Got my 5d2. Am I wrong or do I have full manual control?
 

Just got my 5d2. Read a lot before the purchase. Accepted not having manual control and all. So, my son and I yesterday went testing the camera and all here mentioned methods of obtaining manual control, and guess what?

I put the camera in full manual mode. Select shutter speed and aperture. Press * to block ISO on 100 ASA. Switch on live view and press recording. That is it! I have constant shutter speed, aperture and ISO setting. Move from dark to bright scenes and the camera does not change anything. No lens twisting, no Nikon lenses....

So, what puzzles me is if it is all one has to do to gain full manual control, I do not see the problem. The only problem for me is focusing, as I discovered I need a new pair of spectacles! If I changed them sooner, I would have seen by looking at the mirror 'I am not half a man I used to be' - I am older then I care to admit.

I imported the test footage into Final Cut using Apple intermediate codec, Pro Res 422 preset and even transcoded it to XDCAM 1080p 25. All three worked fine in my otherwise XDCAM timeline. The only glitch was that in first two pans and walks I did there were some choppiness, but not in consequent shoots. Perhaps the camera needed some time to wake up ;-)

Also, 25 fps (XDCAM) and 30 fps (5D2) 'live together in perfect harmony' (not on my piano but) on my timeline. Since I intend to use 5D2 only for image and not for sound (I do intws with XDCAM) I will not even bring it down to 25 fps, as there is no noticable difference in speed.

Would like to buy a LCD hood/viewfinder to make focus control easier, though.

So, have I got some new breed of 5D2 or is obtaining full manual control that easy and effective?

if you call letting the camera select shutter speed, ISO and F stop setting, and then you locking it in, full manual control, then I guess you have it. I use my Nikons because I can at least get the Iris setting I want, and then I can lock in, and do some random adjustments to ISO and shutter speed by spinning the big wheel... Even then you really cannot depend on the read outs that you are getting a certain shutter speed.

Chris
 

Nothing random here. In M position I select both aperture and shutter speed. It stays unaltered henceforward. The only thing that is changing as I move the camera from dark to bright area is ISO speed, which is simple to lock pressing * at desired rate, and than it also stays that way. All three settings stays unaltered during entire clip. Go figure!?

I'd also like to get another confirmation that after you stop recording, it kicks out of AE lock and goes back to auto exposure. I would additionally call that a prominent lack of manual control.

When you put any other camera on manual control, it doesn't go change on you unless you tell it to change.

Edit... After reading again, are you saying that aperture and shutter are locked in for you even before you hit AE lock?

Nope, that's not full manual control. Movie settings are not affected by what camera mode you are in (Av, Tv, M, etc) and you have to make sure your live view function screen settings are set for movie display not exposure simulation etc. so you can get an actual readout of what shutter/aperture settings it is using while shooting a movie.

Only trust the numbers on the bottom of the big LCD, and only trust them when you are in "screen settings - movie display" mode and only trust them to a certain extent (shutter is not exactly what it says). This has been tested over and over and I have verified this in my own use. Also don't trust iso settings when your iso is 3200 and shutter is slower than 1/30th sec. Also notice with canon lenses how the camera arbitrarily chooses high aperture values even in low light until a certain point where it opens back up if your iso goes above 3200. If you know what you are doing, you can get a lot out of the camera, but it is far from full manual control.

Noah
 

I stand corrected! It is exactly as you say. What I misread is that once I start recording, the values does no change, until I stop recording. So, once you manage to set up proper exp/apr/ISO values, it will stay that way for the duration of a clip. Than it changes again. I apologize for misunderstanding I caused. Things were so much easier in times of celluloid film....

but you also have no control over the exact values. for example you cant set the camera to shoot a video at iso800 and 1/125th shutter. above iso200 (or iso100 depending on your highlight tone priority setting) you are stuck with whatever shutter the camera decides to let you use, usually it reads 1/40 or 1/50 which some have said are the same thing and all look pretty much like wide open shutters. I would prefer to be able to shoot at 1/60th shutter all the time but it cannot be set although sometimes it seems to appear if I'm lucky.

I wonder if we could use programmable AF Confirm adapters (for non-canon lenses) to force the shutter speed more to our liking since the camera seems to use focal length info from the lens to choose shutter speeds. program an adapter to say the camera is 60mm and the camera might tend to avoid giving you shutters slower than 1/60th sec... maybe.

> Am I wrong or do I have full manual control?

You are wrong.

A little reading on this topic will go a long way FWIW considering this has all been analyzed to death already.

Regarding shutter speeds...

1/40 and 1/50 displayed produce roughly 1/45.
1/60 and 1/80 displayed produce 1/80.
The higher speeds that we tested were roughly accurate.

Canon 5D Mark II Shutter Exposed on Vimeo

This is true only when reading the "displayed" output in Stills/Movie mode, correct?

That's true. We did the test with 100 ISO in Stills/Movie mode.

Is there another mode that you'd prefer?