Lights - 5D Mk II - Action!

Thursday was yet another foray into something new – this time video with the famed 5D Mk II.

Before we begin I need to explain, I have never before shot serious video footage, but it is an area that I have had an interest in for quite some time and have previously worked on projects with an editor to produce a product for clients – so know a little about the subject (and hopefully just enough) and have access to quite a few people who know what they're doing.

My only previous contact with the 5D Mk II was over the New Year’s period, when a very good friend (James) plonked one in front of me and said, “Have a play!”
Being a big fan of the original 5D I did just that. It seemed straight forward enough, although I was warned that to do anything overly creative I would need to trick the camera due to the automatic settings in video mode.

Even though I took tons of stills all evening and managed a little bit of video and playing really didn’t last long enough. I had enough time to know that the camera I was playing with was one of the most powerful and amazing tools to land on the market in a long time, and immediately started to think of the uses I could put it to (unlike a lot of people out there who just wanted to shoot Christmas tree lights so they could whinge about “black dots” on forums).

Fast forward to a few weeks ago; I received a call from a friend (Chris) asking if I had any experience of working with video. He was interested in making a five part cooking series, with a view to publishing it on his website. No money involved, but travel would be paid. Straight away I approached James to see if he would let me use his 5D Mk II, and thankfully the answer was yes (considering how busy the chap is I’m very thankful he could!).

The camera was dropped off with me on Tuesday, with instructions to update the firmware; by chance it was the same day Canon decided to release the new manual video controls (talk about good timing). Immediately I set to work trying to understand as much as I could about the camera (even taking it to take stills at an agency job the next day), obviously I want to do the best job I can on Chris' cooking episodes.

And zip forward again to Thursday, myself, camera, lenses and tripod (talk about that more in a moment) found ourselves in Covent Garden and ready to begin the first part of the first episode consisting of: cutaways, a quick interview and a piece to camera that will form the episode introduction.

First off, I realised very early on that to achieve anything on this project, shooting hand held would not be an option. Probably the only con with using the 5D Mk II (other than the sound – which I will get onto next) is that the balance really doesn’t lend itself to shooting some kinds of footage. Not really a problem as such, just something to bear in mind. Having seen work where people had made this mistake with a conventional video camera it was something I really wanted to avoid (possibly to an extreme). As such the night before I stripped and cleaned my faithful old tripod, knowing that it’s sturdy tubular construction would carry me through. Sadly for me I underestimated the amount of use I’d got from said piece of equipment. Unpacking my kit at Covent Garden I found that one of the legs had some how decided to break off, with really no way to permanently fix it, ad hoc use of gaffa tape saw me through, though the Michael was mercilessly ripped by all and sundry (tripod was thrown into a bin on the Strand – with Stephen filming it for posterity). Quite a sad moment as that tripod had been to Iraq twice and all over Europe with me!
With sound I had decided quite early on that an external recorder would be the only way to go, I don’t like the quality provided by the on camera mike, a very automated system that I hope will be the subject of another firmware update (there is a hack out there, fingers crossed that forces Canon’s hand to do something official). To that end, I badgered Stephen into coming along with a recorder to help with the sound (he also looked after the much needed gaffa tape, gave me abuse and said he felt insulted after I asked him to carry a spare Canon lens, ‘because it wasn’t a Nikon product’!).

We got off to a frustrating start, wandering around the area looking for somewhere to shoot the intro; sound was a problem with ambient vehicle noise and music emanating from Covent Garden so after a short hunt an alleyway was found, which we hoped would suffice. The next stop was looking for somewhere to film the interview, gift of the gab prevailed and Stephen managed to get us 10 minutes in a Café round the corner.

As we were both beginners, we shot two takes of the interview (as well as a few where background noise meant we needed to cut and restart), adjusting the aperture, ISO and shutter speed to suit the conditions within the café was really easy thanks to live-view giving a real time display of exposure etc; I’m not too sure what it would have been like with the older automatic setup, certainly the results would have been rather hit and miss (not actually knowing how to trick the meter).

Interview over, we proceeded to shoot the introduction with Chris (the friend who will be presenting the episodes) nailing his script rather well after a couple of false starts. I certainly didn’t envy him as he did his piece to camera! Again the camera proved to be very straightforward to use, with the grid on the back providing a great reference when lining up the shot.

Filming almost wrapped we adjourned to Covent Garden where both Stephen and I filmed a series of cutaways; unfortunately brought to only a slightly premature end by a rather large security guard with a Russian accent saying we were not allowed to film without a permit, “You must go to office and ask for pass” (even though he didn't sound it, when I say that in my head it resembles a cross between Dolph Lundgren and Borat - not sure why, hey ho). Needless to say we didn't push the subject (had enough footage).

As a straight forward stills camera, the 5D MkII knocks the spots off any other camera I’ve used so far, as someone who shoots on partial frame sensor cameras it feels other worldy when I use a lens at it’s actual focal length and am always astounded by the image quality the camera turns out, don't get me started on how much I love the quality at high ISO!
I can now say the same for its video function, with the large display screen and (at last) fully manual controls, shooting film is exceedingly easy (at times it seemed too easy!).

Lessons to take away for me? Camera wise: External sound - paramount importance, will be getting a clip mike as well. Tripod - sturdy type and not broken. Memory cards - one just couldn't handle recording and needed to be swapped; investing in some more soon. Gaffa tape - never leave home without it!

Owning a 5D Mk II is something that I will acknowledge is a long way off for me, everything I do is on a shoestring at the moment. Really can’t wait to have another crack at shooting video with it, even doing the small amount of video work that I did, truly an addictive experience.

Thanks go to Stephen Simpson for being the sound guru, filming extra BG footage and for getting us a place to shoot the video. Very much appreciated (hopefully he won't mind if I mention him in the same entry as a Canon camera!).