I live in NTSC land and I actually prefer 30p for the stuff I do, but I still think it is absolutely obsurd for Canon to not have 25p (and before 24p). Actually, stupid might be a better word.

I wonder how many of us in the US would be freakin' out if Canon only offered a 37p mode? I mean, it'd be no big deal to just use Compressor to pull it back to 30p so it could actually be used now would it? LMAO.

Would you buy a camcorder that is only good for static talking interviews??

8-)

Bravo! That's the only way to act!!!

Well, yeah, I would. The 5DmkII is cheap enough that if your business is shooting interviews like that it'll pay for itself in a week or less. Mine already has, and that's about the only type of paid shooting I do... the fact that the camera works so well for other stuff as well is just a bonus (for those who don't need to deliver 25p).

Actually, shooting interviews is a killer application for this camera. On a tripod, you can generally set perfect focus and leave it. You'd rarely need more than a small fill light. The shallow DOF can turn crappy backgrounds into nice blurs. Rolling shutter doesn't come into play. And, as said, this is as easy a frame rate conversion task as you'll find. The only thing lacking is built-in audio - and there are lots of good solutions for that.

So Evan, if you don't mind a short, temporary detour from the 24p topic, what lenses and kit are you using for interviews? My wife has a historical novel that is about to be published, and I plan to shoot some interviews with her discussing the historical context. http://www.annarichenda.com/

Jon, I wholeheartedly agree with you on all of these points, and I am actually gearing up to do a whole series of interviews in this exact vein -- natural light + reflector, shallow DOF, double-system sound of AKG480+ck63 > R44.

However, there is one fairly large gotcha with the 5D2 and interviewing, and that's the 4 gig file limit. The good news is due to static backgrounds, you tend to get more than the 12 minutes typical, but the bad news is that puppy can stop right in the middle of something good happening on camera. Now of course, you can watch the clock and try to pre-empt that let's say between questions when you're nearing the limit, and with double-system at least you know the audio will continue to roll, so you can cover with some b-roll if you do get stopped in your tracks, BUT... And here's the nasty gotcha, live view quits and the damn mirror shuts when you hit the 4-gig mark -- and it's easily loud enough to stomp all over your double-system sound.

I'll never understand the need for that, and it's something they could actually fix in firmware in one of two ways: (1) just stop recording but for god's sake don't shut the mirror, I mean the mirror doesn't shut when I manually stop recording, so why when you max out the file? or (2) to simply close the file and start a new file right back up again, sure it won't be a seamless break I'm sure, but at least you'd have no mirror slap and you wouldn't have to remember to be watching the clock all the time.

Anyway, I'm with you 100%, the 5D2 is great, but this one little wrinkle bums me out a little...

True. I did a few interviews a few weeks back and was averaging 14 minutes. This is one o f the flaws of the camera, even a beep would be nice just to let you know it has stopped.

absolutely! especially it can do 422 sampling for green screening. What does this camera sample at any way?

No beep! Or an optional beep maybe, LOL. Just restarting a new file would be nice.

So, when you hit 4 gigs does your cam kill live view and slap the mirror?

From my recollection... I don't think so. I think I just noticed the red dot disappear then quickly scrambled to get the recording going again. But don't take my word for it, it was bit of a hectic shoot with a short window of time for the location, so I may be remembering incorrectly.

Just this weekend I shot a 48 hour film and we got the 'mockumentary' genre, so it worked out as the perfect example 'interview' shoot for the 5D:

Sur Mesure: Journeys in Transpersonal Haberdashery on Vimeo

Most of the interviews mixed natural sunlight with a single Lowel Rifa as key ctb'd to match.

For the interviews I used either the kit 24-105mm lens or the 70-200mm f/2.8L II IS. Prior to the firmware update I was using a nikon 85mm f/2 as well. Honestly, for interviews, 2.8 and below is a little too shallow - you can see in the film above in the CU's on the main character her eyes are in focus but ears aren't - worked out fine because she didn't move around too much, but I haven't always been that lucky in the past. I actually really like the kit lens - f/4 isn't fast enough for really low light shots, but in interviews where you can mix some natural and artificial light it's the perfect dof for keeping your subject in focus while dropping the background out - an example in the film above is the band guy, although you have to look past the chain link fence to notice the dof drop off.

I figured this out finally and thought I would share, it was a doh! moment for sure, LOL.

When it stops recording at the 4 gig mark, it does NOT turn off live view or slap the mirror at that point. It was just that I have my standby time set to only 1 minute, so during the times I missed the fact that recording had stopped, it only takes one more minute for the cam to shut off, thus slapping the mirror, which got picked up by my sync sound sound (which sucked).

What's interesting here is it's kind of a catch-22 in a way. One the one hand, the off/slap is a reminder that you aren't recording any more (you idiot!). On the other hand, it steps all over your sync sound when it happens (which may be worse depending on your view of the world).

Anyway, the takeaway for me is that I'm going to extend standby a lot longer before interview shoots, and I'm going to be a lot more aggressive with stop/restarting video BEFORE the 4 gig mark. It might mean one more file to sync and one more short video gap, but probably not even that, and I'll be more likely to get a break between questions, so I think that's the way to go for me personally. I'll probably start looking for a break after I hit the 10 minute mark from now on.

Same here.

I am not sure that you don't see artifacts in static interviews, maybe you maximize your attention on the person and very little errors are evident...

Hmm, so in other words... you don't see artifacts in static interviews.

Honestly I don't know if you would or not, since I'm working at 30p myself. I'll try to get some time this week to do some test 30->25/24 conversions with some of the interview footage from my film - maybe try a simple drop frame, Compressor, and AE workflow to see if there's any appreciable difference when motion is relatively static.