Comments on: Making Videos with DSLR’s

By: jburkhart

jburkhart — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:17:26 +0000

Thanks for the first hand report Lucab, I’m eager to give it a go myself as well. I agree that there are big things to come with DSLR video, and it’s interesting to be here at it’s infancy.

By: Lucab

Lucab — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:13:47 +0000

I came back from a photoshoot during which I played around with the video function of the Canon 5D MKII. Being able to use professional lenses (50mm F1.2 35mm F1.4 85mm F1.2) with a full size sensor obviously makes for astonishingly beautiful video. No doubt about quality itself. But there are still many limitations. Focusing is basically manual and a bit difficult to be accurate looking at an exposed LCD monitor on a very bright day. Some LCD hood is in order to overcome the problem. There is no obvious control over lens aperture and that is the biggest drawback since using these lenses at full aperture (therefore VERY shallow depth of field) is the biggest difference between the 5D and a prosumer camcorder. My feeling is that this is just the beginning of DSLR Video and that in the next couple of years we’re going to see great improvement in this fieldf. For now, it’s great for photographers to be able to shoot some HD clips when needed and for videographers to have a ‘new look’ to experiment with.

By: aburke3

aburke3 — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 23:07:01 +0000

Thanks John!

Will we see ‘DSLR Videomaker’, like we once saw the magazine called ‘Computer Videomaker’ ?

-Andrew Burke

By: robgrauert

robgrauert — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:02:45 +0000

Cool. I look forward to reading the review.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to suggest a test. I’ve heard these cameras are very susceptible to the artifacts caused by the rolling shutter – the “jello” effect and black horizontal bands. I think that would be a good test because when those artifacts are encountered, they make the video useless.