5DMK II question about quality of movies

[Tom Alicoate]

I am looking at renting one of the video capable SLRs. Hopefully the 5DmkII. One question that I have is when I view these files on my computer, fromyoutube, or review sites that have posted videos.Movement is always very choppy, and there is a lot of Moire. I am familiar with rolling shutter issues, and I have seen one where you can see buildings swaying back and forth when panning. I don't think the rolling shutter is the problem in the clips I am seeing though. I am guessing it is a problem with my PC, or with the conversion to a lesser quality video for the web. But I have no way to really tell.Can someone withone of these cameras let me know if on your system at best quality, do yousee these artifacts andchoppy movement in just normal filming? I knowit is important to have this ona good tripod, use slow panning, watch for wind, etc... But can I film my kids running through tall grass in the morning light, or a wolf running through a field, or my kids running through a field from a wolf(just kidding on that last one), or will I get all kinds ofmovement I don't want to see?


Thanks for anyadvice or comments.


Tom

[Daniel Browning]

Movement is always very choppy

The choppy movement can be caused by two things: conversion from 30p to 24p and/or shutter speeds higher than 1/60.


If you don't convert to 24p, you wont have that problem. And now that we have manual control with the latest firmware update, shutter speed wont be a problem either (as long as you have sufficient ND to get the shutter speed slow enough).

and there is a lot of Moire

That is the really big problem with DSLR video. The only way Canon could get the frame rate high enough for video was to skip two out of three lines on the sensor. As you can imagine that results in some pretty nasty aliasing artifacts: moire, jaggies, stair-stepping, sparkling, "snap to grid", wavy lines,
bands, patterns, fringing, popping, strobing, noise, and false detail.


Furthermore,whatever resampling method is used causes poor resolution and artificially-smoothed detail (looks like plastic-skin type noise reduction).


If that wasn't enough, the aliasing is very hard on any compression engine, so even with 45 mbps h.264, the image results in severe compression artifacts, posterization, and poor resolution.


In short, the 5D2 and other DSLR video has worse video quality than any video camera yet invented. But it also has certain huge advantages, including lens selection, low light, DOF control, small, lightweight, convenient, cheap, etc. Some feel these are enough to outweigh the artifacts caused by lineskipping.

[Jon Ruyle]

The only way Canon could get the frame rate high enough for video was to skip two out of three lines on the sensor

What do they do, divide the lines into three groups and read each group together but at only 1/3 the frame rate? Or is it the same two out of three lines being skipped for each frame?


I don't know which would look worse. The second way you're throwing away 2/3 of your light.


Either way, its cheating.

[Tom Alicoate]

We are taking a trip out to Yellowstone andI wanted to get some video through the 100-400L. I do have a 1080i video camera that works nicely. I hate having two different things to have to work though, and one camera that could do both would be great. It sounds like what I am looking for doesn't exist yet. In the clips I have seen, the Moire is really upsetting. I don't have the processing power to fix this quickly. The last time I worked with HD video, my imac was processing literally for days, and that was just doing simple things. Maybe I'll save my money and use my 40D, or maybe I'll move up and rent a 500L or a 300 2.8L with the money I save not renting a body.


Thanks for the replies.


Tom

[Daniel Browning]

What do they do?

I dunno. People have always asked why Canon doesn't just let us record the liveview. Now they do.