5DMKII Video Experts - Need a Set of Sports Settings

[Dallasphotog]

I've been shooting stills since 1981 and video for about 6-months...and I don't do video professionally (or even well)! I need to capture some decent video of my own daughter next week at a sporting event (soccer). The lighting is really good at the stadium I'll be shooting and I have an almost infinite choice of locations from the press box down to the sidelines. I need to shoot the whole match as I'll be providing the video to the coach and most of my shots need toshow the "big picture"so that the team can review strategy.


I need major help with lens choice and camera settings. I'll be shooting with my5DMKII, battery grip, (4) batteries and (4) 32G cards. I have a big tripod and fluid dampened video head, so those will be with me as well.


Now comes the hard part. My available lenses include: EF300mm f/2.8L IS USM, EF300mm f/4.0L USM, EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM, EF100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro, EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM and the EF50mm f/1.2L USM. Iwas thinking something fairly wide (70mm-ish)stopped down to give megood depth of field.GivenI stop down a bit,my experiemce tells me ISO 1600-3200 would give me 1/500 or so shutter speeds for stills. My brief video experience tells me shutter speed is too fast for good video.


SO, make some recommendations...and thanks in advance!

[Daniel Browning]

Unless I

[greggf]

You definitely have the stills covered with your lens set-up!! You

[TakahiroW4047]

Sounds to me like you've got yourself setup for some great stills! []


The only thing that raised a flag was when you said...

I need to shoot the whole match as I'll be providing the video to the coach and most of my shots need toshow the "big picture"so that the team can review strategy.

Did the coach want stills of the players for the strategy, or video showing the "big picture" to "review strategy"? I was under the impression that when talking strategy, a wide angle video from up high was best? Maybe renting a second body solely dedicated to video up top on the skybox with a wide angle view of the entire field and player's formation could be an option (left on a tripod of course).Sounds like it's fairly well lit, so T2i or 7D should be more than enough for video (since noise is less of an issue).


Then you can focus all your attention on capturing some action shots and relatively close-up video down on the field with the 5DMkII without having to worry about missing anything []

[Dallasphotog]

Did the coach want stills of the players for the strategy, or video showing the "big picture" to "review strategy"? I was under the impression that when talking strategy, a wide angle video from up high was best? Maybe renting a second body solely dedicated to video up top on the skybox with a wide angle view of the entire field and player's formation could be an option (left on a tripod of course).Sounds like it's fairly well lit, so T2i or 7D should be more than enough for video (since noise is less of an issue).

Stills aren't an issue. I already have about 11,000 images of this same team. My only concern is video choicesfor the 5DMKII.


I know the lighting is pretty good, so I'm wondering what aperture choice yields acceptable depth of field for video and what shutter speed makes everthing look nice and smooth. I'll basically balance these two choices with an ISO that works.


Right now,I'm thinking the EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM stopped down to around f/4.0 with a shutter speed of 1/60 is a good starting point. With the lights at this stadium, I'll probably only need ISO-800 or ISO-1600 to get a decent exposure.


Thoughts?

[TakahiroW4047]

For a typical movie feel, the general rule of thumb (at least from all the places I've come across) is usually 1/40sec @ ~24fps. But I've never filmed (only stills) sport, so with faster movement I can't say from experience whether you might want to up it a bit to say 1/100sec? Too much motion blur might be bad [*-)]


As for aperture, I would personally try to go up as high as I can (without having to crank up the ISO to 25600 []) f/5.6 or higher? I hear 5DMkII doesn't have the greatest AI Servo nor extra focus points, so having that extra DOF might help to keep your subjects more in focus. Background shouldn't be a problem since I assume you'll be panning the camera and it will get motion blurred.