Prague: Canon 1DMKIV from Philip Bloom.
OK, so this new video was shot with a pro camera costing 5 grand, but given the rate at which expensive tech moves into the lower cost realms, imagine what a $250 point and shoot at Walmart will be able to do in a few years.
The 1D Mark IV uses an APS-H-sized 16-megapixel sensor that’s “similar in size to a Super 35mm motion picture film frame” with a 1.3x crop factor (so not full-frame, booo) , and a normal ISO range of 100 to 12,800, with expanded going up to 102,400 ISO (like Nikon’s fresh D3s). The new 45-point autofocus system has 39 cross-type points and uses a new AI Servo II AF predictive focusing algorithm that’s supposed to be faster, which is handy, since it shoots in 10fps bursts.
But, let’s talk about video, which Canon isn’t too shy of making the star of this camera: You get full manual exposure control, stereo mic input, and 1080p video at 24, 25 or 30fps; 720p and standard def at 50 or 60fps
Bloom has shot just as excellent stuff on the 5D Mark II and the 7D. There’s also a substantial amount of color grading and work he’s doing in post. This is not just something any idiot can do because they have the camera in their hands.
This means that for a few $K you can shoot a movie with image quality the same as Hollywood.
You can edit it on your Mac and produce your own Blueray discs without a studio.
I think this might have an effect on the industry.
I wish I could afford a Canon 5D. But as a video camera, I think it is a solution looking for a problem. This is like using your iPhone for all your web browsing… yea, it can be done, but it is not the best tool for the job.
For professional video (Hollywood films for example), the RED video cameras are chewing up the high-end video market. Steven Soderbergh now uses Red One cameras to shoot his films. Red is scaring the hell out of Panavision and hitting them hard in the pocketbook.
The problem, or question, I have for the video mode on this Canon is where to put all that data. HiDef video will fill up any internal flash memory fast. To be real, it has to be able to dump all that RAW content onto a fast external storage system.
I do like the idea of using Canon L lenses to shoot video. It has always bugged me that consumer video camera don’t have swappable lenses, or high quality optics like SLR’s do.
Then there is the question of audio. Does this camera record an audio segment to the video container? Or is any audio totally separate and have to blended in later in post production?
Canon makes video cameras. Why can’t they put their EF lens system on those, which their fullframe dSLR sensors in the camera?
The new “HDSLR” cameras are going to revolutionize filmmaking. Canon didn’t have a clue what they were doing when they added video to their high end slr’s. It was just supposed to be for photo journalists to have the capability to shoot short videos for their newspaper website. Just like Sony in ’98 when they made the first minidv and dvcam cameras. But in this case, the much cheaper still cameras with full HD outshine the pro models 20 times more expensive. Not the least of which is more control of shallow depth of field and greater sensitivity for low light shooting. They still have some disadvantages but workarounds are making them very doable for professionals. And Philip Bloom is leading the way in this revolution. He is a pro on the cutting edge making brilliant short films with the new cameras.
FYI – AGW doesn’t mean winter doesn’t still happen…LOL.
riker17 it’s hard to believe you noticed AGW on this blog. It’s rarely discussed.
wow… and now it looks just as crappy as every other other net video as it was presented in flash!!!weeeeeeeeeeeeee
what a bunch of market droids..
now if we all had nice state of the art displays and the proper encoding, or better yet raw output to view from… then i might be impressed.
I’m going to wait til end of next year or early 2011 to grab one. Hoping that the tech will be stabilized by then. That’s to say that next year should be a very interesting year for hardware changes including video.
Next year is looking to be a fun time with gadgets and techs, can’t wait!
A great camera, but you ain’t seen nothin’ yet as 2010 will prove to be a banner year for VDSLRs as the stills industry has suddenly awakened to a tremendous new market.
The Good:
Huge image sensor that produces beautiful low light & “Hollywood-like” depth of field pix.
64 GB CF card (vs expensive professional P2 cards) provides more than an hour and a half of 1080p 30f/s video.
A CODEC that, by my calculations at Canon’s stated 330 MB/minute rate, will record at 44Mb/s (variable). That’s pretty big.
Records with a .mov wrapper which is great for immediate Final Cut Pro editing.
The Bad:
Like most DSLRs, no continuous auto-focus while shooting video. Not great for “run & gun” & home movie shooting when you could be dealing with a narrow depth of field.
Likely has subtle jaggy alias problems, as do most of the DSLRs compared to “real” video cameras.
The Ugly:
All the CMOS cameras exhibit a “rolling shutter” problem to some degree caused by videoing fast action with an electronic shutter that must take time to record the scene sequentially from the top of the frame to the bottom (instead of one entire frame at once). This results in unnaturally bent vertical lines and a wiggly “jello” image in worst case scenarios.
RBG
I do get part of this. Most camera’s bleep in low light and this one was good. I also noted the video was in black and white or rather a limited number of shades of gray. How much of the clarity is due to a high priced lens?
1080P is nice however my monitor goes to 2560 X 1600. I have to cut that down to watch most video otherwise the video is kind of small or blurs when it gets remapped.
I’m sort of impressed.