Editing 5DMKII in Premiere CS4, iMac, SlowMo
 

So, I think this is my first post :)
I'm gradually transitioning over to the 5DMKII. This is also my transition from SD to HD which means I need to update my computer. I'm looking to go 24" iMac with the 3.06Ghz and pick up Premiere Pro CS4 (currently running Premiere Pro 1.5 on a PC). Anyway, I've been really happy with the slow motion in 1.5, but I'm curious about doing the HD footage in slowmo. I don't plan to use it a lot anymore, but I feel like a little slow motion has saved me from time to time when I need to fill a couple more seconds.
Is anybody using this iMac with Premiere Pro CS4? With the 5DMKII footage? If so, what are your thoughts? Thanks!

-seth

Hi Seth,

You can see a couple of slo-mo shots in this sequence:

Royal Navy ABA Championships on Vimeo

Shot on 5D MKII, edited on an iMac with FCP.

Be careful with that 5D, it's images are heavily compressed, it can work but it's not a walk in the park.

What camera are you coming from? The 5D is great but I'm not sure I'd want it to be my only motion camera.

Noah

Seth,

Noah is spot-on with his recommendation for *not* making the 5DMkII your only vid-cam.

What most are in awe about with the Canon are two things: Near-perfect noise characteristics and of course the shallow DOF of being able to use all the EOS lenses. That's all wonderful stuff however, there are some not-so-obvious caveats to using a DSLR for true video projects:

- Although the 5D has very low visible noise (grain) and has great low-light capabilities there's a tradeoff for those characteristics: Degraded dynamic range. It's very easy to have blown-out highlights and totally lose shadow detail.
- Rolling shutter (Canon has a webpage showing the effects of image skew due to rolling shutter in the 5D).

If all your deliverables are going to be only for web or DVD (with some tweaking) then you should be fine with the 5D. But if you ever wanted to produce a film-out, broadcast or HD direct display the limited color gamut in the 5D will become obvious and very limiting.

The 5D is an amazing tool but you need to look beyond the hype of shallow DOF and "true 1080p video capture" and get under the hood of it's output before you bet the farm on it's video capabilities.

It's really important to remember that although Canon has added "manual controls" (overrides, really) to the 5D's video mode, that camera is no more optimized for real video work than a video camera is optimized for shooting stills.