I tested the DSLR Canon 5DmkII!

The one thing bothers me very much..

It is how Canon HDSLRs are handling a yellow and orange color..

When shooting something with 5d's, 7d's I would stay away from those colors on set..

blyak..
 
Huy Vu said:
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
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Oh, sh*t! You really need to watch the clip to understand the significance of this still image.

That's quite awful. Having just shot with a 7D for the first time a couple of days ago, I thought the experience and result was "Ok." Nothing more. The naked camera on a tripod is not bad (except you really need something to check focus), but many people evangelizing these things are strapping thousands of dollars of accessories onto them, rendering the form-factor advantage moot.

Chris is right, and Hurlbut as much as says so in a recent interview: these were not designed for film making. It's about viral marketing. Canon really hit pay dirt when Laforet, Bloom and others picked up on these cameras. We wouldn't be discussing this issue otherwise.
 
What is it with this Philip Bloom - Zacuto - DSLR love story anyways? I don't get it. DSLR is all they talk about these days. It appears they have forgotten all about adaptors.
 
Barry_Green said:
What interview was this said in?
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The current issue of HD Video Pro has an interview/profile of him. As I recall the line is about half way through the article. The whole article is contradictory: on one hand he says they're not for film making, but on the other he's gushing about how great they are.

In fact much of the magazine is devoted to HDSLR, including a disclaimer on the editor's page, which to paraphrase says "Dont worry, we'll still cover regular cameras even though HDSLRs are the current rage..."
 
Speaking as a owner of both a 7D and Sony EX1 I think I can sum up my experience of the DSLR video this way...

It's a revolution if you know how to use it and know what to expect.

People want devices like these to do everything and that demand is kind of justified in the world of videography where people are constantly battling the elements and often have to work in highly variable circumstances. For this kind of work the EX1 is in a whole othere universe compared to the 7D.

However, as an artistic tool, the 7D just blows me away. It has loads of problems like the moire and alising and lack of sharpness in detailed wide shots...but man..if you treat it right it can create images that just blow you away.

My training and aspirations are artistic, not technical, so that is very much my point of view so that I can't really discuss the technical shortcomings with any authority. All I know is that whan I slap on my 24mm f/1.8 macro on the 7D I just see some magic.
 
not in the same way. first of all the whole EX1 rig with a heavy adapter and 35mm lens combo was just incredibly heavy and unwieldy. Of course true 35mm rigs are much heavier, but for small operations it was just a pain.

Second, the adapter just lost too much light and vignetted too many of my wide lenses. Also, I had very limited ability to stop down the lenses or use slower zoom lenses on it. It could create amazing, filmlike, images for sure, but for my application it was even more limited than the 7D.

And low light is no comparison. Not even close.

I do miss the audio functions and the sheer image sharpness on the 7D. But I'm one of the few, I guess, that don't really care about the sharpness compared to the look.
 
Krummi said:
It has loads of problems like the moire and alising and lack of sharpness in detailed wide shots...but man..if you treat it right it can create images that just blow you away..
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I'm struggling to understand how people can reliably get good footage despite this problem. Some major pros are using only DSLRs; for example, Stillmotion.

When I look at the clip in post #14 I cannot understand how anyone could control for that defect. The actor is basically standing still. It looks properly lit. There's maybe a little breeze. To my mind it's a 100% camera failure/shortcoming. I don't see how anyone can mitigate that ahead of time.
 
I think the problem with that shot is wardrobe. The fine details the jacket are throwing the camera off.

I'm not saying that the problem isn't a big one, but if you know what to stay away from you won't see it. I, personally, haven't had any problems yet.
 
Bobonli said:
I don't see how anyone can mitigate that ahead of time.
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You tell the actor to not wear that jacket. It's done all the time even in major productions. Certain colors and patterns doesn't show up well on camera, you just have to know what the weakness is and deal with it before anything gets committed on film.
 
I will say this: Codec is important. Who wants to work with a shitty codec? Until these DSLR cameras have a decent codec, I'm staying away from them.
 
Well, that depends on what you mean by "quality". The EX1 resolves a lot more detail (i.e. has more real world resolution) and doesn't have the same artifact problems as the DSLRS have...

But to me the image of the 7D is much more organic and has that dreamlike quality I look for. I find it less mechanical than the EX1's super clean digital look.

It's all about tradeoffs.
 
The DSLR codec sucks. Bottom line it's a nice toy. Don't even think about making a serious movie with a sub standard codec.
 
jacotte said:
The DSLR codec sucks. Bottom line it's a nice toy. Don't even think about making a serious movie with a sub standard codec.
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There you go again, making sweeping assertions that have little to do with facts. No the codec doesn't "suck"; it's quire robust actually. h.264 compression at a much higher bitrate than HDV. The GH1 has some codec issues but the 7D and 5D are pretty good. The issues we're seeing has nothing do with the codec, it's a problem with the way the sensor is being read.

Why does everything with you have to be either the greatest thing ever or a "toy"? Nothing is perfect and we have to accept the flaws in our tools and work within that confine. The DSLR are certainly flawed systems but of course you can make serious work with them if you understand their limitation, just like everything else.
 
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