Disclaimer: This is not a 5D vs GH1 thread. Anything mentioning the GH1 is only meant for reference.
Personally, I love the full frame sensor size. It allows so much freedom for composition and I would hate to return to anything less. However, some day you may want a longer lens and deeper DoF. There are many well known ways to do this, but I'm going to cover an alternative not often considered.
This will no doubt be very obvious to a lot of people, but may also be helpful to some too. It can be beneficial to have an option to reduce the format.
If you are using the 5D Mark II and for whatever reason are looking for a format closer to the standard Academy 35mm film size consider cropping the 1080p video to 720p. Making the compromise to use 720p over 1080p is quite a sacrifice but if that's what it takes to get the shot it may not be such a bad idea.
Here is an example:
Hope I did all the math right. This should be relatively accurate.
Ideally, the choice to crop should be one made on set and not in post. You will have to adjust your framing and should add new safety guides. This will have some advantages over native 720p:
- Adjustment of framing in post: By cropping you still have image off to the sides which will allow you some adjustment of framing in post. If you got a light in the shot, microphone, crew, something distracting.. Having the freedom to later change composition can be very useful for many things.
- Reduced rolling shutter distortion: Cropping the video will reduce rolling shutter skew or "jello". This can make a considerable difference if you anticipate a difficult shot, or a clumsy camera operator.
- Image Stabilization without compromising resolution: Image stabilization works by cropping a section of the video and translating the crop to compensate for unwanted camera moves. Problem is that it generally reduces resolution once the video is scaled back up again to fit the frame. A 1080p video cropped to 720p can reduce the need to scale.
- Improved image quality and performance: By scaling the 1080p image to 720p you get a much higher quality 720p video. It will appear to have less noise, less artifacts, and sharper than native 720p. This will remove the crop, but is an option if ever needed.
Personally, I love the full frame sensor size. It allows so much freedom for composition and I would hate to return to anything less. However, some day you may want a longer lens and deeper DoF. There are many well known ways to do this, but I'm going to cover an alternative not often considered.
This will no doubt be very obvious to a lot of people, but may also be helpful to some too. It can be beneficial to have an option to reduce the format.
If you are using the 5D Mark II and for whatever reason are looking for a format closer to the standard Academy 35mm film size consider cropping the 1080p video to 720p. Making the compromise to use 720p over 1080p is quite a sacrifice but if that's what it takes to get the shot it may not be such a bad idea.
Here is an example:
Hope I did all the math right. This should be relatively accurate.
Ideally, the choice to crop should be one made on set and not in post. You will have to adjust your framing and should add new safety guides. This will have some advantages over native 720p:
- Adjustment of framing in post: By cropping you still have image off to the sides which will allow you some adjustment of framing in post. If you got a light in the shot, microphone, crew, something distracting.. Having the freedom to later change composition can be very useful for many things.
- Reduced rolling shutter distortion: Cropping the video will reduce rolling shutter skew or "jello". This can make a considerable difference if you anticipate a difficult shot, or a clumsy camera operator.
- Image Stabilization without compromising resolution: Image stabilization works by cropping a section of the video and translating the crop to compensate for unwanted camera moves. Problem is that it generally reduces resolution once the video is scaled back up again to fit the frame. A 1080p video cropped to 720p can reduce the need to scale.
- Improved image quality and performance: By scaling the 1080p image to 720p you get a much higher quality 720p video. It will appear to have less noise, less artifacts, and sharper than native 720p. This will remove the crop, but is an option if ever needed.
Last edited:
