On Their Way?
 

We're just about to start filming an ongoing winter project up at Killington and I thought it would be a great to work with the 5DII. Unfortunately, I start this week and after a good deal of research and dealing with my regular suppliers It looked like a no go - can't change formats once we start shooting, and back orders virtually everywhere as y'all know.

So, on a whim I call a couple of small, country camera shops and amazingly Green Mountain Camera at Stowe had one coming in today...which I just came back from picking up....at my B&H price,

So if this tiny shop in the mountains got one today, it's a good chance that the next round of shipments are arriving at the big dealers. For all of those awaiting allocation, yours may be on the way. And for those told to keep calling for availability, maybe it's worth calling.

I just scrambled and got a set of four Nikon/EOS adapters shipped so I can shoot with my prime set, and B&H is over-nighting a 24-105, so it looks like I'll be able to produce this with the 5DII after all. I'll also get a quick sense of operation and battery life in cold weather....daytime highs for the first few days of shooting are going to be below zero at 4000'.

My understanding is that it's easier to find a 5D2 at the smaller mom & pop brick and mortars than anywhere else. Anybody looking for one should check their local camera / photo store.

my local shop here in louisville has about 5 5d2's sitting on the shelves.... good people. I've bought well over 6 figures worth of stills gear from them over the years.

Murphy's Camera (502) 485-1500 ask for Tim

They'll ship anywhere.

You never know. I put my name on a list at a small shop a month ago, and they still haven't received their shipment. I ended up getting mine at Frys after learning that I had missed some arrivals at Best Buy.

I would have preferred supporting the small camera shop, but not enough to keep waiting for the product...

Jim - I just shot my first project (music vid) with the 5D last week - in the COLD. I tried to get a spare battery but they're as hard to come by as the cam. I was able to get the AC adapter but we still had to shoot around battery life which wasn't terrible but I'm used to my A1 which runs forever on a single battery.

Art

NJ....you don't know cold Art <g>. It's going to get to -40 (real temp) in some areas up here tomorrow night...it's about -18 at the farm tonight.

Did you take the battery out to warm it between shots?
I had a still photography crew follow us on a mountain shoot last winter. It was way below freezing at sunrise in deeep snow near the summit and the main photographer got frostbite in his shooting finger, his Nikon froze up and then we sent them down on a snowcat.

I saw batteries for around $80 at B&H.

Ironically, I bought a spare battery before I bought the camera! I went into the small shop where I put my name on the list, and they had just received batteries that very day.

Haha, I bought my battery grip, spare battery and an m-track ii (for off camera audio) all on the same day I pre-ordered my 5d mk ii. The m-track arrived first, then the grip, then the camera, and THEN the battery finally arrrived. I didn't realize it would be so difficult to get a spare battery.

Yeah - I guess its all relative Jim but for us pansies here in NJ 20 degrees is cold enough! No we didn't try to warm the battery but were close enough to places with an outlet where we could charge up while planning our next shots. The AC adapter also worked well for indoor shooting.

Art

I just walked in the studio from a long snowshoe in the mountains with the 5D2. It hit -40 here last night...real 40 below, not windchill. I shot everything with IS on and used the live view AF-ON as the only practical way to work in this cold and with gloves and three layers of expedition weight clothing.

The camera worked perfectly and the battery lasted the whole time. Auto focus was sluggish at best, but for the situation it worked well (I'm guessing the sub zero probably impacted it like everything else.). The first thing I did when I got into the studio was plastic bag it and put it leave in the entryway to stay cool and avoid too much condensation.

Time to feed horses, make coffee and see what I got out there.

I got mine in December from the local camera store as well.

I learned my lesson from the last camera when I was on the Amazon wait list.

Canon must have a system where they preferentially send supplies when they are limited to the local camera stores. At least it seems to be much easier to get them there.

I picked up ours from a smaller local shop too. Glad to support the little guy. They had 6 of the kits and 5 of the bodies on the shelves. The cool thing was that they had a nifty little HAMA EOS to Canon FD lens adapter so I walked out with three additional old skool "cheap" lenses. I'm in love with them. $89 for a use 70mm-210mm and it is sharp! Here's the shop in the Seattle area Kenmore Camera

Not to be a snog, but you want to be shooting the nice Nikon primes with those adapters. The 70-210 is way too slow to give you the DOF that is the idea of the adapter/Nikon thing. And it's no where near the IQ of the primes which are also very cheap and look absolutely amazing on the 5D at 1080p. I'm just setting up a full set of primes with adapters on each. I shot with the 105mm 2.5 last night and it looks better than the mini35 on either the JVC or Canon HD cameras.

Again, the 70-210 is a good lens but it won't get you the "film" look that this camera will deliver.

Not to be a snob, but you want to be shooting the nice Nikon primes with those adapters. The 70-210 is way too slow to give you the DOF that is the idea of the adapter/Nikon thing. And it's no where near the IQ of the primes which are also very cheap and look absolutely amazing on the 5D2 at 1080p. I'm just setting up a full set of primes with adapters on each. I shot with the 105mm 2.5 last night and it looks better than the Mini35 on either the JVC or Canon HD cameras.

Again, the 70-210 is a good lens but it won't get you the "film" look that this camera will deliver.

Another reason to go with faster primes is that you can stop them down a bit when you don't need a razor thin DOF, and the image will be crisp and flat to the edges. When you run a lens near its limits, it generally has light falloff at the corners and other artifacts.

Often f/5.6 is all you need. That way you don't have to decide if you will put the right eye or left eye in focus. If you have an f/5.6 zoom, the image will be so-so. If you have an f/2.0 prime, the image will be superb - given good lighting, framing, exposure, composition, of course...