Shutter Control....
 

Quick note while traveling - I "think" I may have a mini-breakthrough regarding the Shutter.

I'll get into more detail later but see what you think.

I believe 30, 40, 50 are all 30 fps and 60, 80, 100, are all 60 fps.

If so, then getting a consistent 60 fps is very simple and immediately repeatable.

More lata.

Hi Jim,

We didn't test 1/30, but we found that 1/40 and 1/50 produced the same result. 1/60, 1/80 and 1/100 also produced similar results, but the exposure varied a bit. The 1/100 speed seemed to be artificially dark (lower gain), but the blur was the same as 1/60 and 1/80.

From my measurements 1/40 and 1/50 are actually someplace in between. Let's call it 1/45. And 1/60, 1/80, and 1/100 are actually delivering about 1/80.

Here are the details: ~ The Murder of Dirk Snowglobe - Article: 5D Mark II Shutter Exposed! ~

I actually saw your test Jon, but it wouldn't make sense for 1/60, 180 and 1/100 to be 1/80...certainly not from Canon's perspective. These guys know cameras and shutter speeds and 30/60/120 make sense....1/80 doesn't. So I would assume, if Canon is only allowing for some multiplication of 30p regardless of what the screen shows then it would fall to 1/60 not 1/80.

That's an assumption on my part obviously.

A lot of things about the 5D2 make no sense, even from Canon's perspective. No manual control forcing people to buy Nikon lenses makes no sense. Shutter speed based on focal length is ludicrous on the face of it. This is just another drop in the bucket of nonsensical 5D2 things. :)

from my experience with the camera, i can say i agree about your theory. My camera tends to say it is doing 1/50th or 1/40th a lot but it always looks like 1/30th, whereas 1/60th which only engages when iso200 is still too bright does appear to be a noticeably faster shutter. this makes some sense given that when the camera reads slower than 1/30th it is obviously applying extra gain rather than actually using a shutter other than 1/30th. I would not be surprised if 1/30, 1/60, 1/120 were real shutter speeds and anything in between was just gain adjustments. its all a bit of a pain but in the end as long as i have options of 1/30th, something that looks faster than 1/30th for a normal 180degree shutter look, and another option faster than that for action shooting, then I'll live with it.

Take another look at the video on Vimeo in HD and pause at key moments. I show photos next to the video still frames taken at exactly the same settings.

The motion blur of the video at 1/40 and 100 ISO is shorter than the motion blur of the photo at 1/40 and 100 ISO. And it's longer than the motion blur of the photo at 1/50 and 100 ISO. There's no doubt that the video shutter is someplace between 1/40 and 1/50, assuming the photo shutter speed is accurate. It's conclusively not 1/30.

And look at the motion blur of the photo at 1/80. It looks identical in length to the motion blur of the video at 1/60, 1/80 and 1/100.

Logic might dictate that ~1/45 and ~1/80 make no sense, but the test shows that that's what the camera is actually doing.

Again, this assumes that the camera's shutter speeds are accurate for photos.

Good luck tryna get the film-look shutter... after extensive testing and forum reading I have yet to see a 180 degree shutter consistently - the camera almost always uses 1/30th (360 degree aka video/collateral look) for the simple reason that all but NTSC countries will strobe/flicker so canon hides a MULTITUDE of sins (rolling shutter, strobe, etc.) with their crappy shutter.

I just sold the damn thing cos Im only happy with proper film shutter look which is a ball-ache tryna repeat CONSISTENTLY.

Well isn't the thing about this camera that it doesn't look like video OR film. It has it's own look... and more important; feel. The Collateral comment, makes me react, because that film made me... hmmm.... feel or at least reflect over the images that I watched. What I'm looking for in this cam is a different look, not semi-video or semi-film - just pure-different.

Jon, look at the EXIF data in the photos and that should indeed tell you what the shutter speed is.