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5D Mark II Lens?

M

MBX

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Hi
I'll be buying the 5D MII soon and using it mostly for video. I was curious if anyone had a tip which lens to go for?

And does anybody know of a rig/ handle (steady/ handy cam like) for better grip when shooting video?
 
Depends on what you're shooting. It's hard to make an informed (read: useful) recommendation without more details.
 
Ideally a lens that is a bit jack of all trades as i don't want to buy tons of different lenses. And it's pretty much geared towards video (if that makes a difference in lens choice).
 
MBX said:
Ideally a lens that is a bit jack of all trades as i don't want to buy tons of different lenses. And it's pretty much geared towards video (if that makes a difference in lens choice).
Click to expand...
Really -what kind of budget do you have? You can't use EF-S lenses, Are you planning on zooming in and out with the lens while shooting? You may want to head over to DGrin and post in the cameras forum for a lot of good people giving a lot of good advice, too.
 
MBX said:
Ideally a lens that is a bit jack of all trades as i don't want to buy tons of different lenses. And it's pretty much geared towards video (if that makes a difference in lens choice).
Click to expand...
Really -what kind of budget do you have? You can't use EF-S lenses, Are you planning on zooming in and out with the lens while shooting? You may want to head over to DGrin and post in the cameras forum for a lot of good people giving a lot of good advice, too.
 
For the lens probably around and not more than 1k. For rig is there something compact and under $500?

Zooming in/ out during shooting would be nice.
 
Have you seen Canon's bizarrely-named 7D, announced yesterday? I'm not usually one to recommend waiting but it might be worth it to see what people think about this one once it's been out a short while. The obvious massive advantage this has over the 5D is frame rates of 23.976, 25, 29.97, 50 and 59.94.

Regarding lenses: I have nothing to offer you but questions. At $1000 I think you're going to have to do some prioritising. Will you be working predominantly at either the wide or tele end? Do you need great low-light performance? Would primes be totally inconvenient for whatever you intend to do?

If you did plump for the 7D maybe you'd have extra money to put towards lens and support; but then you've got to look at wider lenses to suit the APS-C sensor, which might make it a little more expensive again and may rule out certain all-in-one zooms that looked good on the 5D.
 
KeithPratt said:
Have you seen Canon's bizarrely-named 7D, announced yesterday? I'm not usually one to recommend waiting but it might be worth it to see what people think about this one once it's been out a short while. The obvious massive advantage this has over the 5D is frame rates of 23.976, 25, 29.97, 50 and 59.94.

Regarding lenses: I have nothing to offer you but questions. At $1000 I think you're going to have to do some prioritising. Will you be working predominantly at either the wide or tele end? Do you need great low-light performance? Would primes be totally inconvenient for whatever you intend to do?

If you did plump for the 7D maybe you'd have extra money to put towards lens and support; but then you've got to look at wider lenses to suit the APS-C sensor, which might make it a little more expensive again and may rule out certain all-in-one zooms that looked good on the 5D.
Click to expand...

Do you or anybody know if the 7D has the same video quality as the 5D m-ii? Because the 7D examples (by gizmodo) i've seen so far seem not on par to the 5D, but i'm not sure if that's because of lens they used on the 7D or not.

When is the 7D coming out, early September?

And what do you think about this lens here http://www.amazon.com/Canon-24-105mm-USM-Lens-Cameras/dp/B000AZ57M6
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
It is REALLY tough to speculate, in fact, impossible to speculate on the 7d video performance right now. Way too many variables that aren't accounted for with any of the test footage (that I've seen so far) online, at this point.

Don't count it out. Even as a cropped sensor, it's still a hell of a lot bigger than those in the 1/3" video cams🙂 If you've not purchased the 5d2 yet, I would wait and see. Especially if your primary goal is video. I agree, the footage I've seen so far doesn't have the "Pop" of the 5d2, but again...there is limited footage on the web right now and very few people are playing with the cam at this point (other than the Betas)....and I would venture to guess, the Betas are primarily testing photography. Give it a month or 6 weeks and then compare. The 5d2 does shoot amazing footage, I love mine....but the matching rates, 29.97 vs. 30.00 is a sweet little touch, along with 24p and the option to shoot at 720/60p! That's Awesome! I would bet, with the money saved vs. the 5d2, you'd have a helluva package with the 7D and the new 100mm 2.8Lis Macro that was just announced. Just cause it's a Macro doesn't mean you're relegated to bugs and flowers....Just means you can shoot those too🙂 Great price for L glass too....Just over a grand.

Don't get me wrong....the 5d2 is a stellar camera, I LOVE mine! But, for video purposes primarily, I would (if I didn't already have the 5d2) take a LONG look at the 7d.

Peace
J
 
akdj said:
It is REALLY tough to speculate, in fact, impossible to speculate on the 7d video performance right now. Way too many variables that aren't accounted for with any of the test footage (that I've seen so far) online, at this point.

Don't count it out. Even as a cropped sensor, it's still a hell of a lot bigger than those in the 1/3" video cams🙂 If you've not purchased the 5d2 yet, I would wait and see. Especially if your primary goal is video. I agree, the footage I've seen so far doesn't have the "Pop" of the 5d2, but again...there is limited footage on the web right now and very few people are playing with the cam at this point (other than the Betas)....and I would venture to guess, the Betas are primarily testing photography. Give it a month or 6 weeks and then compare. The 5d2 does shoot amazing footage, I love mine....but the matching rates, 29.97 vs. 30.00 is a sweet little touch, along with 24p and the option to shoot at 720/60p! That's Awesome! I would bet, with the money saved vs. the 5d2, you'd have a helluva package with the 7D and the new 100mm 2.8Lis Macro that was just announced. Just cause it's a Macro doesn't mean you're relegated to bugs and flowers....Just means you can shoot those too🙂 Great price for L glass too....Just over a grand.

Don't get me wrong....the 5d2 is a stellar camera, I LOVE mine! But, for video purposes primarily, I would (if I didn't already have the 5d2) take a LONG look at the 7d.

Peace
J
Click to expand...

The question is would Canon really cannibalize it's 5D m-ii with the 7D if the video quality was the same (and few more options) but much less expensive?

Or does it mean that the video quality is the same (plus few more options) but on the still-image quality front it's less good and therefore less expensive.
 
The EF 24-105 is a pretty good lens. Check out B&H and Adorama (especially Adorama's used gear listed which is updated a lot). Also, check DGrin's For Sale forums. Many good people sell and buy their gear there.
 
Back when the 5DII was announced and Vincent Laforet released his 'Reverie' video he shot with it, he said the sweet spot for him was f2.8 (granted, it was entirely a night movie). For anything in that range you'll need to venture into the L area. For $1000'ish you're limited to just a handful:

17-40 F4L
24-105 F4L
70-200 F4L
135 F2L (BEAUTIFUL lens, but you're fixed at 135, you'll never get a wide shot out of it, but you'll have amazing bokeh, and can stop down to that sweet spot of 2.8)
50 1.4 (Not an L, but a good standard view, plus a fast Aperture, would be plenty sharp at 2.8 for Video)

The 24-105 would be your most useable, but a relatively slow F4. Also, keep in mind that you'll need to buy filters, ND more specifically if you want to do any shallow DOF shots during the daytime. ISO100 is still too fast of a speed when you're going wide open, especially with a fast prime. So, you'll want to factor in filters with your lens cost.

I would imagine the 7D to be a near match on video quality, Canon seems to be touting this Camera as the 'movie DSLR' more-so then they have the 5D, hence the variable frame-rates and different 1080P/720P modes. If you're planning on going video, I'd almost just say right now the 7D is the better camera to go, then you can grab 2 lenses + filters and be much more versatile.
 
"The question is would Canon really cannibalize it's 5D m-ii with the 7D if the video quality was the same (and few more options) but much less expensive?

Or does it mean that the video quality is the same (plus few more options) but on the still-image quality front it's less good and therefore less expensive."

As much as it kinda makes my belly curly, I kinda tend to agree with Wheezy. Technology gets better...and fortunately, more affordable as time moves forward. I don't think it's meant to cannibalize the sales, nor will it. MOST are not deciding on these cameras with video in mind, they are basing their decision on the still side of the control panel. With that in mind, they are two TOTALLY different cameras aimed at two different shooting populations. The 7d is going to be a monster for sports (NFL is starting next week😉 and wildlife photography....(*even though I disagree with this notion as most wildlife I shoot doesn't fly 60mph like really fast hawks and sh--🙂) regardless, the 5D2 will be unrivaled for portraiture and landscape shooting (at least by the 7d in the Canon line up😉 Until....both ideas above, of course, until the release of the 1d4(+s)....or, possibly, another curve....and a 3D?

Anyway....as a humbled 5d2 owner, I would follow Wheezy's advice and at lease wait out some of the reviews and comments on the 7d Before coming to a buying conclusion.

Also, the 24-105 is an excellent lens, as mentioned earlier...However, that said, i find it damn near impossible to focus manually while shooting my 5d, much less trying to zoom on top of it. While it does give you flexibility, you're not going to be spending much time zooming while shooting, if you know what I mean. I bought the kit and love my 24-105. For walk around, daytime still shooting...it's all I need with the 70-200...but, for video, I'm using the 35L, 50(Sigma 1.4) and 85IIL. I Love the primes for video. Hard to beat the speed, DOF, light, High ISO opportunities, and the undeniable magic of these pieces of art🙂 (OK, that sound ridiculous, but they are addictive, the Red Ring...don't put it on your body....even more ridiculous)....

If you've got the money (and you do, right...you're budgeted for 5d2, about 2700+/-?) If so, the 7d and a killer prime (you can get the 85/1.2 series 1 for $1000 on ebay/Craigslist often!!!!) Or, as others have mentioned, the perfect starting block for video....The 50mm. The L glass (1.2) will set you back almost 1600. Run with the Sigma 50/1.4, Canon 100mm 2.8 (standard) and the Canon 85/1.8....all for the price of that single 50L. You'll be ready to roll. You can go wide and long when budget permits (IE, I would add the 70-200 2/8is to the bag asap, just me though...you may dig wide, 24-70???). You don't need L glass for video (it's nice though)....but do plan on a tripod if not using IS. As also mentioned, you do need accessories. UV/Polarized filters, sticks, head (or as I believe you asked about initially, a steady cam, right?)...and/or support. Check out http://www.redrockmicro.com/redrock_dslr.html They'll get ya setup. (Don't forget audio....You NEED the H4N or other sound gathering, preferably off board or Juiced Link/Beachtek type device!!!! Essential and Mandatory. Sound Sux onboard 5d2 and I can imagine Handling noise is no better on any VDSLR setup...physically undoable unless it's made of rubber or something, I digress). It's not as ugly as it looks. Price it out and make some killer footage!!!

J
 
akdj said:
"The question is would Canon really cannibalize it's 5D m-ii with the 7D if the video quality was the same (and few more options) but much less expensive?

Or does it mean that the video quality is the same (plus few more options) but on the still-image quality front it's less good and therefore less expensive."

As much as it kinda makes my belly curly, I kinda tend to agree with Wheezy. Technology gets better...and fortunately, more affordable as time moves forward. I don't think it's meant to cannibalize the sales, nor will it. MOST are not deciding on these cameras with video in mind, they are basing their decision on the still side of the control panel. With that in mind, they are two TOTALLY different cameras aimed at two different shooting populations. The 7d is going to be a monster for sports (NFL is starting next week😉 and wildlife photography....(*even though I disagree with this notion as most wildlife I shoot doesn't fly 60mph like really fast hawks and sh--🙂) regardless, the 5D2 will be unrivaled for portraiture and landscape shooting (at least by the 7d in the Canon line up😉 Until....both ideas above, of course, until the release of the 1d4(+s)....or, possibly, another curve....and a 3D?

Anyway....as a humbled 5d2 owner, I would follow Wheezy's advice and at lease wait out some of the reviews and comments on the 7d Before coming to a buying conclusion.

Also, the 24-105 is an excellent lens, as mentioned earlier...However, that said, i find it damn near impossible to focus manually while shooting my 5d, much less trying to zoom on top of it. While it does give you flexibility, you're not going to be spending much time zooming while shooting, if you know what I mean. I bought the kit and love my 24-105. For walk around, daytime still shooting...it's all I need with the 70-200...but, for video, I'm using the 35L, 50(Sigma 1.4) and 85IIL. I Love the primes for video. Hard to beat the speed, DOF, light, High ISO opportunities, and the undeniable magic of these pieces of art🙂 (OK, that sound ridiculous, but they are addictive, the Red Ring...don't put it on your body....even more ridiculous)....

If you've got the money (and you do, right...you're budgeted for 5d2, about 2700+/-?) If so, the 7d and a killer prime (you can get the 85/1.2 series 1 for $1000 on ebay/Craigslist often!!!!) Or, as others have mentioned, the perfect starting block for video....The 50mm. The L glass (1.2) will set you back almost 1600. Run with the Sigma 50/1.4, Canon 100mm 2.8 (standard) and the Canon 85/1.8....all for the price of that single 50L. You'll be ready to roll. You can go wide and long when budget permits (IE, I would add the 70-200 2/8is to the bag asap, just me though...you may dig wide, 24-70???). You don't need L glass for video (it's nice though)....but do plan on a tripod if not using IS. As also mentioned, you do need accessories. UV/Polarized filters, sticks, head (or as I believe you asked about initially, a steady cam, right?)...and/or support. Check out http://www.redrockmicro.com/redrock_dslr.html They'll get ya setup. (Don't forget audio....You NEED the H4N or other sound gathering, preferably off board or Juiced Link/Beachtek type device!!!! Essential and Mandatory. Sound Sux onboard 5d2 and I can imagine Handling noise is no better on any VDSLR setup...physically undoable unless it's made of rubber or something, I digress). It's not as ugly as it looks. Price it out and make some killer footage!!!

J
Click to expand...

I agree with you about technology evolving fast and improving, etc. But as somebody else mentioned: "does the 1.6x crop with the smaller sensor have anything to do with the video quality being less?"

I'm not quite sure yet if the 7D is really on par with the 5D in terms of quality and the examples i've seen so far didn't impress me as much as 5D ones.
 
MBX said:
"does the 1.6x crop with the smaller sensor have anything to do with the video quality being less?"
Click to expand...

"Video quality" is quite subjective. It might be that you prefer the shallower depth of field in the 5D stuff, or maybe you just prefer the content or style of it. I've not seen much from the 7D but of what I have seen there doesn't seem to be anything technically wrong with it. Anything in particular you've seen that you don't like?

The 7D sensor is a very similar size to what's being used in the very most expensive digital cinema cameras, albeit with a higher pixel density, and is almost the same size as a frame of motion picture film. The 5D will most probably be better in lower light and offer shallower depth of field (a blessing and a curse), and the 7D might suffer because of how many megapixels they've crammed on there. But that's theory — for what it means in the real world we'll have to wait and see.
 
Since you may very well be using a lot of prime lenses, go for the ones with great depth of field range, like the 85mm and 50mm f/1.2L lenses.

They are both phenomenal - and I've used each with the 5D Mark II.
 
I think i'm going for the 24-105L as it also has a stabilizer.

I'm not necessarily a fan of the large amount of DOF we see in so many mk-ii video examples.
 
Any idea if the variable framerates could come to mkII as a firmware update?

I mean,didnt seem to be such a big problem for canon to do the manual adjustment upgrade either?
I doubt the framerates are on circuit level,or am I missing something?
 
Aren't the 5D MkII videos so outstanding because of the 1000's in glass in front of the camera? Does a 5D produce significantly better video that a normal HD video camera when used without the amazing lenses? I honestly don't know, just asking.

All the lenses suggested are very competent lenses, but you should not expect results like Laforet without either limiting your focal range or drastically increasing your budget.

For a steady cam, you can create a reasonably effective one with a 2' pipe and a 5lb weight and a few miscellaneous parts. Look around on the internet and you will find the tutorials. It works surprisingly well and costs almost nothing to free up more money for glass (or a tripod which isn't mentioned in the thread).
 
jampat said:
Aren't the 5D MkII videos so outstanding because of the 1000's in glass in front of the camera? Does a 5D produce significantly better video that a normal HD video camera when used without the amazing lenses? I honestly don't know, just asking.
Click to expand...


Yes and no.
The glass itself in eos series are ok by photostandards (not superb), but when compared to the low end/mid end videostandards,it is superb.
They are far,far,far from high standards if you compare to real movie camera lenses. So the optical quality itself is not the key.

The "key" is that you have a way different DOP (depth of field) control with such a big cell size. The cell size is equal to the old 35mm films. Huge.
Actually,the size (*) is about double compared to the traditional 35mm cinemacamera formats like cinemascope and panavision with what you shoot movies with.

This kind of means that eos5mkII have even more shallow DOP to FOV than movie cameras!!
Wich makes even easier to achieve the famous "film look".

And the "film look" most of the people are all the time talking about is mainly the shallow DOP.
Like here :
DOF_ex.jpg

sorry for the lousy example,couldn find better in a hurry...

The leftmost pic being,say,mkII and right hand side pic your normal videocamera.
For many the lefternmost pic looks more movieish.



Or something.


And the problems shooting movement with mkII is not allways assosicated to the camera shake/nervousnes. The cmos sensor itself has its limitations shooting moving subjects as it develeopes tearing quite easily. But that prob is in all cmos vidcams.
 
KeithPratt said:
5D will most probably be better in lower light and offer shallower depth of field (a blessing and a curse
Click to expand...

"Shallow depth of field" is achieved by the lens and not the camera by stopping down the f-stop to the lowest possible number available for your particular lens combined with the distance of your subject. The closer the subject is to the lens, the more blurry the background will look. To my knowledge, sensor-size also doesn't have an effect on DOF, at all.

as others have said, there's a lot of factors in creating that image. there is the lens and then there is post, which a lot of people forget is crucial for this particular workflow (working from dslr's with video capability) since the video needs to be converted into a native video file that their particular editing program can read. I know that I have to in order for FCE (Final Cut Express) to play my Nikon D90 videos in the timeline without rendering each time a change is made. I am not so sure, if working in FCE or FCP will make that much of a difference in the final output of these hidef files but I am guessing it does.

in anycase, the 7D, even though it's not fullframe looks like a better capable video camera than the 5d in as as far as that it lets you control f-stop, shutter and iso during video recording. Unless, the 5d markii can already do that. i know that the d90 doesn't have this much manual control.
 
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