are so intent on grinding that you would continue to rejoin here using anonymous i.p's, etc (newsflash, that doesn't really hide you) soley for the purpose of grinding that axe, and/or continuing your vendetta.
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Can we read that email, I'm looking for material for my script. The title is "Troll's in Librarian's Glasses."

Hey, we're all friends here.
 
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stephenmick said:
Rock-

I'm in the process of putting together a quick edit of some 7D 24p footage I recently shot in Brazil. Sadly, editing over an hour's worth of content for another client job is getting in the way, but hopefully I'll have it up soon after turkey day.

To my eye, 24p looks plenty smooth in playback, both in my NLE and on the 42" HDTV in my office. I've got footage where there's plenty of subject movement in frame, and plenty of detail/data. I've never had a problem.

I doubt any of my projects will ever be scanned back to film as that's not really part of my workflow. I have had 24p projects digitally projected in theaters for festival screenings, and it played back perfectly and looked really nice.
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It would be great to see some of that footage when it's ready.

What is your computer setup for smooth reliable playback of the original H264 mov. files? 1080/720
What file/format are you exporting to, and what are you using to play on the 42"?
My situation is I'm preparing a project for both Pal & NTSC markets, and it looks like the best (and and maybe only) way is originate the footage as 24p.
 
Here's a taste…



Some of the footage was shot 1080/24p, some at 720/60p and dropped in a 1080/24p timeline.

As far as computer setup and technology goes, here's my workflow (your mileage may vary)…

I review the camera original h.264 files on my 13" MacBook Pro, generally from either the CF cards via a reader, or from a FW800 external hard drive. No lag in playback at all.

I've been exporting from h.264 to ProRes 422 (not HQ) for editing. My edit bay is a Mac Pro 3Ghz, and I feed the signal from a BlackMagic Intensity Pro card to the 42" HDTV. I don't even try to edit the original h.264 files.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I shot some 60p for slowing down in post. For that, I convert to ProRes 422, duplicate the clips and rename them, then use Cinema Tools to change the timebase (re-time) of the clips to 23.98 to match the 24p footage. All of it gets edited in a ProRes 422 1920x1080 24p sequence in FCP.

--SM
 
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Looks great. Answers my question about 24p.

The opening shot looks like the shutter speed is around a 50th sec., correct? The motion blur in the head turns is really smooth.

In the first shot of the fish hitting the line the shutter looks faster. Yes?

Can you output the 7D to your MacBook Pro laptop live to use as a monitor in the field?
 
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The 1080/24p is all shot with 1/50 shutter speed. The shot of the fish hitting the lure looks faster because it's 60p shot at 1/125 (for appropriate motion blur in slow-motion). As it's just been dropped on the 24p timeline and not slowed in Cinema Tools, the 1/125 is obvious.

As for live monitoring in the field, I have no idea. I believe it's possible, but I haven't tried.
 
stephenmick said:
The 1080/24p is all shot with 1/50 shutter speed. The shot of the fish hitting the lure looks faster because it's 60p shot at 1/125 (for appropriate motion blur in slow-motion). As it's just been dropped on the 24p timeline and not slowed in Cinema Tools, the 1/125 is obvious.

As for live monitoring in the field, I have no idea. I believe it's possible, but I haven't tried.
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Are you planning to slow down the 60p shots later?
 
Hello all, what an awesome thread. I stumbled upon this because I had planned to buy a 5dII today. I was going to buy that camera because the producer of the film I'm currently prepping for (as the cinematographer, but i can't tell you what film it is :) ) has one and I was extremely impressed with it's low light abilities during our scouting. Of course, the fact that it will shoot 24 frame in january had also compelled me to buy one. Also panavision told me they have a mount adapter for it, so I started to imagine that baby with a Primo on it and salivate! But then I saw the panavised 7D that Rodney Charters had, and I started to think that that made more sense. then i found this forum and others, along with roland's great review of the 7D, and then I started to really think, or at least have some pause. Lord knows one cannot buy anything without due diligence in research.

Seems like the argument here has kind of gone all over the place. I like the 7D guy's arguments quite a bit. I think they are right in their conclusion that if you are going for what is currently the standard in filmmaking, than the 7D does seem to make the most sense. it cannot be argued that the current psychological standard in filmmaking is the appearance of Super 35 or Anamorphic lensed film. Anamorphic becomes effectively larger than 22mm, because of its desqueezing, but for this argument let's just disregard that and lump it in. I have to say the thing that struck me most when i saw 5d footage was that there was too little depth of field. And it wasn't something that i figured out right away. Screw it, i'm a movie goer who loves photography and i couldn't put my finger on it right away, mainly because I was trying to pay attention to the story. But it was there, subconsciously. Something didn't seem right or more specifically it felt gimmicky. I think the lack of DoF can call attention to itself and as a cinematographer, i tend to steer away from drawing TOO much attention to the photography. Sure be beautiful and make amazing looking pictures, but tell the story visually first. If it becomes a movie about DoF, then that better be a specific plot point, like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. That's just how I felt, and I think its because i'm conditioned to associate 24 frame, 22mm imaging with cinema. Who knows, if we grew up with 60i in the cinema and 24 frame for news, we might prefer 60i over 24p. Point is, we shouldn't talk about the audience like they are morons. "they don't know or care" is an unfair generalization. True some might not know or care, but I'd argue that many will notice without really being able to put their finger on it. It's the difference between news and movies. 60i and 24p. still moving pictures. Joe Blow doesn't know about the different frame rates perhaps, but he knows there something different about the two. That said, all this stuff matters, it's a sum of parts - all in the interest of telling the story as effectively as possible.

Okay, enough of my opinion. I want to buy one of these cameras and I have to buy it today because it's my last day in Hong Kong and I'm off to our location city tomorrow, where the cameras will be much more expensive. i need to work quick...

Is it undisputed that the 5d's video signal (screw DoF for now), not the still, but the video recording only, is actually cleaner than the 7D's? I'm sure at the lower iso's they are similar, but what about 3200, 6400? is there a distinct victor or is it marginal?

What about the signal processing? Does either camera hold highlights better have better latitude, etc.?

how apparent is the anti-aliasing? Does either camera have a leg up?

these factor are specifically important to me.

Thanks a lot! Much appreciated!

Oh and I might as well throw in my two cents about this as well. For the film I'm about to shoot, we have a 14.5mm, 17.5mm, 27mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm and 100mm, along with a 24-275 zoom and a 15-40 zoom. The reason for the wide lenses are very specific, normally I wouldn't get a 14.5. But it just depends on the story, whatever it calls for.


i'll probably shoot this film mostly at a 2.8, but sometimes 1.9 for night street exteriors. I think closing a bit on the lense is generally a desirable thing. Zeiss Super speeds are worthless until they are 2.2, and they are t1.3. On the other hand a DP friend of mine just shot a whole scene with the zeiss master primes at 1.3 and said it looked fabulous (admittedly not a totally fair comparison because 30 years separate those sets of glass). There's a section of this film where I plan to shoot at 5.6 to 11 as much as possible to get back that DoF because it's part of the story - juxtapose to another section of the film where we will shoot wide open and longer lenses as much as possible to get as much out of focus as possible. Anyway point is: There's no formulas, just trying to tell the story visually and get the work done as efficiently as possible without compromising past the threshold.
 
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RKW914, I'll sum up my experience with both cams:

5D- If you can wait for the firmware, and are only shooting 1080 without slow motion shots, this is the best option. Better low light in higher isos, and Full frame to take advatage of lenses like the 14 and the 16-35 in all their glory. And better Dinamic Range. This is a major factor.

7D- 720p slow motion is USABLE and NICE with a telephoto lens like a 70-200 or 28-300.. I Have some gorgeous 7D slow motion footage that I'll post soon- tomorrow the latest.

COmpared to anything else but the 5D the Footage looks good, but do not give that "high production value" look the 5D picture gives right out of the box. Dinamic range is an important asset of the 5D versus the 7D. And yes, the 7D seems a bitnoisier, but not enough to distract the audience.
 
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Has there been any announcement about the 5D 24p firmware update coming in January? Last I heard, they said something like "in the first half of 2010." If you're planning on that firmware update being available in January, it seems like a bit of a gamble.
 
No...there has not been any announcement about January. I seen where some folks kept saying January but that is pure speculation on their part. Canon still holds at the first half of the year which very well could mean some time in June of next year.
 
Just went through this whole thread I think YoClay is IMO right

I own a 7d and a 5d so I have no bias, in fact Id like to sell one of them and get some money if I could sell the 5d that would give me more money

So I am biased towards the 7d

Trouble is I look at all of my 5d footage - it sings - it just looks great - sharp - defined - crisp and nicer than my EX1

So I tested my 7d and 5 side to side and the LPI/resolution/noise compression combo the 5d wins - but only by 5%

That 5% should not make the camera so much nicer to view

but it is - looking at my old 5d stuff it looks great, my 7d has always looked a little dodgy

Then I realised what was happening - I am using the 7d in non optimal conditions where as Im always using my 5d in optimal conditions

DSLR lense (including those like the nikkor 50 1.4) are just wooly wide open gaining sharpness down to about 5.6

Now the 5d looks cinematic at 5.6, shooting it at 2 or 1.4 is dumb because you get the reverie look which people have now realised looks silly and actually a little distracting - non cinematic

But with the 7d you get a cinematic feel by shooting a 2 or 2.8 - and how do my lenses perform at 2.8 - well they are rubbish - its not just LPI but CA

And my 16mm Tokina at 2.8, it is barrel distortion central and soft whereas my 28PC is tack sharp at 5.6 and has no curves - it was built for shooting architecture

The 7 I have realised looks great - but only with one lens that I own a 50 1.4 shot at f2.8

My 5d looks great with any lens particularly the nikkor 35-70 F3.5 Zoom I got for $80 and the nikkor 100-300 5.6 zoom I got for $100 and my nikkor 28PC F3.5 ($500?)

Those are lenses that WORK with a FF too - long barrel throws

So for $700 I have a great coverage, little distortion, little CA and can shoot down to 11 or maybe 16 before my image softens due to diffraction - which seems to cut in at 8 on the 7

My take is ..

To make the 5d look cinematic shoot at F4 or 5.6 - lenses that perform well in this region can be nearly free

To make the 7d look cinematic shoot at F2 or 2.8

Fine at 50mm but at any other folcal length the lenses cost an absolute fortune or dont even exist, certainly not with the convenience of a zoom facility

So what will I do ?

Sell the 7 when the firmware comes out

Except I wont because it looks great with my nikkor 50 1.4 at F2, which will live on it and offer me a second camera

Also I might keep the 7d because I have not cracked this further issue which might after all make it the winner in day to day use

MONITORING

For any of these cams to produce nice footage it has to be in focus and that requires (IMO) a high resolution monitor for anything but static shots that can be pre checked

My understanding is that the 7 gives a signal of 900p ish compared to the 480p of the 5

Im not sure if ML ups the monitoring res on the 5- I think I read it does/may do

When I get a monitor, the tests will have to start again on which camera actually is most useable in the field

Of course that may prove to be the 1DS or even nikon D3x or whatever is the latest toy by next month

******

Summary of this post ! A canon 5d with a nikkor 28 F3.5 PC lens gives you a better 'Master' shot than a 7d with a Tokina 16mm-55 zoom lens - that is why it is a more cinematic camera in daily use


******

OK people will jump on my choice of a 16-55 tokina - this is the only budget wide that has the right physical characteristics to work with a FF - so it is really the only 'cinematic' choice - I have a nikkor 14 2.8 too but frankly that is equally poo until you stop it down, maybe the nikkor 14-24 G lens can save the 7 but it is not cheap

S
 
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I still think the 7D has the overall edge in image quality, even if by a minor/miniscule percentile. Take out the glass, etc, but settings to settings, ISO to ISO, I seriously think the 7D looks better, especially in signal noise patterns at the golden ISO's.

Not even the Full Frame vs S35esque, it just looks cleaner to me.

Either way, I'm not gonna part with my MKii any time soon, the stills are just crazy. Will also take that 24P update.
 
Chart to chart you may be right - but you cant take out the glass from your real world uses

Being PAL of course Im using the 7 all the time at the mo BTW = 25p

S
 
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