Lens Flare

Looks like a brand new lens! I did a few tests around the house and it looks to be working very well. Time will tell I suppose.

Just wanted to give a shout out to Canon in Irvine, CA. You guys did a great job yet again. Much appreciated.

Next goes my 1D3 recall for AF calibration again. I requested it go to Irvine, but was told it had to go to the Newport News, VA site. In the past, they have not done such a spectacular job with my 1D3 and I had to end up sending to Irvine to fix their mistakes.

However, I have been reading very positive remarks about the VA fix on this latest round of recalls. So I will keep my fingers crossed.

I have a NHL game to shoot tonight and then off it goes via UPS. I don’t have another sporting event to cover for a week or so. Hoping that CPS membership gets the fix done quickly and back to me.

Anyway….as of right now, I am a happy camper. I’ll give the 16-35 a good workout tonight. HOPEFULLY, I don’t get another puck into it. LOL

A guide to getting dramatic images in less than ideal environments and harsh light.

Award winning photographer Kevin Jairaj (www.kjimages.com) and I put this instructional DVD together and it is now available for purchase at: http://kjimages.com/Toolbox/dvd.html

New DEMO – Dramatic Lighting on Location DVD from Andrew CCM

Considering the glass wasn’t damaged, it doesn’t look too bad.

Canon lens hit by NHL puck.

Well…after shooting close to 30 NHL games, I finally got my taste of what it feels like to be hit by the puck. Unfortunately, it was my lens that was hit…not me. I think I would have preferred me.

I just happened to be testing the Canon 16-35L (notice how wide the shot is) in video mode on my 5D Mark II. The action was at the other end of the ice and BAM! out of nowhere, they send a puck the length of the ice right into my lens….

Hopefully it can be fixed without an exorbitant amount of cost. Just glad it didn’t hit the lens glass. It’s mainly all structural housing damage (that I can tell)… Can’t zoom in or out and the MF ring is tighter than heck. I’ll post a pic of the damage later…but for now… here is a little video clip of my test (albeit just a minute or 2) and impact. You can click full screen mode if you’d like to see it in 720P HD.

5D Mark II Video Test – NHL Hockey with an unexpected quick ending. from Andrew CCM

Just a quick note on something that has been driving me crazy. If you happen to use C Fn. IV-1 set to 3 (as I do)…you cannot lock your exposure prior to starting recording. I have spent a few evenings trying to figure out why I couldn’t. That would be why. I switched it over to 2 which gives me sort of a workaround. (I don’t like my shutter button to focus which it does by default – 0).

I also just added that C.Fn to My Menu so I can easily change it when shooting video versus stills.

Still learning and posting.. LOL

Just a quick comment on those considering shooting this new camera for video and subsequently editing.

At this point in time, if you have an Intel based MAC you should be in good shape. PC’s on the other hand, seem to be having significant difficulty processing the h.264 content. I am being told that this is due to Apple’s lack of feature set within it’s Windows Quicktime application. I have been working on trying to find a decent PC-based NLE workflow with the footage and have pretty much failed. Premiere Pro CS4 was my best hope and while it will edit and convert the content, it is VERY CHOPPY on the timeline while scrubbing. My PC NLE is 2.4Ghz Core2Duo, 8GB RAM, Nvidia 8600GTS, and XP-64bit.

The same footage brought into my Macbook Pro (2.4Ghz Core2Duo, 2GB RAM) works flawlessly within both iMovie and Final Cut Pro. I tried it on my wife’s iMAC with very similar specs and it worked well.

I believe that Quicktime on the Apple platform is able to use advanced GPU functionality and most definitely deals with the h.264 CODEC much better.

I’ll be keeping an eye out for a PC solution and report back.

That’s it for now. Have a very Merry Christmas!

Andrew

Something I was playing around with…This may or may not help anyone, but thought I’d post.

As everyone is starting to realize, exposure control (or lack there of) with the video feature on the 5DMkII can be problematic.  In particular, with depth of field.   For instance, outdoors in bright light the camera will automatically stomp down the aperture to very small f-stops.. Well let’s say you want to have a shallow depth of field outside… The only solution that I was able to figure out was to stack ND (Neutral Density) filters to force the camera to open up.

Well..  Here is something interesting (at least to me).  The order in which the camera seems to determine exposure is…  1st set the Aperture, 2nd Shutter, and 3rd ISO.  When it needs to make adjustments after the initial exposure, it reverses the order.

So here’s the trick.  Cover your lens with your hand and lock your exposure… This will more than likely make your exposure the shallowest FStop available, crank up the ISO and lower the shutter speed.   Well as long as you have your exposure locked everything will remain like that even when you point it at your subject outside.  From this point, you can then press the * button and it will start readjusting the exposure for the current scene… BUT IN REVERSE ORDER!

So.. Basically, it will drop your ISO levels dramatically, start raising your shutter speed until it gets the correct exposure.  YOUR APERTURE WILL NOT CHANGE unless it cannot compensate with ISO and shutter for the conditions.  I have found that in most situations this is not a problem.  So to sum up… you have tricked the camera into opening the aperture and make other adjustments for the exposure.  Kludgy…but it works.   I would guess you could come up with various ways to have it set various apertures by toying around with the amount of light in the initial exposure.

One thing I haven’t tested is just the opposite.  For instance, in a dark indoor scene where you need more DOF, you might point it at a lamp or shine a flashlight into the lens to make it stomp down.  Then use the same trick to make other adjustments.

Anyway..  Just thought this was interesting enough to pass along.

Have a good afternoon.

Here is a video clip that I made basically demonstrating what I wrote about in the blog below.  It by no means is a demo for video quality sake…More so to show how the exposure works with it’s shortcomings.

I don’t currently have a PLUS account over at VIMEO, so you’ll have to visit this link rather than me embedding it.  Sorry about that.

720P HD Located here: http://www.vimeo.com/2431176

Standard Def:

5D Mark II – Video functionality 1st Impressions from Andrew CCM on Vimeo.