My first live field test of 5D Mark II video
 

I was hired to do a marketing piece for a company that does high-end digital sales training, and when I told them I could do not only photographs (as I have done for them before) but video, too, they jumped at the opportunity. I decided that I would commit to the Canon EOS 5D Mark II to film this piece for a few reasons...

See my blog post for the rest:
My first live field test of 5D Mark II video | Steve Maller Photography

Comments?

Steve:

Thanks for pic of the rig.

I have my 5D2 coming next week. I intend to use my Beachtek as you have done. My understanding is that there is live a/v out. I happen to have video monitor which includes audio in. Shouldn't I be able to monitor what camera is recording soundwise throught that a/v output ?

Have you tried HDMI monitoring to an HD screen, and if so, does it out put a Hi Def image.

Chris, that's a good idea. I didn't think of that. I'll have to try the A/V output's audio and see if I get a signal from that!

Unfortunately, the 5D MkII doesn't support audio monitoring.

John:

Are you saying that in the AV out mode, the camera does not send sound out to the AV port during recording ? I have a small LCD4Video monitor that I can put my AV inputs from my HV20 into, for intance, and and get sound and video at same time and I can listen through a headphone port on my Videomonitor port. Have you actually tried that or is there something in literature somewhere that says it doesn't out put audio through AV ports during recording.

Okay, answered my own question. Top page 124 of manual, sound will not output to a tv during recording.

Thanks Canon for another crippling of an otherwise tremendous piece of equip. Looks like we are going to have to go with the new Beachtek for the 5d whenever it comes out.... crazy....

I can see using a beachtek if you already have one, but it seems to me that if you have to purchase equipment it may make more sense to just buy a Microtrac or Zoom H4. You could still run the output of the recorder into the camera to have sync clips but you would have a complete back up of your audio, plus, if you shoot stills your audio will continue through.


Just my opinion.

We shoot most of our narrative stuff though a field mixer, so double system is not that much of an additional issue. However, synching is always a pain, and kind of defeats that easy file transfer mode we want in the first place.

So we will experiment with our mixer, and see where that takes us.... see if we can gets some kind of dependable sound. I know Beachtek is working an inaudible high frequency tone to defeat the AGC. I actually have a tone generator that I could run on one track, leaving the other track for voice, if nothing bleeds.

One nice thing with the Microtrack II - if you can't hear the sounds, it's not recording. (That's not to say that it's perfect. If the memory card fails, you still lose the result.)

With the Beachtek, you might think everything is fine, only to learn that you didn't plug the cable into the camera all the way...

Sooo, Chris B. that field recorder I've been whining for us to buy is looking more and more like a good idea, eh ? (grin).

You sound guys, all the same.... want, want, want...... Whats wrong with my Hi-MD Mini disk, ....:)

Lovely interview shot. Was that a 24-70mm F2.8?

Thanks. It was the Canon 35/1.4L shot (if I recall) at f2.