I downloaded the Tokyo Reality original footage and it seems extremely hard to work with as is in Vegas. It seems obvious to me that you need to transcode. I did'nt tried it yet.

I have a few emails into VASST seeking some modifications to Gearshift to work with the 5D mk II footage, thus far I have heard nothing back.

With the amount of photographers looking for workflow and Vegas being one of the few afordable solutions to them this seems like a good area to invest some R&D in. This could bring quite a few people into the Vegas fold.

Hey Vic! just picked up a 5D Mk II the other day, LOVe the still images it shoots, think Ill sell my 40d now. I too am test shooting some video, using the "tyler" method, for settings with my 2.8 lens'. have experimented w QT pro and various settings but am looking for an intermediate to use in Vegas too.

Anybody else have the native .mov 5D Mark II media showing up as 24p in Vegas 8 when you click Properties - Media?

The preview performance sucks for me on a Core i7 940 system with lots of RAM too by the way.

I was and still am very impressed with footage from this SLR. I downloaded the 3 MOV files recorded. They are huge, 12 seconds = 58 MB. But to be able to use your different SLR lenses on your camera is a BIG bonus.

I would like to see your output once you're done doing some tests.

problems with the 5DII

dropped mine already yesterday. :-(

Ugh.

It looks fixable by firmware update though.

There is also a PS action that does a real good job of fixing the problem of black dots.

Spot any insights on workflow you are using with the 5d?

I'll have a tutorial at some very near point. On a shoot in Florida until the first week of January, but shortly after that, expect raw footage and examples.

I've had my camera since day after Thanksgiving. Just testing so far.

Here are my opinions to date.

Audio is useless. Get external recorder. If you use internal mic, make sure you turn off IS (image stabilization). With externals, gain will get turned way up during quiet times and it gets ugly.

Black dot problem is only during certain conditions, only on right side of certain highlights shot under certain conditions and I doubt will ever be seen in video. Assume Canon will fix it, but I doubt it would ever be an issue with video.

Lots of work arounds for getting the exposure you want. Good start is to watch the video mentioned earlier in this thread.

Low light qualities and dept of field are outstanding. The camera is worth it just for this.

Battery life isn't very good. More batteries are a necessity. AC adapter over 100 bucks. Bad marketing on Canon's part.

Will need to develop new shooting techniques for video with this small camera and manual focus is almost impossible when not on a tripod and still difficult on a tripod. Probably going to need follow focus which are not inexpensive and pretty much require another set of hand. Prime fast lens are gorgeous. Good starting tip is to use the strap around you neck and put a little pressure outwards on the camera keeping the straps under pressure. Keep you hands relaxed. Best deal is tripod and some form of steady cam.

For initial focus, LCD on back in zoom mode, 5x or 10x, is fine for critical focus. No component output for small hd lcd's. Only HDMI or composite video. No external jack for monitoring your video.

You shoot video in live mode. You will probably ALWAYS shoot your video with exposure lock. After you finish a shot (about 12-13 minutes max length in HD), your exposure lock is turned off.
and auto settings kick in causing you to do a little work to get back to where your old settings were. Will need to pay attention to get back when trying to match exposure settings on subsequent shots. Also, before shooting, unlocking the exposure takes some goofing around. It's not straight forward. A real pain in the fanny to reset every time you stop your shot.

133x Compact Flash works fine so far. I bought an expensive Sandisk Extreme III (8GB) card and a Kingston CF card at 133x and it works fine and I got twice the amount of storage (16GB) for the price of 8GB on the Extreme III card.

HDMI requires a mini connector on the camera end.

When in live mode, with HDMI connected, output is on the LCD monitor or TV, but not on the LCD on back of camera. You don't get both at the same time.

The monitor (HDMI) image is not full screen when shooting. It's only full screen on play back.

The QT Mpeg 4 file play back fine on Macs, but choppy on PC's. CPU are not working very hard on the PC, but playback is inferior and not viewable to show a client. . Plays back fine from the Camera.

Render time to intermediate files on quad core 2.4 PC was either 6 or 8 x. (not 100% sure if I'm remembering this right. Just kind of slow.

Manual says not to hook HDMI up to anything other than Monitor. One of these days I may try my Black Magic Intensity card for capture. Just haven't tried it yet.

I have a love/hate relationship with my camera so far. I have had a couple conversations with tech support at Canon, but don't have any 1st hand knowledge of future plans or as to why they have shorted this camera with so many missing features. I can't tell you if the photo people just really don't understand video or they didn't want to make this too good for video. Some things are well thought out and others are just plain stupid. No audio control for external mics is just plain dumb. No manual controls or better lock down controls are amiss. I just don't know if they are intentional or not.

Many are upset there is no 24p. For me that's not an issue. I think 30 fps playback on this camera is fantastic. 30 frames is better looking than 24 in my book. I don't want grain, I don't want streaks and all the other crap I see in film at my local theater. I could write many pages on this subject, but that's not important to me as I'm happy with 30 fps.

I think most will be happy with the work arounds for the video exposure and settings.. In my opinion, your going to need an external recorder for audio. I bought a Zoom H4 and am so far very satisfied with it. Capturing audio in 48 kHz and syncing in vegas works fine. It's extra work, but it's ok and the audio is decent.

There's probably more I could say, but it's late on a friday night and I've emptied a fair part of my brain about this camera.

I aggree w most all, but havent tried it yet myself..
If you use internal mic, make sure you turn off IS (image stabilization). With externals, gain will get turned way up during quiet times and it gets ugly.

to my knowlege IS is only active on those lens when depressing the shutter down half way. does that work in movie mode?
Ive also been rendering to the 720 30p m2t's in vegas with nice results.. i guess it depends on what your final output is but for testing it works nice for smooth playback in vegas.
be Nice to use thatas an intermediate and switch back for final render.

Dang Spot wish i knew you were in the neighborhood woud have tried to hook up. was over on the east coast last week. But i fly out tues to Arkansas for a week. but maybe if your around by Vic or something that first week and got time Ill drive over?

A quickie:

http://vimeo.com/2583855

Victor, did you play with Nikon D90 yet?

"to my knowlege IS is only active on those lens when depressing the shutter down half way. does that work in movie mode?"

The IS is doing something when turned on in Movie/Live mode. You can hear it spinning and grinding. It's pretty loud, not muted background.

I have a zoom with IS and if I forget to turn IS off, it's bad. I had a 50mm prime, with no IS and it's always OK.

But, as I said earlier, unless they give us manual level control on input, your pretty much going to want to go with a mobile recorder.

What city did you shoot the water footage up on Vimeo?

Anna Maria Island, Florida.

Just got onto the 5D wave and I'm struggling to get the post production workflow going. The incorrect interpretation of the colour space is a big problem on top of the choppy files. Any updates on how u guys are handling this? Thks!