5DmkII with Nikon 85mm at f1.4 in broad daylight test

I've just posted a short test clip using a Nikon 85mm lens at f1.4 in broad daylight outside to show that shallow depth is possible in daylight, apologies for the wobbly nature of the picture. I used two polarizers mounted on the front to simulate a variable ND filter. Lens aperture was f1.4 and the exposure indicated on the camera was 1/60th at 100asa.

Canon 5DmkII with Nikon 85mm lens at f1.4 in broad daylight on Vimeo

I hope Chris can host a full HD version later, but that's up to him.

[Chris Hurd]

I'll ask Jennn to do it... thanks Dan,

[Jenn Kramer]

Link: http://files.dvinfo.net/5dmkII/dchung_mvi0461_1080p.mov

[Steven Schuldt]

Thanks Dan for the excellent clip and for Jenn for hosting the raw 1080p file.

Does anyone have (or can anyone propose) a good workflow to convert a raw 1080p/30-frame H.264 clip such as this to Apple ProRes at 24p with as little quality loss as possible?

Extra Credit: If anyone proposes using Nattress plugins, is it possible to post the above raw clip after conversion with those plugins so we can see what the results actually are?

I'm almost sold on this camera but I've got to be able to get to 24p.

And blast you Canon for leaving 24p off the feature list!

Thanks.

[Graeme Nattress]

My plugins were never designed to do 30p to 24p. However, they do do 25p to 60i rather nicely... (not that it's much use here). I did work on a solution for getting very nice 24p, but it does cost $17,500...

Graeme

[Steven Schuldt]

Originally Posted by Graeme Nattress

My plugins were never designed to do 30p to 24p. However, they do do 25p to 60i rather nicely... (not that it's much use here). I did work on a solution for getting very nice 24p, but it does cost $17,500...

Graeme

Yeah, I guess that'd be one heck of a conflict of interest at this point, eh? ;) I use the Nattress Filters, and in many cases they still look better than more expensive things like Magic Bullet Looks.

Like most here, however, coveteth though I may a Red One, that $17,500 nut remains too tough to crack right now.

By the way, tell Jim it's nearly 2009 and we're still sans all we ever asked Red for:

A 24p HD camera with an interchangeable lens system that we could buy for what this ludicrous 5D Mark II headache is going to cost.

At this point my assumption is that there is a law against providing such a device for sale to indie filmmakers.

[Don Miller]

Thanks Dan and Chris and Jenn.

Looked good to me, especially considering the back lighting. I would like to see what a higher sharpness setting looks like.

Do we have any aperture tricks yet, besides using non-Canon lenses?. I find lack of aperture control bizarre.

[Chris Barcellos]

Just for a hoot, I attempted following:

I have Cineform NeoHDV, so I took the file, and attempted to convert it to Cineform using HDLink. It did not kill HDLink, but I never got a file out of it.

I then opened Vegas, put the clip on a time line, then rendered it to Cineform HDV 60I. I got a good file.

I then opened Cineform's HDLink, and attempted to convert the Cineform 60i to Cineforms 24p, using the pull down. HDLink crashed and I got that Vista message saying the program wasn't responding.

I then decided to rendered the original clip directly to the Cineform 24p intermedieate, and I got a 24p file from it. Looks pretty good.

[Steven Schuldt]

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

Just for a hoot, I attempted following:

...

I then decided to rendered the original clip directly to the Cineform 24p intermedieate, and I got a 24p file from it. Looks pretty good.

Ladies and gentleman we have a 24p PC workflow. Thank you Chris!

Mac solution anyone?

[Steven Schuldt]

Originally Posted by Jenn Kramer

Link: http://files.dvinfo.net/5dmkII/dchung_mvi0461_1080p.mov

Hi Dan and Jeff - can you confirm this is the actual 1080p H.264 file generated in-camera on the 5D Mark II? Just want to be sure.

[Graeme Nattress]

Not so much a conflict of interest, but that I've never seen a decent 30p to 25p or 24p conversion. I'm sure it can be done, but I've never seen it. 30 and 24/25 are so close to each other, that it leaves very little room to work the temporal interpolation / filtering / decimation. You can be sure though, if I knew a good way to do it, I'd be selling plugins to do it as fast as I can!

Graeme

[Jenn Kramer]

Unless Dan indicates otherwise, it's straight off the CF card. The original filename was MVI_0461.mov before I renamed it for upload. It's 39.07 megabit, 30fps, h264, 1920x1080, 44.1k audio. There aren't any re-compression artifacts, it looks great to me.

[Steven Schuldt]

Originally Posted by Graeme Nattress

Not so much a conflict of interest, but that I've never seen a decent 30p to 25p or 24p conversion. I'm sure it can be done, but I've never seen it. 30 and 24/25 are so close to each other, that it leaves very little room to work the temporal interpolation / filtering / decimation. You can be sure though, if I knew a good way to do it, I'd be selling plugins to do it as fast as I can!

Graeme

Yes. There is talk of slowing the 30p footage down to 24p (easy as pie in something like Cinema Tools or event QuickTime Pro(?)) and then time-stretching and pitch-shifting the audio up to the correct pitch to end up with a weird hybrid that is now 24p yet sounds like the original performance.

So there is an audio filter opportunity for you but yeah, I expect the effect will surely be somewhat strange.

I make slow movies in any case, so I'm going to try this just to see what the effect is like.

[Steven Schuldt]

Originally Posted by Jenn Kramer

Unless Dan indicates otherwise, it's straight off the CF card. The original filename was MVI_0461.mov before I renamed it for upload. It's 39.07 megabit, 30fps, h264, 1920x1080, 44.1k audio. There aren't any re-compression artifacts, it looks great to me.

Thanks for the info. Agreed it looks spectacular. Now I really wish there /was/ audio so I could try the "slow to 24p and them time/pitch-shift the audio" trick and see what the result is like.

[Chris Barcellos]

Originally Posted by Steven Schuldt

Ladies and gentleman we have a 24p PC workflow. Thank you Chris!

Mac solution anyone?

If anyone wants to host it to analyze it, it is a 200 meg .avi file with Cineform codec. I can upload it somewhere. I'm not technically astute enough to determine it things are right about it. Let me know.

I assume this camera does not have an actual 24p setting, so something like DV Filmmaker will have to be used ??? I have taken 60i stuff from my FX1, and rendered to 24p in Cineform. You do lose some resolution, but end up with a 24p file to edit with. From what I can see of the file I just did, some frames are essentially blended as I step through frame by frame.