Canon T2i aka 550D for video

[montekay 0]

Anyone jumping the Canon T2i in video mode? If so how well does it work? Can you see any glitch in the video when taking stills?

thanks,
mk

[PhreeZone 15]

You can only run the camera in one mode at a time. You can either put it in video or stills mode but not both at the same time.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[keithm 0]

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Anyone jumping the Canon T2i in video mode? If so how well does it work? Can you see any glitch in the video when taking stills?

thanks,
mk

on the canon 7d , which is the more pricier version of the t2i, when recording hd video and you take a still , the video freezes for about 2 sec. i heard the t2i pauses for 1 sec, still not what were lookin for.....but if anyone has tried it and had sucess, let us know

[velocityphoto 0]

My 5d mark 2 does the same thing. Fantastic HD video, but loose frames when you take a still shot during video.

A friend will bail you out of jail , a REAL friend will be sitting next to you in the cell slapping your hand saying "DUDE THAT WAS AWSUM " ................

[Costyn 0]

Just today I've made my first video with my new 550D.

It works great for video in freefall. Mind you I'm not using an IS lens, so the image could still improve.

Check it out here.

And yes, you can take pictures while using video, but the video will pause for 1 second while the camera stores the picture.

Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

[DSE 3]

Looks very nice, Costyn.
Did you shoot this in 720p or 1080p? Couldn't tell from the vimeo.
There is a fragment of jelloing when the motion gets intense, but it looks great. I haven't rec'd my RRS mount for the 7D yet, so I'm not able to jump it without major mods. I have shot a lot of video with it, however.
Keeping the shutterspeed low helps a lot, so on the ground, TV vs AV is a good way to shoot when you can't control the exposure.

[Costyn 0]

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Looks very nice, Costyn.
Did you shoot this in 720p or 1080p? Couldn't tell from the vimeo.

I shot it at 1080p at 25fps. I'll try 720@50fps next time. Question about this: if I want to slo-mo footage during editing, is it better to have the absolute max frame rate or to adhere to the color scheme of the final video? Because in PAL mode I can only go up to 50fps but in NTSC you can set it to 60fps. The final video render would be in PAL as that's what we use here, so I was wondering about that...

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There is a fragment of jelloing when the motion gets intense, but it looks great.

When is that? I hadn't noticed any really, but then I wasn't really looking for it. Would a higher fps compensate?

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I haven't rec'd my RRS mount for the 7D yet, so I'm not able to jump it without major mods. I have shot a lot of video with it, however.
Keeping the shutterspeed low helps a lot, so on the ground, TV vs AV is a good way to shoot when you can't control the exposure.

In manual video mode I can adjust pretty much anything; is the low shutter speed so that I can keep a large aperture?

Cheers,

Costyn.

Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

[DSE 3]

Large aperture often means faster shutterspeed in lit areas unless you filter down (ND, etc).

nothing can completely compensate for the jelloing. Even the series "House" has it on their segments shot with the 5DMkII and 7D. Higher shutter speeds aggravate the problem.

As far as slo mo, the more frames you have, the greater your quality of slo mo shall be. 25p is hard to slow, 30p less hard, and 60p is very easy. If you're serious about slowmo, are are some terrific tools and techniques that will help you, depending on the app you're using. Some apps resample for interpolated frames (frames created to fill the gaps between slomo frames) and real frames, while others don't. Twixtor and other similar tools do a good job of figuring out the "in-between" frames when doing slo-mo.
Shorter answer is to shoot at the highest framerate and shutterspeed possible when planning on slo-mo. Problem is, higher shutter speeds aggravate jello. Somewhere in the middle is a balance. I haven't spent the time to find out if it's a consistent balance point or not.

[Costyn 0]

Ok, I think I get all that.
Cheers,

Costyn.

Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

[grayhghost 0]

Looks great! For the smoothest motion I set my shutter speed to a close interval of the frame rate. Since my 5D only does 30 & 24 fps, my shutter is at 1/30, 1/50 or 1/60. You will need to buy an ND Filter to hit this shutter speed in the daytime.

The iPad plays the Canon DSLR files really well if you want a larger screen to quickly review and check focus on the stuff you shot in the field.

[4dbill 0]

I was eyeing either 5D Mark II or 7D, and then somebody, including you guys on this forum, mentioned T2i. With streat price of 'only' $850, it seems like a bargain compared to its big brothers.
Seeing some of the sample HD videos on Vimeo, it seems indistinguishable from 7D video. It is smaller as well, which translates to less weight on the head.
Yes, it's considered to be a consumer grade vs prosumer, but what does that really mean? With digital technology advancing so fast, I would be happy to get 4 years out of it.
Thoughts?

4DBill
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[Costyn 0]

If you're going to be using it mostly for skydiving, a 550D is an obvious choice if you ask me. I'd rather have less weight on my head.

If you are mostly going to use it for other, ground based things, a 7D or 5D mark II is better if you have the choice.

Let us know what you decide. Be sure to do your research beforehand though!

Cheers,

Costyn.

Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

[BMFin 0]

Theres a 280 grams of difference which isnt that much at all.

Personally I wouldnt let this amount of weight difference influence my decision.

In skydiving use I regard the 7D as the best. Its much faster (8fps), it has 60p/24p video etc.. In normal use I would like the 5d better. In skydiving the 35mm sensor is a negative feature however.

Just get the body your budjet allows. IMO you need a budjet something like 2x price of the body. The worst option would be to use the whole budjet on the body alone.

[Costyn 0]

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Theres a 280 grams of difference which isnt that much at all.

Personally I wouldnt let this amount of weight difference influence my decision.

I didn't know the difference was that small. That's indeed negligible.

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In skydiving use I regard the 7D as the best. Its much faster (8fps), it has 60p/24p video etc.. In normal use I would like the 5d better. In skydiving the 35mm sensor is a negative feature however.

The 550D does 60fps too (at 720p). The nice thing about the 550D is you have the cheaper EF-S lenses, which don't fit on the larger bodies with the full frame sensors.

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Just get the body your budjet allows. IMO you need a budjet something like 2x price of the body. The worst option would be to use the whole budjet on the body alone.

Agreed, a good lens is really important. Having a awesome body with a crappy lens would be a shame.

Cheers

Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

[BMFin 0]

yes the 550 has 60fps video. 5D doesnt however..

7D is also APS-C just like the 550D. Actually EF-S lenses can be used on the 5D also. They just dont perform very well on FF. see here

Not just a good lens is important, but you need other lenses, flash equipment, a good PP software. And if you want to edit video, chances are you need a new computer too

[grayhghost 0]

If you do end up getting a Canon for video make sure to get Premier Pro. It will save you a lot of headaches.

[Costyn 0]

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yes the 550 has 60fps video. 5D doesnt however..

7D is also APS-C just like the 550D. Actually EF-S lenses can be used on the 5D also. They just dont perform very well on FF. see here

Ah, I didn't know about the 7D having APS-C. I guess I should do my research before blabbing about it here.
Heh, that guy taking his 10-22 apart... quite a brave man, considering it's a ±$700 lens.

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Not just a good lens is important, but you need other lenses, flash equipment, a good PP software. And if you want to edit video, chances are you need a new computer too

Yea HD video is a beast to edit. My old MacBook can't even play some of the footage from the camera, let alone edit it.

So yea to conclude: if you can afford it, the 7D is your best bet!

Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

[Costyn 0]

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If you do end up getting a Canon for video make sure to get Premier Pro. It will save you a lot of headaches.

I've been happily editing my Canon sourced footage on Sony Vegas 9. What software did you have headaches with?

Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

[DSE 3]

Grayghost uses Apple, which means support for the mpeg family is a hair above non-existent.

FWIW, I have the T2i, 40d, 7d, and 5dII.
Even tho the difference in weight is neglgible, I'll take the 40 or the 7 on rare occasion. T2i is for tandem video.
T2i has marginal video as does the 5d (I don't have the Magic Lantern installed on my 5D). The 7d is the current best of the video lot, IMO. T2i isn't bad at all either.

This video was shot with T2i and although jelloing was a small issue, editing did away with most of those problems.
It's AVC gang...it'll always be weak due to the compression. But...if you can cope with the compression hassles (and most should be able to), then you're gold.

[4dbill 0]

I was playing with friend's T2i. It writes *.mov file format, which Final Cut Pro reads directly without any conversion, unlike for CX100 and GoPro files, which require import/convert -- a huge pain in a rear.
Just B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!
Now if Canon can somehow figure out so we can take stills and video at the same time without interrupting video recording.. I have a good feeling this will happen within a couple of years.

4DBill
http://www.facebook.com/4dbill

[DSE 3]

yes, the file is a QT file that reads in a .mov package on an Apple system...but you still can't edit it at full rez/framerate without conversion.
Every app out there can read it natively now, but editing it is still not an easy task. For anything. With the Magic Lantern upgrade, you can get even better pix, but they're that much harder to decode.
Conversion (assuming you want full framerate) is another discussion.

BTW, the content coming off a GoPro is the same content coming from a Canon series cameras, just packaged differently.

[4dbill 0]

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Let us know what you decide. Be sure to do your research beforehand though!

I finally took a plunge and got myself a T2i. I had to sell my left arm and a leg for it though. :)
I am going to jump it tomorrow, but I got anxious trying it out before that, so here’s a little indoor footage under a controlled environment.
http://vimeo.com/12876737
I am very pleased with color saturation, sharpness and the “film like” look, especially for an "inexpensive" consumer camera.
I hope it performs well under the sunlight as well as the artificial one. I’ll post the results after I jump it.

4DBill

[Costyn 0]

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I finally took a plunge and got myself a T2i. I had to sell my left arm and a leg for it though. :)

Ah, so the more expensive 7D wasn't really an option?

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I am going to jump it tomorrow, but I got anxious trying it out before that, so here’s a little indoor footage under a controlled environment.
http://vimeo.com/12876737
I am very pleased with color saturation, sharpness and the “film like” look, especially for an "inexpensive" consumer camera.

Looks nice! What lens were you using?

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I hope it performs well under the sunlight as well as the artificial one. I’ll post the results after I jump it.

4DBill

McCordia and DSE have both commented that the footage when on full auto tends to be overexposed, with some bright areas being burnt (but they are both pro's, as an amateur I don't notice it myself). I've been trying to dial it in on manual, to get better results.

Cheers,

Costyn.

Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

[4dbill 0]

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I am going to jump it tomorrow, but I got anxious trying it out before that, so here’s a little indoor footage under a controlled environment.
http://vimeo.com/12876737
I am very pleased with color saturation, sharpness and the “film like” look, especially for an "inexpensive" consumer camera.

Looks nice! What lens were you using?

Costyn.

[4dbill 0]

Okay, it's my second week with the Canon T2i, purchased mainly for video work.
So far -- it's AWESOME!
Here's a footage from the 4th of July.
http://vimeo.com/13130234
The indoor footage was color corrected for mood effect, but the freefall footage was untouched. Since the sun was a little lower, the color seems to extract a bit more.
I am going to use a polarizer filter next time and see if it improves the contrast under the sun.

4DBill
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