What are the odds that 25p for PAL is in the pipeline?

The lack of 25p is the single most baffling aspect of this camera.

It's a very serious shortcoming which hopefully will be addressed, one way or the other.

And I'm off to Canada at the end of June to do a Music Video so I'm pleased as punch not to have to be workarounds for every flippin shot!

Adding my voice to the show, thanks, Tramm, you're a good guy, you do great work on our behalf.
Also thanks to Canon for at last making this cam the best on the scene. The GH1 is trounced on its very release. Nice.

As for Canon keeping quiet for months then announcing the update just as the GH1 is released, sound like the way Apple do business to me. Mind you, they're all at it, we shouldn't be surprised.

Avey (Dan)

Wonder if the Rebel T1i gets a similar update...

This is awesome news. I've been looking forward to this!!!

Oh, I'm even more curious of what the 1Ds now gonna get....

-- peer

Not only the 1Ds, but the 1D and 60D as well.

h--y f--k!

(I'm struggling to add anything more than that... but...)

That just made my morning. I am sitting here editing out clips I shot last weekend due to the auto iris controls. I would get it set and then forget to lock it :( This makes me happy!

Well that would be awesome if it does :)

just got the T1i for 720p only, almost identical video as the 5D Mk. II (not quite as shallow DOF). I really hope it gets an update as well. Awesome technology.

Please point me towards a detailed explanation of what I'm missing for want of 25p in MkII?

This has brought tears to my eyes. Thank you Canon!!

Yep this is truly awesome. My 5D MKII just increased in value! Now if they could do something for the housing market! :)

24p
 

give u 24p and it's a perfect camera.

I keep checking B&H for the 5DM2 kit to be in stock. I guess even if ordered today, I would be waiting on Canon for the firmware. I'm just more than excited right now.

People will whine and complain until the 5D cures cancer and world hunger. Until then, it's useless;)

Thank you Canon for giving us manual control! Canon could've easily released a different version of this camera with manual controls, and I would've bought it. But instead, they do the miraculous... They give us a free firmware update. Oh, happy day. I've always been a Canon fanboy... But now I'm loyal customer for life. This is too good. Tramm, thanks for propelling Canon in this direction, and getting them woke up on this whole thing. I am celebrating all day. I'm floating! 24p? 24p? We'll see. Make it happen Canon. I love my 5dmII.

Well, to be fair to those who remain persistent in their requests from Canon, without them we probably wouldn't have gotten anything at all.
It's also important to remember that on the list of requested features, 24/25p did rank high, certainly in the top 3 requested features.

1. Manual Exposure Control (Iris, shutter, ISO)
2. 24/25p
3. Manual Audio Control (currently being worked on by Tramm for the 5DMkFree hack)

I knew Canon's main priority was to stop the bleeding of people going out and buying Nikon's lenses with adapters.
So as of right now, Canon addressed one of the 3 top requests, but didn't bother with the others. Stu Maschwitz of ProLost helped to initiate the first round of firestorms against Canon, and even with the firmware update he isn't letting up because he knows how important 24p is.
Canon obviously knows now who these features appeal to, yet the absence of 24p really raises concerns about whether or not the indie filmmaker's interests have really been taken into account.

I feel like a kid who just learned that mom really did get him that candy apple red bicycle for Christmas (yay!) - but the big day is still almost a week away. I can hardly wait!

Jon,

Would you please confirm whether this upgrade will be available to Mk II's in PAL land?

Brendan -- since there is only one single camera model sold worldwide, with no differences at all among units sold in Europe or North America or elsewhere, the firmware upgrade does indeed apply to all 5D2 cameras everywhere on the planet.

Chris is right. It will be available worldwide.

That said, there's still no word on 25p. The options for creating a 25p result are:
1) Slow the footage by 20%,
2) Wait for a 25p firmware update, (I predict before the holidays, but there's no guarantee.)
3) Use After Effects or some other software for the format conversion, (slow, limited quality) or
4) Just post your stuff on the web where the frame rate doesn't matter!

Hopefully, Canon will make this issue moot sooner, rather than later...

Please forgive my question, but which holiday? I hope you're not referring to Christmas...

Amen!

Of course, we have Mr H on our side.

June can't come soon enough!

Yes. Christmas. My prediction is that it will be available before the holiday selling season.

But note that 25p could come next week, and my prediction would still hold true. :)

[DISCLAIMER: My 25p prediction is based on nothing except for a gut feel - and a sense of the worst case. If it's not available by Christmas, it's probably not coming at all. I have no insider information whatsoever.]

Very curious, pathetically curious even.

So, now that the game has changed, they have decided to create an update that will solve some of their serious problems.

I think I shall still invest in the GH1 on principle. It just shows who the real boundary-pushers are and its certainly not Canon, they are simply squeezing every last drop of dated capability out of their consumers before moving on with slow and deliberate hesitation.

Great news indeed. Going to make things a lot more interesting, just glad I never got caught up in getting Nikon glass.... even though I was almost there. Thank you canon.

I don't know. In the corporate world, getting everybody to agree on what to do, setting the specification, writing the code, testing the code, fixing the bugs, releasing the firmware and (I assume) the documentation in seven months isn't fast, but it's not necessarily foot dragging. Rather than a decision to delay, it was more likely a delay before they came to a consensus decision.

I've evaluated the shutter speeds pretty closely, as has Mark Hahn, and it's clear that they didn't have everything implemented to just turn on manual control. The available shutter speeds are really coarse and don't even match the displayed values!

Canon earned back a lot of my respect with the announcement of this release. If they do 24/25p as well, it will be two big thumbs up!

Going back to my original "good conversation with Canon" thread, I've been maintaining Canon would do this. And Chris, while I'm grateful for what Tramm has done, I bet some friends last night that Canon would announce this by early June to counter the release of the all manual GH1.

I win a bottle of tequila and a fully manual 5DII.

How confident was I?
I ordered the 85mm 1.4, 35mm 1.4 and an H4N last week.

Do you mean the 85mm f/1.2?

So, what brand tequila is it? ;)

oops, yeah Jon, the big honkin' f/1.2
I've been wanting to replace my Nikon 85mm with the Canon since I got the 5DII but was waiting for the update.

After several years using Nikons on the Mini35 and Letus setups, it's going to be really nice to have AF on all my lenses. Now my kit is all Canon: 24-105 F/4, 35mm f/1.4, 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.2

And the tequila is Corzo.

Simple explantion:

First, in a Pal market (unless you're making something soley for web distribution), you've got to get the footage to 25p for DVD distribution / broadcast. While most of my work is for the web, the majority of my clients want a DVD version in addition to the web version, making the 5D a pain in the neck for day to day work.

Second, you also need it to be 25p to integrate it with footage from other cameras.

Third, recording 30p in an environment with 50hz lighting often leads to flicker (although this is less of a problem because at least you can see it in the viewfinder when it's occuring and do something about it).

I'm having a better morning, thanks to Chris, Jon and Josh .....

I'll be waiting for Canon & the icing on the Christmas cake with more optimism than usual ...

I've bought ten or so Nikkors and will probaly keep most of them.

Even after this update, second hand Nikkor AIS glass is a super affordable way to get a bunch of sharp, fast primes on your 5D, all with really smooth focussing action.

Even using Nikkors, this update will make life easier.

A few months ago, I got an email from Canon asking me (and probably thousands of my closest friends!) to write a 5D mk II review on the Canon web site. I submitted my review, and posted about it here on DVInfo.net. I suggested everybody complain about the lack of manual controls in video mode, and sure enough, pretty much every review ever since that time has made mention of it.

That said, even though I always complied with Canon's terms, my review was never published. I tried about 10 times, each time tweaking any language which I thought Canon may in some weird way take as being offensive or against its terms. Eventually I gave up. The word was out, and, like I said, pretty much every review mentioned the problem.

And so it is with more than just a little surprise that today, Canon finally deemed to publish my latest review of the Camera... the one that's gushing with praise and has no negative comments about the LACK of manual control! Here it is, just for the fun of it:

"With today's announcement by Canon that the 5D mk II will finally have full manual control in video mode via a firmware update (as it should have had from the beginning!), this camera will finally be able to live up to its enormous potential.

Now we can use all our expensive L lenses to shoot great video without having to jump through hoops to do it.

Good job Canon. Now this is THE camera to own."

I still don't know why they wouldn't publish any of my other attempts. They were far less negative than many!

Julian

Here's the original thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/canon-eos...g-reviews.html

I have accumulated a bunch of great old Nikkors from 24mm to 300mm for less than the cost of one new Canon lens.

There are also some really nice manual Canon FD lenses. For 60 Euros I just got a beautiful F/3.5 35-105mm that looks absolutely brand new is pin sharp & has a very smooth aperture/focus/zoom mechanism. It did cost me another 35 Euros for the FD>EF adaptor but for the equivalent of less than $130 I have a great flexible lens with manual aperture.

Back to the Firmware.

AFAIK there has been no official announcement in Europe or Asia yet? So maybe there is hope for 25 fps. I mean there is no need for the Canon USA to mention it as it's not relevant to that market. The only thing our NTSC brothers would be after is 24 fps.

Do you think maybe they will do a firmware update for the different regions, if having the ability to change the frame rate by the user is too hard an option to put in?

I've been thinking the same thing... maybe, just maybe there is more to the update than what was included in the bare threads announcement. After all, it didn't say exposure control *exclusively* had been addressed. But then, I wouldn't get my hopes up my Aussie friend.

I may be naive, but I think Canon always saw the 5D as a still camera. And the added HD vid was a kind of experiment, because of a wish from AP photographers wanting video for web capability. And for that the initial release was just about right.

How often does a new way of thinking come out right on the first try?

I am amazed that Canon updated this quickly. I think they had no idea what effect the mk2 would have on us shooters.

I think Canon has always been a very daring and innovative company lots of firsts, incredible glass etc.

This quick new firmware demonstrates their commitment to their customers.

Thank you Canon. I know you pulled time out of other projects to fix this quickly.