I tested the DSLR Canon 5DmkII!

J

jacotte

Carbonite Member
I just finished a major film using the EX1 and Letus Extreme. The production took 9 months. We had to bring the gear all the way to Bamako, Mali. Needless to say the entire film was filmed on tripod and/or dolly. Most everything required lighting.

Yesterday I tested the 5DmkII. Audio and frame rate issues not withstanding, I don't know what to make of it. It appears to be non-professional insofar as it has no zebra and no focus zoom. Aside from that I just wonder if I could have used it for the movie and gotten the same or even better results without the camera size & weight, the heavy lighting gear, and adaptor ground plate hassle.

My feeling is that there is some unspoken truth out there which people are just not willing to talk about. Is the DSLR solution a real revolution or is it some overated prosumer camera? The answer to that question will determine how obsolete my equipement is and whether I should go with DSLR on my next production.

May those who have compared the two share their observations now.
 
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jacotte said:
Is the DSLR solution a real revolution or is it some overated prosumer camera?
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It's both.

And that's what makes the subject so frustrating and contentious. If it was clearly just one or the other, we wouldn't be having all this back-and-forth discussion.
 
THe only advantages I see with the DSLR cameras are the low light capabilities and the "easy to carry around" aspect. Otherwise, I think it looks much more digital/artificial and less organic than 35mm adapters footage. Plus, there are all the other cons about those cameras which everybody knows about already...
Personally I'll still continue to stay "oldschool" with my 35mm adapter, probably till the scarlett comes out.
 
My wife got the Canon MKII and I did some tests comparing it to my Sony V1U and even though the color of the Canon was much better, I didn't feel it was much better than my Sony V1U when it came to low light. (Mind you the Sony is a 1/4 CMOS chip - so it has pretty bad low light)

In order to get the Canon MKII to see as well as my Sony V1U (without adapter) I had to crank the Canon up to ISO 640 where I could see lots of grain while my Sony was sitting at Gain0 and had a clean grain free image. After I did the test I came away not feeling that the low light of the DSLRs are not so hot if you have to crank them to to high ISO just to see.

This is my opinion - not a tech fact. But any camera can be used for a feature. Heck I finished mine with the V1U and a Letus Economy, so I know you can shoot with the Canon MKII. I do prefer the look of the EX1/RED over the Canon though. After seeing numerous images on the big screen, having more latitude in the image just gives it more pop.
 
It's funny people buying and using and commenting on these cameras get all bent out of shape about Canon producing such an underdeveloped video camera when the video feature was really just an *extra* feature they added for photojournalists.

Maybe they should never have let Laforet take the thing and shoot his little movie, but it's too late now:

http://hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/category/hdslr-cameras/

.
 
Barry_Green said:
Depends on how fast the lens was. I'm pretty sure you weren't running that test with an f/1.4 lens, right?
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You're right I wasn't running the test with f/1.4 more like f/5.6 because I don't like the super shallow depth of field at f/1.4. So for me doing tests that low don't make since, because I'd probably only shoot at f/1.4 if I had to. But the amazing thing to me was that my V1U not even wide open, at about f/2.0 was giving me a 100% clean image vs the Canon MKII ISO 640 with a grainy one.

I also did some tests in post to see how well they both held up. The results were almost the same except the grain is serious in the blacks of the Canon.

Like I said the Canon is a great cam. So I'm not bad mouthing it.
 
That's because your V1U has a native ISO of more like 100. Crank the V1U up to 15dB of gain and stop its lens down to f/5.6 and compare again, you might see that they're a lot closer.

The SLRs are *not* magical in low light, they deliver about as much grain as a video camera does. Where the SLRs get their superdy-duperdy low light performance is from being able to open up to 1.4 or so.
 
Heh. I have the V1U and was thinking of the T2i. Now people say they are similar in low light (ok, 5FMkII, not T2i, but whatever) unless I put on a super-fast lens.

So, if I want shallow DOF, I can get it more easily on a DSLR with large aperture and a powerful ND filter. If I want sensitivity, I put a fast lens. But what if I want sensitivity and longer DOF? If both sensitivity and DOF depend on aperture, how can I get a decent shot in low light without shallow DOF? Looks like it is impossible?
 
Add light. That's how we've been doing it for a hundred years.

Or put on a super-incredibly-wide-angle lens.

Or you could go to a two-second shutter speed, that might let you stop the lens down.

Bending the laws of physics is not currently offered on any DSLR that I know of.
 
or have a second smaller sensor cam for situations you need deeper depth of field.. like for greenscreen and motiontracking.
 
Here is a post I found on one of the many forums:

"IMHO the image you can get out of a 7d trumps the image you can get from any DOF adapter, no matter what camera it is attached to. DOF adapters have gone the way of the dinosaur. On the other hand, you could probably pick one up pretty cheap now that lots of people are trying to sell their old ones."
 
Suffice it to say that there are many circumstances where a DOF adapter will indeed "trump" what you can get out of a 7D, so such a statement is simply not supportable.

"No matter what camera it is attached to"? Even Philip Bloom, most associated with DSLRs, says that he'd take an EX1/Letus combo over a DSLR 80% of the time.
 
jacotte said:
"IMHO the image you can get out of a 7d trumps the image you can get from any DOF adapter, no matter what camera it is attached to. DOF adapters have gone the way of the dinosaur. On the other hand, you could probably pick one up pretty cheap now that lots of people are trying to sell their old ones."
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I love posting this example whenever someone makes a blanket claim like that. This is one of those very real life situation where the 7D will screw you over while an adapter with camera will easily breeze by. Despite popular belief cameras like the A1 or EX1 still resolves way more detail than the 7D, even with an adapter attached.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGr1lQAREB0

786183160_EhPTj-XL.jpg
 
jacotte said:
Could you tell us in your own words what specifically is wrong with this image?
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Look at his jacket. See those blue wavy lines? That's aliasing caused by the 7D. My guess is that the shirt originally has a fine line pattern running through it, which the 7D was unable to resolved and so it spits out false details in the form of a bunch of skewed line AND it couldn't even replicate the colors so it just comes out blue. Watch the video, you don't need to be a film buff to see that there's something wrong with that image since you can see the lines flickering in every shot. This is a classic real life situation in which HDSLR will fall flat on their face and completely debunk the idea that adapters are obsolete. Cameras like the A1, HVX, EX1 etc. don't do that; if they can't resolve details it will just be blurred out but they won't give you false details like the 7D.
 
Thanks for linking the video, Huy.

That is not a codec issue, it's a single sensor, skipped lines of pixels issue. The Canon 5D and 7D codec bit rate runs at around 44Mbps. The Panasonic GH1 at 17Mbps. I prefer the look of the GH1, but it's codec is inadequate. The Canon cameras have a more robust codec, but more aliasing and moire issues due to how they pull information off of the sensor. And, of course, they all have CMOS skewing artifacts and latitude nowhere near good 2/3" video cameras.
 
You're right. I also think the contrast is high and the light areas get overexposed too quickly. You have just resolved the debate for me. I will stay with the adaptor rig. This 7D image is not up to professional standards.
 
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