C100: would you still buy a canon 5d mark ii for 500$? What would you recommend instead?

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deleuze3

Well-known member
Hi,
I was wondering if you would buy a canon 5d mark ii for filmmaking for 500$?

If not, what you would buy instead apart a c100 (which i find too big for travelling) ?

Thanks in advance,
Deleuze3
 
At this point, I would not recommend a 5Dii for video. Your budget is $500? Take a look at the Olympus EM10 iii. Super small, lightweight, has a nice EVF, great IBIS so you won't need a tripod, and they can be had for around $300 on eBay. You'd have a little left over for some extra batteries and a fast MFT prime lens. Just keep in mind that there is no audio input or headphone jack.
 
Assuming you're interested in Canon and full-frame and 1080p is okay, a used Canon RP is around $600 and has DPAF in full frame HD.

If anything is on the table, it's impossible to beat a Pocket 4K for a bit more (especially for filmmaking).
 
If you've never used a 5DM2 for video- we're all wondering why bother. My son bought himself a Fuji XT200 with lens for $500 last week. He loves it for vlogging.

Having said that, I've owned a 5DM2 for over 10 years. Been running ML for at least 6 years. Shot a feature- anamorphic no less, and one of our cameras was a 5DM2 going out ML-RAW, with a PL mount. 14 bit color- director was absolutely in love with the image- it was the biggest PITA to work with.

Having said THAT, I still use the 5DM2 for Youtube videos. It looks great 1080P in a simple studio setup. Some of us prefer the look over a 5DM3 for video. Not the sharpest, but creamy and nice skin tones. But let's face it, it's not worth selling in 2020. BUT I don't think worth buying in 2020 either cause it's still a PITA to work with (but essentially FREE for me).

I have an XT4, but need to find the right lens/combo. Too damn sharp for my face.
 
5DMkII, horrible aliasing and lowest resolution look ever. I can’t believe people ever used this for video. I still have mine. Yuck. I bought it when people were raving. It was the dslr that started it all for video. It’s responsible for me never trusting another dslr/mirrorless until the GH5, and I was plenty worried about it being another but it turned out okay. Now I wouldn’t worry about any new camera but 5DMkII is a dog, for video. Just say no. If that isn’t enough to convince you I’ll sell you mine for $150 in the box as new, needs only a new battery. I haven’t used it in years but it’s in perfect condition.
 
lol. It's easy to say that now.

But you'd still be in the very microscopic minority with that opinion.

Camera produced a very nice image (even better than the III as hinted above) for many years.
 
Nikon's D90 was the first video DSLR, but it was only 720P and wrote to the Motion JPEG codec, so it was quickly overshadowed by the 5D with 1080P from a full frame sensor. Remember how the original firmware recorded 30 FPS exactly, not 29.97 FPS? 1080P, writing to generic flash memory, and interchangeable lenses on an affordable camera was very rare back in 2008, and competition like the HVX-200 wasn't particularly detailed either. It was cumbersome to shoot with and had a long list of drawbacks, but it truly was a game changer.

With that said, the 5D was way over hyped, and was quickly followed by other good cameras e.g. 7D, GH1, D3s (low light King), etc.
 
Again...easy to say in hindsight.

But the fact-of-the-matter is that the world never saw shallow depth-of-field like that before. And only the 1% had access to it before the camera was created.
 
By over hyped, I mean that it was considered the only camera to use for years after there were equivalent or better cameras in the same price range.

Remember the Zacuto 2011 Great Camera Shootout, there were a number of camera's that were almost as good, just as good, or better than the 5D at an "affordable" price point. I thought the Nikon D7000 held it's own very well against the 5D, granted it came out a couple years after the 5D, but it's performance was impressive for an APS-C camera. I'm perhaps a little biased since I own a D7000, but I thought it did well in low light and preferred it to the Canon's in the skin tone test, perhaps because Canon used BT.601 color.

P.S. A lot of cameras still shot interlaced back in 2008, so progressive video from DSLRs was certainly welcome.
 
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I definitely agree there were options just as good or better only a year or two later. (Nikon skintones are great.)

Blackmagic released the BMCC and BMPCC in 2012/2013, which made 99% of cameras at the time look like toys.

IMO, those two cameras from them are very single-handedly responsible for why we have great cameras for lower prices from everyone else.
 
So the OP hasn't responded.
The original question was, "if not, what would you recommend instead for $500." Never mentioned intent of camera/ needs.

So someone was bored and threw out a whack post and we took the bait. Internet trolling plus covid fatigue... And at the same time raised an interesting question. Now a 5dM2 was offered for $150 here...

If anyone has doubts to the 5Dm2 quality, in video, you have to watch this:
https://vimeo.com/82522288
If you don't think the tone, color and texture is great- then we live in two different universes- sorta the way Trump and company lives in a different universe than mine. And for those who have used the camera, it is the biggest PITA, especially compared with current hardware. But the above video proves the camera was not over-rated (with ML installed. Without Magic Lantern, well, it's a camera from 2005- yeah it's over 15 years old) It was just never made to be a motion camera. But with ML RAW there was a magic to that camera that I didn't feel until the Alexa 65 came out (yeah, I shot with it a little.) But as I watch Colby Moore's video again, I'm thinking, "Damn, that looks fantastic..." It's not all about resolution and technical perfection.

I would say it's all the tool wielder, but the odd thing is, Colby Moore's later videos with the GH series of cameras shooting 4K, well, they weren't as engaging- to me. Much easier to shoot and process for sure, but nowhere near as "magical."

To the OP- just because you can buy it cheap doesn't mean you should. The 5DM2 is great if you truly know what you are doing, take extreme care shooting, and spend a ton of time processing the image, and keep it to 1080, even in RAW. Not a camera to find paying work with.

But, as the country enters a dark winter and lockdowns start getting triggered, again. Maybe we can all spend days tooling with a ML hacked 5DM2 for fun- to remind us how things progressed, and maybe make a personal, "magical" video short.
 
When I first started my career around when Vimeo and YouTube just started to really get going (2007-ish), V. Laforet and P. Bloom were the guys to watch.

I remember VL, with Canon, created a short film contest in which each "chapter" after the initial kickoff chapter had to pick up the story on the last frame/photograph of the one before it (or something like that).

Way before ML days...but here is the final product in one movie in which hundreds of people worked/collaborated on (and thousands submitted).

Imagine if people today still did this with today's technology instead of mostly YouTube "reviews" and hype videos...that'd be something.

 
Darn...got me searching back for some random work I was so so so inspired by back then.

Here's another one of my absolute favorites; a darker TMNT short film.

5D Mark II.

Legit, passionate, short filmmaking.

 
NorBro said:
lol. It's easy to say that now.
Click to expand...

It was easy to say then and I did. I already had the 5DMKI and video was the only reason I got the MKII. At the time people were all in for contraptions like the Letus and Brevis and the 5D2 wasn’t my only HD cam, it certainly was my EX1 and which was a zillion times better, even my XHA1 HDV camera was better. So people were throwing money down rabbit holes, Red One was a thing and along comes full frame 5D2, take my money, hurry! You’re right about microscopic minority, if I had seen evidence it would be so aliased and 480p-like I would have skipped it. And I felt duped and have been extremely circumspect about bayer sensors all the way along the chain up until about the FS3, the first BMD pocket camera, the 1DC and F55, the GH2, GH3, all were great cameras, and you could throw in the FS700 but not the 5D2. It had color yes, and you could point it and it would record a low res HD picture that wouldn’t alias as long as the scene contained no detail and you didn’t move the camera to reveal the crawling line skipped stair stepping caterpillars along the edges. Like I’m saying now, I said it then too. People didn’t relate to true HD then if they believed 5D2 was HD. Yes I’m still bitter about the 5D2. Never mind it doesn’t have any DR. That wasn’t my complaint then, was forgiving of that but the crawling edges sent me over the same edge. And I haven’t trusted anyone in the macroscopic majority who pined for the 5D2, there were plenty who needed their eyes adjusted. /Rant_Off (Cheers )
 
Imamacuser said:
By over hyped, I mean that it was considered the only camera to use for years after there were equivalent or better cameras in the same price range.

Remember the Zacuto 2011 Great Camera Shootout, there were a number of camera's that were almost as good, just as good, or better than the 5D at an "affordable" price point. I thought the Nikon D7000 held it's own very well against the 5D, granted it came out a couple years after the 5D, but it's performance was impressive for an APS-C camera. I'm perhaps a little biased since I own a D7000, but I thought it did well in low light and preferred it to the Canon's in the skin tone test, perhaps because Canon used BT.601 color.

P.S. A lot of cameras still shot interlaced back in 2008, so progressive video from DSLRs was certainly welcome.
Click to expand...

Not only did the Nikon D7000 hold its own against the 5Dmk2, but the D7100 (and the cheaper Nikon D5200) was a big leap forward for quality, and even could hold its own against the new Canon 5Dmk3

Canon has always been overhyped
 
I think the 5D & 7D were a popular and superior alternative to DOF adapters, remember those? Granted that they were a hack from the get-go, but yielded more options for the cinematographer.

I remember watching a trailer for an Indy film which looked so good that I mistakenly thought they shot it on actual film, it turned out they used an HVX-200 & DOF adapter, and I'm sure it helped that I watched the trailer in 360P or 480P.
 
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