Well, the 5DII went back to its true home quite a while ago and since then I’ve been shooting with a 1Ds, a 40D and an old 5D (mark I). Now seems like a good time to reflect back on having the 5D Mark II and what I remember of going Full Frame and Becoming a Videographer.

Looking back on the 5 Mark II from Benjamin Ellis on Vimeo (shot, +2, looking into a mirror, a couple of months back).

The odd thing that really sticks in my mind was the battery life – it was brilliant. I normally have 2 or 3 batteries when I cover a long event. For the trip I had just one. In over a week of using the 5D it only got charged every other day, as I dived into my hotel room to change into evening clothes, then unplugged shortly after as I headed out. It didn’t get charged over night, as I only had one adaptor. Despite all that, it never even got close to having a low battery. Stunning.

Low light performance. This gets talked about a lot, and I mentioned it in my posts at the time, but it is a fact: the 5d Mark II seems to create light where there was none. I’ve used dozens of cameras from different manufacturers. Never experienced anything like it. With my love of night time photography and shooting events, it is a killer feature.

The size – it is not a full body – I’m playing with a 1Ds right now, boy is it a monster (and I love it in its own sweet way), but the 5D is big enough to get you into the press enclosure without being laughed out, and compact enough that you don’t end up looking like rambo.

The full frame sensor made my 70-200 IS f/2.8 L series lens a joy to use – a perfect zoom range for what I do. The 24-105 f/4.0 L IS lens I had on loan was a great walkabout lens, and ideal for shooting video (the image stabilisation a big plus).

I was stopped several times each day by people enquiring after the camera, “is that a Canon 5D Mark II?” Who knew there were so many camera geeks in the world! When I was shooting in New York a photographer brushed Julia to one side and started to ask questions about the video and image quality. It wasn’t so much Benjamin with a 5D Mark II, as the 5D Mark II with Benjamin. Anyway, my ego survived, and I got some great photographs to show for it.

There was just one thing holding me back from rushing out and buying one, and that was the lack of manual control in video mode. That’s now fixed in the latest firmware. Oh dear!

It is a big thing moving from photography to video, but the 5D II has really opened my eyes to the posibilities. Traditional handycams just left me cold, and there was no way I could justify spending 10,000′s on a pro-video set up. But with the 5D you really can get great footage from day 1, and without the need for post-processing – important to me, because that is one of the things that makes video production so time consuming, I’m shooting events live and can’t spend days editing before getting things uploaded.

Entering the world of the videographer means understanding pulling focus, if you want cinematic shots, and thinking about movement as well as framing. It’s a big jump, but a fun one. Using the 5D is a very different experience than running about with a miniDV camera, there’s more to think about, but it is also a very rewarding experience.

While I was at South by South West Interactive I spotted Tim Vetter across the floor. He was shooting vox pops using the 5D Mark II and his unusual home made rig caught my attention. Here’s an interview I did with him, shot on the 5D of course, and uploaded in Blip.TV:

And for reference here’s the same clip in Vimeo:

A Canon 5D Mark II Video Set Up from Benjamin Ellis on Vimeo.

To my eye the video looks a little better in Vimeo, but there again, lots of people have told me that Vimeo doesn’t play on their machines.

Tim’s obviously thought about his set up a lot, and his DIY rig gave me some food for thought. Personally I’m more than happy with the built-in sound (I have a sound engineering background and I’ve mostly been using an external stereo condenser mic from my studio). Using the 50mm lens and the 24-105 f/4 lens with image stabilisation got me very good results during the show, even shooting hand held (JetBlue managed to loose my monopod on route – the joys of international travel)!

Then I got to unboxing something very special…

This is what I’ll be using to photograph the Digital Mission to South by South West. A HUGE thank you to the folks at 1000Heads and Canon for getting this beast into my hands in time for the trip. Getting hold of an EOS 5D Mark II is like getting hold of gold dust, so I really am very grateful!

Initial impressions of the 5D Mark II? Well, the body. Very sturdy – and looks all the better for not having a pop-up flash (my 550EX flash will be coming along to Texas). Putting a lens on and firing it up took my breath away. I’m of the generation that started with a Digital SLR – I’ve never used 35mm film. So, forget the technical arguments about full frame cameras versus cropped frame for a minute, and imagine the difference between looking out at the world through a port-hole and looking out at it through French windows. That’s the best description I can think of.

Pretty much everyone who has seen the camera today has asked about it – even when I was on the train in to London. Lots of interesting conversations. I’m really pleased with the shots I got this afternoon – I’m looking forward to some good subjects. Anyway, I better go and get some clothes packed for this trip, or I’ll just be wearing the camera… In the meantime, here’s what one of my sons says about it (filmed on the 5D of course):

Nathan – on the 5D Mark II from Benjamin Ellis on Vimeo.

That’s shot handheld with an 85mm lens, and transcoded (recompressed) by Vimeo to host it… There will be much more in my flickr stream and the digital mission blog as the week goes on. South by South West here I come…