5D in the "bigtime"
 

I can't reveal details of what we were using this rig on, but I thought you guys might like to see the MII all dressed up for use on a large-scale production. That's a Panavision Primo 35mm on front, with Preston remote and Cinetape horns on top, all perched on my lightweight "Nimblecam" rig. I also had my full-size rig with Millenium XL built adjacent to this as we were also shooting 35mm. We got amazing shots with this setup!

So Charles, was there a 24p mod on board too????????

Front paged: 5D Mk. II hits the “bigtime” -- from DV Info Net

Thanks for sharing this with us, Chas!

It is unusual, isn't it, that they would be shooting two frame rates.

When I saw this pic, first thing I thought was "24p"

Whats that on the camera's LCD? Crop marks? :)

Yes, the feature is being released in 2:40. The 5D footage will be intercut with Super35 cropped to 2.40.

The 5D footage is being interpolated to 24 fps via Twixtor.

Charles:

Thanks for the specs.. I was hoping you were actually getting to shoot a prerelease version of a Canon mod to the firmware......

How does twixtor compare to the Apple Cinema tools and compressor method?

Charles,

I have one question... Why the 5D2? ;)

For me and my limited bank account it makes sense, but when you have a real budget, there are many options.

Can I assume that you've chosen the 5D2 for low light? Certainly it's not for fine detail (aliasing) or fast action (rolling shutter).

Anyway, it's an interesting choice for a bigtime production!

I'm not the DP on the show, just came in to do some operating.

The 5D allowed for a particular style of shooting on this project that would have been difficult or impossible with any other camera. It wasn't so much the low light capacity as the size of the system.

Two questions:

1. Which monitor are you using? That is my next purchase for my 5D and I'm having trouble deciding.
2. How many 5D's could you purchase for the cost of that lens :)

Small size is definitely an advantage!

Some claim that small size and weight are bad, since they hurt stability. But as many of us have demonstrated, you can always add more stuff to the camera as needed.

Adding smallness and lightness to a big camera, on the other hand, is tough!

Chad:

1. The monitor on my little rig is a modified Steadicam Flyer monitor. It's OK in daylight since it has decent anti-reflective coatings but it is just SD. Not a big deal with this camera since it only outputs SD when recording. I'm only concerned with framing so that's OK, but for those who need to pull focus off the monitor, there are higher res options out there.

2. Trick question! You can't purchase Panavision lenses so...! That is incidentally a 35mm Primo--gotta love its size relative to the camera.

OK, now that the information is out there regarding the helmet-cam setup some of you might have stumbled across on Engadget, I can divulge that this Steadicam setup was also used on the feature that Shane references in that article. We were out at sea shooting with this rig when the Engadget story broke which caused a bit of a flap as the helmet-cam was nominally proprietary. My Steadicam setup was less-so (we weren't the first to use PV lenses on the 5D, nor a 5D on a Steadicam) but Shane is doing amazing and groundbreaking work with this camera and I was honored to be part of the production.

The camera riser and Cinetape mount (off the hotshoe) were custom built by Panavision Hollywood to Shane's specs, plus there are some other off-the-shelf bits and pieces in there including a Bogen quick-release and Zacuto lens support.