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Busy times… but finally I’ve got some minutes to test the video capabilities of the Canon EOS 7D. My first impression: for sure – this isn’t for everyday use, but the quality is awesome. The one big point to understand is, that a DSLR isn’t a camcorder replacement. You can’t just grab it an make funny clips of your family, but that isn’t the purpose of such a camera. There is some kind of autofocus, but it sucks (as on the vast majority of Video-DSLRs). So you probably stick to focusing by hand. This is going to work, as long as there isn’t any movement involved. For that case, you have to practice your focusing skills a lot, or spend a ton of money for further equipment. That’s another big point: to shoot decent videos on your DSLR, you have to spend at least the price of the camera a second time for accessories. Most often you’re going to start with:
- a fast, stabilized(!!) lens (my 17-55 2.8 IS works like charm on the 7D, but my 70-200 4L only produces wobbly rubbish with a lot of jello effect)
- a steady tripod, because shooting handheld with a DSLR isn’t the way to go (check, my Gitzo should work)
- a fluid video head for your tripod (damn, just have a simple ball-head for stills)
- an adjustable ND filter to shoot wide open in bright daylight – because you’ll love the shallow depth-of-field (ok… just a ND8 here, but it’s ok for beginning)
- an external mic, in most cases from Rode (I tend to shoot without sound for now ;)
- an external audio recorder, because even with an external mic, you suffer the automatic gain control of the camera, which isn’t going to work. In most cases you end up with a Zoom H2, H4n, or something like that (on my wish list)
Another thing to keep in mind is, that the recorded video files are quite huge. 12 minutes of 1080p25 or 720p50 footage will fill up 4 GB with ease, so you will be glad to have some large and fast memory cards at hand (I’m starting with a 16 GB Sandisk Extreme UDMA 60 MB/s which works pretty well). To make some editing, you need a bit of computing power. A key to more performance is, to keep the footage not on your system hard drive. Because my work horse is a MacBook Pro, I keep them on an USB hard drive. For editing it’s best to convert the footage into a less processor consumptive format. While on a Mac and Final Cut Pro, Apple ProRes 422 is the way to go (or Apple Intermediate Codec, if you have Final Cut Express). BTW… this conversion blows up the file size 2-3 times.
As you can see, it isn’t that easy to shoot decent video on a DSLR – just technically, not to mention the creative part. But it’s worth it. The quality you get is not comparable with any consumer camcorder. So… for moving images THIS is the way to go.
Here are a view little test sequences with the 7D. My first steps in this new world – so be indulgent with me ;) Just to test the video function without any higher creative demand in mind (watch on vimeo for 720p glory).
