Cameratown's EOS 5D Mark II Video Channel

Boston is a beautiful town, whether there's rain, snow or sun. We spent a day filming around town, starting at Bunker Hill and ending at Copley Station.

Music by Ben's Brother.

I have to admit that I am embarrassed by the fact that I had to edit and render this footage in iMovie. Wow, it just doesn't do well with the rendering. Anyway, the cinematographers and speakers here at re:frame are a lot of fun - what an amazing group of people.

Okay. Didn't have a ton of different footage so threw together this short video from random shots mostly from last nights party. Once you've watched it 3x you'll automatically associate J. Geils with re:Frame instead of freeze frame.

This video was shot yesterday during the group's shootout with Bruce Patterson, Philip Bloom, and Jason Magbanua.

The Re:Frame "75" were broken into three smaller groups where we got some hands-on shooting time with each of the three group leaders. Bruce gave his group some hands-on time with the Glidecam stabilizer and vest, glidetrack, as well as a slider from Pegasys. He broke down the purposes and advantages of each along with his experience as to why he chose each particular model.

Jason's group hung back at the hotel initially where a lucky 1/3rd of us got the chance to do a bride prep with this multi-award winning cinematographer. Jason's group then headed out to join the other two groups where we got to switch around with the different group leaders.

I didn't have the opportunity to shoot with Philip but spent some time listening to his hands-on "time-lapse" tutorial using the 5DMKII, 7D, and other cameras.

The 2nd half of this footage was captured during and after dinner as a small group of us walked the streets of SF around our hotel. SF, like many larger cities, come alive at night and you'll find the typical mixture of drunks, bums, and homeless wandering and loitering.

The video ends with a song from a beautiful man who was more than willing to let us capture some of his character and song on film.

All night time footage was captured hand held using the 5DMKII and Canon 50mm f/1.8 II Lens. Afternoon shots were captured with either the 5DMKII or 7D and a combination of hand held, Steadicam Merlin, and indiSlidermini. Lenses used were the Sigma 20mm /f1.8, Canon EF 70-200mm F/2.8L IS, or Canon 24-105mm F/4.0L IS.

In this video I used the identical lens (24-105mm f/4L) on both the 5DMKII and 7D. Due to the 7D's cropped sensor I had to visually match up the focal length to match the 5D's setting of 50mm.

Unlike my previous two split-screen videos (piano & pool table), the two cameras here were NOT recording simultaneously. I captured video at all ISO's with the first camera, then switched and did the same test with the other. This was the only way to set it up using the same lens.

Every 5 seconds in this video the ISO will shift from 100, 200, 400, 640, 1000, 1600, 3200, 4000, 5000, 6400, 12800. The camera's were both set on Manual and after increasing the ISO I then adjusted the aperture to bring the exposure meter back to the middle. I kept the shutter speed at 1/60th since I was recording at 30fps. On the very last ISO setting (12,800) I had to bump the 5D's shutter speed up to 1/125th to get the exposure centered since I couldn't bring the aperture beyond f/22.

With regard to noise, they both seem to be equally matched until about ISO 4000, where it looks like the 5DMKII pulls further ahead as the ISO increases beyond that point.

Sharpness seems to go back and forth. At some ISO/Aperture settings the 5D looked sharper and at others the 7D looked sharper. I'm not sure why that is and might do another test sometime this week to see if I get similar results.

I had the good fortune of being able to both photograph (as a 2nd shooter) and film Candace and Chris' (as the cinematographer) wedding last week. I started capturing the bride at her parents house as she had her hair and makeup done and then jumped in the car and drove 30 minutes to capture footage of the groom and groomsmen getting prepared. The entire wedding day was perfect as was the beautiful couple and their family.