Salt water is not kind to the robot mind

by JL on June 1, 2009

Here’s a little HD video I shot with my Canon 5DII of one of my robots being battered by sea water. Trust me, it looks pretty sweet in full HD. I’m probably going to have to upgrage my Vimeo account (and upload it there) to prove it.

{ 2 comments }

1 Matt Trayler June 11, 2009 at 7:27 pm

I am looking into purchasing a new camera. I would love to replace my Canon GL2 with the Canon 5DII…How do you like this camera? Is the video that good?

2 JL June 12, 2009 at 6:53 pm

In the interest of transparency (and so that I don’t look like a jerk that ignored this question), I’ve pasted the email I sent Matt:

To answer your question about the 5D2…

I don’t think it’s a suitable upgrade for your GL2, other than the fact that it’s HD and your camera now isn’t. Pretty much all of the shooting that you’d be doing with a traditional video camera becomes 50x more difficult with the 5D2.

5D2 cons:
1.Live zooming is difficult without a focus pulling rig, or the more expensive lenses.
2. You’ll need to get several lenses and random still photography gear.
3. Audio is a crapshoot. I run a mic into my camera, and I’ve figured out what level is the sweet spot, but you don’t have all the control that you’re used to.
4. No long format shooting. I had a client want some interviews shot on my 5D2, but it would have been like 90 minutes of raw video, and you have to plan shooting long form stuff differently with memory cards.

5D2 pros:
1. Looks fabulous, especially with 35 lenses
2. Uniquely portable and different (people treat you differently because they think you’re shooting stills)
3. Fast workflow with compact flash cards to a laptop editor.

I shoot a TON of still photos for fun, and as a freelancer, so the 5D2 was a natural choice for me. I’ve used it a lot in my television promo work (I’ll link you a Vimeo clip when I’m allowed to post it) since it has that elusive “film look”, but you should only consider getting the camera to get “beautiful shots” and nothing else, like all the utility work that you’d use a traditional video camera for. I find that I spend much more time setting up a show with this camera than i would with my XDCAM.

Hope that helps.

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