Backstory -
Informal hands on shoot off (not nearly as rude as it sounds) - not exactly high art but an illustration side by side of both these great cameras and lenses. Plenty of opinions, check previous posts. Mainstream? You decide.


EX3 with Letus adaptor and Prime lenses




Canon 5d markII with Prime lenses


Behind the scenes - Master craftsmen in action

What was the conversion process for the 5D footage?

Nothing,
I edited native - (hack and slash)
Exported as a quick time movie in default settings - any conversion you see here is done at Vimeo

No grade, no manipulation, just took the sound out. This is my first FCP project so I hope to play around with it. I was hoping an editor would help me but they are all pretty busy. Busier than DOPs obviously

Thats really interesting Yves. Thanks so much to you and everyone else involved for taking the time to put that stuff up on the site. Quite an informative comparison really.

Certainly based on those two pieces of video I would have to vote the EX3 / Letus as my favourite by a long way.

Before you jump too quickly.

Load it in full HD res, and look at it on the vimeo site in full screen, I think you will be surprised. I have to say looking at the raw files in the edit I was not so easily swayed, in HD all imperfections show.. for both and that is where I was really surprised.

I am keen to dump these files to an editor who knows what they are doing compression-wise.. as I am no expert.

Yes things look very different doing that. Can't help but think they both look bad full screen on the Vimeo web site (scaling off). But still the 5d looks worse to me in more categories than the EX.

I guess things do start to get a little more obscure once you take into account compression and conversion to get on Vimeo (converted to flash file is that right ?) And possibly a lower data rate than original (??)

It all gets murky in the post production world. But certaily these cameras can both look pretty bad (as can any camera). But these were nicely shot and exposed so I wouldn't call either camera impressive.

But very interesting to note that particularly the EX looks much better at that small screen size above. That sort of size on the web seems to be how many people see footage from all sorts of cameras and think 'wow doesn't ____ look great'

Perhaps a reminder for me that you can't judge anything from small size movies on the web.

Wow Matthew, I must be missing something or an old cameraman's eyes are playing tricks - but I thought the 5D kicked ass

I will check it on Vimeo when I get home from my shoot, later this week and have a faster download.

A little offering from Thailand - yes shot on the 5d, stopped and grabbed it as I was walking by, just happened to have my camera under my coat.

Just edited it and uploaded it.


FYI guys, all these videos are available on you tube HD as well.

I know that everyone has different ideas of what looks good. Thats another place that this gets varied. And of course what the monitor settings you have on your computer plays a part.

Looking on my laptop I just thought the 5d look very crushed blacks. Didn't seem to be much latitude. But maybe this is just the way it was currently setup.

I don't know how you guys find things but I have often been surprised by the wide range of opinion amongst cameraman about what 'looks good' and what doesn't.

But I am certainly interested to hear which of these people like.

One thing that is really useful to look at in this context is a high res still from this footage. Makes it a lot easier to judge the footage without the conversion and compression that is going via Vimeo.

I know you have a done a huge amount already Yves but if you have time a full size high quality JPEG still from those two cameras would be very enlightening.

I find it very hard to make an opinion unless you can see the original footage under good monitoring.
However looking at this footage from the clips the EX3 footage seems to have better latitude and a nicer feel to it. There seems to be less edging detail and I would say would be easier and better to post as the contrast doesn't seem as high.
I would liken it very much to the difference from a Varicam In cine-gamma and film mode and to it being shot in Video mode.

Canon 5d is definitely sharper,.....contrast higher....would love to know what can be done in post to lift the blacks.

I edited native and exported straight to Vimeo, so if you look at it full frame, I believe that you are looking at it pretty much ready to go.

In the edit, looking at it direct, I can say there is no clear winner. The EX looks a little milky with the ground glass pretty obvious as dancing noise here and there. But you are right, it does look like the latitude is a better, most times. It is overall, seems better and since Jake said that there is no way you would shoot with a Letus without a grade, it might be a bit unfair to post here like this.

On the other hand, the 5D has moments of brilliance that defies what you would expect. Yes the blacks are very negative and is a bit distracting. Was it the picture profile ( as I know that can be adjusted) or could a grade help it there? I am not sure.

This footage was literally banged together, I could have another go and see if I can lift some high res, I will see how my time pans out.

The fact that not one is hands down (equally good or equally bad you be the judge) but again the fact that we are even talking about about looking at it closer is very very interesting.

Making an opinion as you say Jeff with our all different and varied laptops is interesting as the other argument is this is what people see at home.

We looked at these on high res monitors, playing down the raw side by side and would love to hear what people think when they saw it there .. as the room was pretty quiet.

Yeah I would like to hear a few opinions from people who looked at the monitors side by side.

When you upload to Vimeo I'm pretty sure a conversion to a flash video file is going on (I may be wrong) so I think a JPEG out of final cut would be better.

And I think believe you can get into the 5d menu to change a few settings. I would imagine there is a lower contrast option.

The 5d image doesn't look gradable to me as the blacks are gone. But I am out of my depth there.

As you have mentioned Yves the portability of the 5d seems to be one of the great things about it. And timelapse seems like a perfect job for this tool.

An excellent additional camera to have on hand.

The other advantage with the EX, as we see in "South" is the offspeed, amazing stuff Jake did with this little unit... it brings a "look' so it becomes a bunch of cameramen talking about images the way that somaliers would discuss wines. There are no set rules as long as you are into it. Even a bad wine can be good to someone.

The blacks are not totally gone in the originals, they are in the Vimeo (as you say flash conversion) so its not great but not bad. Look at the Thai video, shot under normal circumstances, the blacks are fine there.

What I can do is give you the files via You Send It and you can see the originals.

Anyone else keen?
Yves

I would love to see a small excerpt from the original 5d footage. I am interested to see what happens when you convert it to 25 fps, and probably to another format.

Can any of the editors chime in with what you need to do to this footage to integrate it into a kiwi production ?

What is the codec for the original material ?
What codec would you convert this to ? (Pro Res for FCP ?)

I currently have a timeline for a show that Yves has shot and in this timeline I have XDHD, EX, P2 and 5D material. Compared to the other formats and cameras the 5D does lack detailing in the blacks. Although it could be considered the PD150 for HD it also is capable of remarkable results, which is why the material ended up in the timeline especially in cu's.

The major caveat when dealing with low bit-rate formats such as EX and now 5D is that you want the pictures to be near-perfect when it comes to exposure as they fall apart really quickly when grading

I am using Avid and i found a handy little trick in Adobe After Effects which seems to handle the 30 to 25 frame conversion in a very acceptable manner recreating the files with the DNxHD codec. I know compressor in FCP is supposed to do a good job.

I certainly wouldn't want to cut a whole show using this format, especially as each shot has 00.00.00.00 start code

This way I get the crushed blacks look without doing anything!

those kind of looks are fine when they are consistant or pre-planned but as a general rule you want a fairly flat image so that you can grade it to fit with the other footage in post.

Definately a useful tool in the swiss army knife of shootng though. If it is the only way of getting the shot then it's certainly a compromise worth living with

http://library.creativecow.net/articles ... ersion.php

the authority on changing the frame rate and smoothing it out, thanks for Jason Berry in sending this one in

The mark 5DII video feature looked like a gimmick to me at first. It clearly has some advantages and features though. It looks like Canon has some issues to work out with the blacks. Do you think this feature is a real world experiment for a future production camera?

Were you capturing on the camera? or on an external machine?

I thought I heard about recording limits due to the sensor getting to hot. Are there any record limits?

I think we all thought the same - 5D , Letus and the likes all a bit gimmick like (personal opinion)
But we (I) have come round to take it a bit more seriously, a bit in a love-hate way as neither system is very ergo dynamic in a EFP way (film-people seem to handle the awkwardness better than us TV types) Everyone in the room conceded that future enhancements of the technology had some real-world potential.

Camera were being captured on-board as they were designed.

We never had sensor issues - I have recorded up to 15 minutes non-stop, might be worth experimenting with.

ys

real world potential...it's already there. Yves is being modest, he shot it and I am using it in amongst the other stuff.

should move this bit of the post into a 'post' post but as the file transfer and frame rate conversion are a real part of the viablity of this format it should be noted that software such as twixtor does a fairly good job in turning 30 into 25 but it could take as much as two hours to render out a minute of footage !

Rendertastic and time-mungus is all I can say.

two hours render for one minute of footage !

Wow, thats a pretty interesting fact I wasn't aware of.

Its surprising how often the devil is in the details with some of these new fangled alternatives.

This becomes a big issue where cost is concerned. Quite a few of these web examples have lenses like Ultraprimes on the 5d. Now thats great if you happen to have a set of Ultraprimes that you don't use or got for free. But if you have to pay ultraprimes are $1600 NZ per day. So suddenly you have a camera kit that just doesn't make sense money wise.

This only applies when you soup the whole thing up and make it the main camera for a feature or something, not when its used as an extra camera / mount camera / low key camera.

but this is one of the points that define what sort of camera this is for me.

there are alternatives to twixtor and things change in a relatively short time in this game. I am not sure how quick compressor is but After Effects does a pretty smart job without any plug-ins in a fraction of the time. these things are usually relative to the power of your computer.

When EX hit the scene it was an absolute nightmare to handle in post, involving file conversion before you could edit, now most editing applications can use it in it's native format without any ingesting.

At the end of the day it depends on what you want to achieve, what the alternative is going to cost and whether you can make a return on the outlay.

It has been recommended to edit what you need on a 30fps timeline and then render the lot afterwards.. you know like RED.

I assume that everyone has seen Philip Blooms tutorials
http://philipbloom.co.uk/tutorials/canon-5dmkii-tutorials/part-1-importing-and-conversion/

Iv'e tried most of them but the results have been pretty disappointing to be honest!
I think you have to find what works best for you in the timeline that fits your workflow. Most descent solutions have a $$$ value, if it's freeware there is usually a reason..the main factor tends to be time.

Here is an interesting article if you haven't already seen it

http://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2009/ ... eal-world/

As they say, "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder" but I guess I am pretty biased because I have always been a Sony fan. In my case, the EX3 has the best resolution by far in the semi shoulder camcorder category. However, if you are looking at value for money, I'd have to go for 5D. From where I am, the 5D is priced a lot lower than the Letus.