[...] admin wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]

This is great news!

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After seeing the Video … I felt so glad I pre-ordered already. I think your right Vincent, this thing will be back-ordered for a year. Congrats on the Video btw.

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Hey Vincent, one nitpick: how can you say that your movie production is not a commercial venture? Are you not paid by Canon to be an ambassador of its products? And was the movie not hosted by Canon on its corporate web site to represent the capabilities of the camera it is currently marketing and selling? If so, how can the claim that the film isn’t a commercial venture be valid?

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Cool man. Again, can’t thank you enough for all you have done. Can’t wait to see the 1080 stretched across my 15″ macbook…I am going to have to watch it at work to see it in all its glory!

Cheers

PS…
I ordered a 45mm TS Lens recently, and after seeing your film, I am glad I did! Cool to see it used. I am excited about what I am going to be able to do with it.

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@Jake
I hope this camera isn’t sold out for a year! I only pre-ordered on Monday!

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I too hope there isn’t a huge backlog. Anyone have any recommendations for where to pre-order to get the best response? B&H?

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[...] Vincent Laforet wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe bclips/b should be more than sufficient in allowing everyone to see for themselves - that the bvideo/b that comes out (raw) from the camera - is stunning. I’ll have more to share about this project - and upcoming projects within the next b…/b [...]

500mb isn’t that big of deal. Internet pirates will each frequently download 1GB> from rapidshare.com on a daily basis.

http://www.digitaljuice.com/ => not brilliant but it’s fine

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[...] Vincent Laforet wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptDue to pretty incredible demand and a fair amount of (healthy) skepticism as to whether or not the footage in the “Reverie” piece is “truly” raw out of the camera, we will be releasing a series of raw bclips/b - the exact same bclips/b that b…/b [...]

I actually went on iTunes after I watched the clip to BUY Extreme Ways…

So Revere, my not have (yet) sold me a 5DMKII, but it has sold some music.

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Vincent. I really appreciate sharing you great work here.

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I see you edited the footage with FCP. Can it be edited with Vegas Pro 8.0 and Premiere CS3/4? thanks, Roger

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your art + moby’s art = heaven.

thanks for all your hard work. the piece is brilliant!

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excellent bit of video you have produced here. I keep watching it over and over stunned at the quality of the image. it’s hard not to think of all the fun videos i could shoot in my travels around the world.

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One of the important caveats (and what my lawyer told me) is that at no time can anyone download the film - and more to the point his music - to their hard drives

That doesn’t really make sense. The video on the Canon site is downloaded to your hard drive as you play it. After watching, quicktime lets you right click on the video, choose “Save as Source”, and you have a copy sitting wherever you like.

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Thanks for sharing - I can’t wait to see more. Moby’s work is great. For future projects you may want to consider Nine Inch Nails’ fantastic instrumental “Ghosts”. It was released under a Creative Commons License. Trent Reznor’s amazing soundscapes would pair beautifully with your art.
http://ghosts.nin.com/

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Outstanding!

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Hey Vincent, Im a NJ Photographer/Filmmaker and just happen to come upon your site while researching the 5D M2 specifically for its Video functions. Luckily I found this site the day after you released the film, so I had no waiting to do! The film is stunning, the quality amazing and you are right about the music it’s perfect.

I can’t wait to get my hands on this camera!

Thanks for your effort!

LS

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Vincent,

I have admired your work for many years and never had a chance to talk to you. No matter what anybody else said and will say I think you pulled off quite a miracle there in just 3 days. You certainly showed the best technical qualities of this camera, dealing gracefully with the technological issues caused by the “rolling shutter”. My congratulations go to you and your friends for the outstanding images that you have created to show off the low-light incredible qualities of this camera.
I won’t ever forget that full figure shot on the cobblestone in Brooklyn with the model staring away from the camera and that soft yellow light… just outstanding.

As a side note, for the future, there are a lot of great musicians that play and arrange CC (Creative Common) music on ccmixter.org - think really good music perfect for projects like this one (it would also have helped some less famous artist to get his / her own 15 mins of fame - something to keep in mind for the future).

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Vincent: I really liked your statement above on your relationship with Canon. You should turn that into a blog post, it’s well thought out and written.

Can you tell us a bit more about which album that great Moby track came from? Song name? I’d like to buy the song/album but I’d like to know where to look.

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great video. using the modelling lights on the profoto was genius. shows amazing lowlight capability of the camera.

Any news whether Canon will let 5Dmk2 record at 24/25p? The quality is there, not just for indies, but even for pro corporation or broadcast as B camera. PAL NEEDS 24/25p, 30p makes it a nightmare.
Canon could sell a million units to the video crowd alone if only it can do 24/25/29.97 fps and shutter+aperture+ISO can be manually set and locked.

The petitions are in the thousands already in all video forums!

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Vincent, either you’re in another time zone or you’re up late like me. Thanks man, appreciated. On to ITMS!

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This is impressive work, especially done over such a short period of time with brand new equipment. Thank you for sharing it with us!

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Ah, Horse and Carrot was what I was after, thanks mate. Let’s see if this url works here… Feel free to edit this if it doesn’t.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=3874874&id=3874882&s=143441

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Hooray, Canon is listening to us (you)!

Thanks for putting so much effort into this, Vincent.

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everybody will be able to produce a video music for mtv now with this camera…my little brother will become a star soon ^_^ endless possibilities.

have one question: what’s the estimated life span of this camera if i use it mainly for video.

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Vincent,
clear statement. Could you please scream to Canon: Firmware update so as to be able to switch to 24p, 25p, and, if that is not too much to ask, maybe 60i? And to control exposure duration?

It is because, no 5D II whatever film would look nice on european broadcast

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The game has changed…stunning video…I’ve been wondering around dazed since the D90, now this…is this the beginning of the end for single shots? In 5 years will we be rolling video at a portriat session and pulling stills from the video to make high res prints from? Will the portrait of the kids on the wall be a repeating 5 minute video in tack sharp detail? Is there something magical about stills? Have I bought my last strobe? Leave me print, paper and frozen detail, get out of my site!…fill the the river with HD, blog and videoSTILL, I’m jumping!

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Vincent, that ROCKED! DO IT AGAIN MAN! Your stills work has always been a great inspiration but seeing you bring your T&S lens to video is way cool. And, the helicopter!, what a Laforet touch!

Honestly man, keep it up. I think you’ve found another outlet for that creative eye of yours. Looking forward to seeing what else you come up with in the future with this new body.

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Vincent,
To be able to use the camera for pro applications beyond the web and wedding/corporate fields the following must be known:
1) Is the codec 4:2:2 in chroma coding?
2) Are any other than 30fps frame rates available?

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Keep up the great work Vincent. I know that I appreciate it because I respect your opinion and what you think.

Cheers.

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Hi Vincent, French director currently based in San Francisco here.

First off, kudos, especially if this is your first time dealing with moving pictures ! Fantastic work, just as you had claimed, the picture quality is amazing.

Now that you are in a position to give feedback to Canon and actually get listened to, can you please, pretty please, lobby for a true 24P mode (with no pulldown issues)? The only (and I do mean only) thing that is problematic with the footage, for me, is the “video-like” framerate. If that got taken care of, it would be almost impossible to tell the footage had been shot on the 5D MkII and not, say, anything RED (at 1080P, of course). Another advantage of a “film-like” framerate would be either an even lower compression for the same bitrate or alternatively, smaller files with the same compression level. Not to forget even better low-light performance…

I can only assume it’s been serendipitous for me to find your blog at this very time: reading about the 5D MkII and looking at the first samples in the past weeks, I was starting to wonder if shooting my next music video (for a groundbreaking band that shall not be name here) with it would be possible, and if it was, what that would entail. Now I’m even more inclined to believe it would be possible, and actually bringing some sizeable advantages. As a parting note, if it is ever possible for you to connect me with the right people to talk to about that at Canon USA, I’d be forever grateful !

Once more: astounding quality, and fantastic job. Lots of kudos to you and those who helped you putting this together !

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I agree with Peter. Canon has to make 24p or 25p support.
This is a huge issue for professional photographers i Europe, and it would definately affect the sales numbers very negatively if they choose not to implement it.

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Truly amazing work, and an even greater work ethic!
There’s not enough thanks for you AND your team on this effort!

Aloha!

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the pictures look great, but to be a useable camera it’ll need to have some sort of audio input with individually controllable levels for each channel.

there’s not much point giving this camera to a PJ if he’s going to have to get a soundman to caputre the audio and stitch it together later.

other concerns are over the audio compression codec. the majority of HD cameras recording to a harddrive or DF drive horribly compress the audio to make space for the HD pictures. is this any different?

i hope so. sound if often overlooked but make or breaks a journalistic or creative piece. IMHO.

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@nicktheguitar

Appearantly it records PCM Wav. So no compression there. It shouldn’t be an issue.

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I didn’t know that Moby’s website. Thank you very much for it, I just joined there.

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My goodness Vincent, you are not only one of the most talented photographers I’ve ever seen or met you are one of the hardest working. I’d love to see you do a blog on how hard it is to be a photographer and what I mean by that is not how hard the market it, but how hard you have to work at your art. Can’t wait to see the clip.
Best.

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Vincent, you are an inspiration!

I have pre-ordered an EOS 5D MKII Body Only from Jessops (UK) who tell me it will be available early Oct, but I’m not holding my breath!

This is my first DSLR and at the moment will probably only be able to afford one lens. I will mainly take Landscape or Panoramic shots with some telephoto of Wildlife / Family. I see that the majority of your lenses are L-Series f/2.8 and that made me wonder what I should purchase.

ADVICE PLEASE:
I will probably be mostly hand-held to start with so was considering the EF 24-105mm f/4.0 L IS USM as a good all round general-purpose lens. But I wonder whether I should actually opt for the EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM, sacrificing some Focal Length and Image Stabilization but gaining the Speed and the ‘apparently’ better Quality Optics or opt for the EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM sacrificing some Field of View but gaining the Speed, IS and the ‘apparently’ better Quality Optics.

I would greatly appreciate any advice.

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the first thing I noticed was the 30p frame rate. CANON! Please add the 24p, that would mean alot to alot of filmmakers! PLEASSSEE!

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Vincent,

Awesome movie!
Were you able to manually set the ISO and aperture or did the camera automatically do that part?

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Vincent, be honest. The reason you sprung $2,000 for the helicopter was because you wanted a reason to hop in a helicopter and fly around over NYC. I know that would have been my reason.

I can’t get over how many people are nitpicking this video for things that really were not your intent. But there will always be skeptics out there.

I am also very happy to hear that you/they will be offering up the full resolution clips to download. Will it be all of clips, so that we can piece it all together and see the whole thing in it’s full 1080p glory?

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Vince, As a working photojournalist I can fully appreciate what you have done and the amount of work that went into it. Showing us the 5D MKll’s video capability is something that we would not normally see in a venue like this. Well done and thanks again for all the hard work. Here I sit with my Canon HF100 for newspaper web video wondering when it will become obsolete (next week?).

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Thanks Vincent for the excellent work. Moby’s music is perfect for this stunning venture. I wonder if the music was created for this film specifically or is it commercially available?
Thanks

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Vincent, thanks for the video, the effort put forth, and your enthusiasm for the art of photography.

Question, so how is the still photograph side of this camera? Did you get to use it to take some still shots? Is the still side just as exciting of an upgrade than the video? I can read reviews from other sites, but knowing your exuberance for new technology, and also being one of my favorite photographers on earth, your review of this camera on the still side would be greatly appreciated by me and many others.

Thanks again, and thanks for the inspiration to go out and shoot every time I see one of your photographs!

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I also just want to stress out how important 24p and 25p is. So if this camera really wants to be a game-changer please include variable frame rates.

Please let Canon know about this. For more information read on prolost: http://prolost.blogspot.com/2008/09/my-letter-to-canon.html

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hi vincent,

is IS working during filming.
was IS designed to work for long period…will it support the stress for film shooting?

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On the issue of 24p: I am wondering why Canon chose 1080p30 as the “Broadcast Standard” On its face it makes little sense. Why not offer 25p/24p/30p right out of the box? It occurred to be their might be a technical issue or an internal to Canon Political/business issue with the Video Division. The technical issue I considered is that while 24p would reduce storage 20% and give the shooter a bit more exposure headroom. Interframe Compression becomes more difficult. Particularly with fast camera movement. If this is the case, that means you have to lean on the processor much more to compress the changes from iFrame through the GOP (And how long is their GOP?) If this is the case the processor simply may not be able to handle the additional load.

The internal issues at Canon would be a business concern that a $2700 Super high quality video/digital film camera might destroy their high end video camera division.

For my own work I have always hoped that canon would create a digital film camera that would allow you to use their robust assortment of lenses. But the adaptor on the XL line just never produced good quality and most lens functions were not available.

Now the question is will Canon be the company that breaks the mold before Red. Either Tuning the 5DMkII so that it becomes a 24p HQHD Dream Machine or Maybe develop a Camera body specifically for it using EF lenses? Or will they get tied up in knots again.

I am ready to Sell off my HVX gear, lenses and all… the minute 24p is announced. - Canon take that to the bank.

BTW - Vincent your work on this project is a great public service to the creative community you are a member of. Thank you.

And I like the little joke… Girl in the Scarlet dress… ha!.

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Hi Vincent -

I’m not one of the skeptics (and I’m ecstatic that the 5D MK II is so good in so many ways), but I *am* one who would love to see the enormous 500 meg files you say you’re not budging on

Seriously, if you seed it through BitTorrent just *once*, the file spreads in a peer-to-peer way that avoids all server and bandwidth charges. As long as Canon is okay with you sharing the full file(s), BitTorrent is harmless and free (literally) for everyone.

Anyway, regardless, thanks for the video!

Dave
http://www.seinberg.net

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Vicent: What I’m greatly concerned about is the limiting AUTO exposure that is only available in the movie mode. Have you shot any videos in day light? I would assume it would be EXTREMELY difficult to maintain low ISO(to limit light) and wide open aperture(for creamy bokeh). Sure, you locking the exposure and compensating will only allow you to over and under expose from the baseline exposure, not a way to creatively select camera settings.

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After seeing your video, I can’t wait to get one of these in my hands!!!! And I’m not even a photographer yet… LOL! Bob can teach me though. Awesome work Vincent!!! You inspire so many, especially us! ~ Dawn & Bob Davis

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I suspect this camera will work less well in good light. Since you can’t select aperture and ISO manually, the auto exposure will force the camera to a small aperture which will result in large DOF, and the result is what you’d get out of basically any HD camcorders out there, not the dramatic shallow DOF that we see in Vincent’s video.

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Vincent,
By raw footage I understand it means it has had no post production. As shot and not that the original capture was in RAW format.
Also it is one of my doubts: The EOS 5D MKII can capture video using the RAW data from the sensor or it only records data after it has passed the internal camera pipeline?

Thank you very much and congratulation for the video

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To Yang:

well you can use ND filters to prevent that so that the camera selects a larger aperture.

But why can’t we manually select aperture and ISO? that would be the best thing… so no one can complain!

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Based on your article you shot this entire project in video mode? Correct? If that’s the case, doesn’t that move you from a “still photographer” to a “videographer”?

I’m trying to understand how this camera, other than the 21MP sensor and full-frame capability could apply to a wedding and event photographer. It sounds like the video mode allows you to take stills at the same time? At a wedding, would I have 2 of these cameras and shoot stills while I have another PHOTOGRAPHER shooting video?

It definitely sounds like a “game changer” and I’m looking forward to the next revolution in the digital world.

Thanks for the great review and article and I look forward to hearing back from you.

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Thanks for sharing the video and your thoughts on this great looking camera. I can’t seem to find any specs regarding how it handles audio though. What was your take on the quality of the sound? Is it capable of handling an external mic?

Thanks again for sharing.

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Did you know Canon uses your video at their booth on Photokina? It looked great!

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to nic: How do you know the camera won’t reduce the shutter or increase the ISO when you attach an ND filter? The fact is, everything is AUTO. You can lock AE down after the exposure is acquired but you have no control of how the camera acquires the exposure. It could change shutter, ISO, or aperture or a combination of all 3. Sigh…

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For those who continue to ask:

- The GOP is one I-frame for each 15 P-frame. No B-frames (and that’s a pretty good setting, because B-frames are good for compression, but bad for quality).

- The profile used for the H.264 codec is MP@L5 (Main Profile @ Level 5).

- Because it is the Main Profile, the chroma subsampling can only be 4:2:0 (the 4:2:2 chroma subsampling is only available in the High 4:2:2 and High 4:4:4 Predictive profiles).

- The video recording bitrate is ~40 Mb/s.

- 1920×1080p@30fps 8 Bit, square pixel 1:1.

- The audio recording bitrate is ~1.5 Mb/s LPCM Stereo 2.0 16 Bit 44.100 KHz (no compression, input jack 3.5mm stereo).

- The video and audio streams are stored in a .MOV container.

I have a request for Canon, 24p and 25p of course, but what about intermediate framerates like one frame every second, or less: one frame every 5 or 10 second, that will be a fantastic setting for the ones who love doing accurate time-lapse like me, without the use of the mechanical shutter.

Today, to make 4K time-lapse with the mechanical shutter on my 5D, means taking sometimes 20000 photos in the day !!! It damages the mechanical shutter much faster.
Now that the 5D Mark II makes video, if we could select the framerate from a wide choice, we could make 1080p time-lapse using only the new electronic shutter, without damages it.

Vincent, could you send this request to Canon please ?

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Hi Vincent,

Is the twelve mn limitation. Can i shot again in 1080p with a second CF ready or do i need to wait some mn and how many time ?
http://www.cineform.com/products/CineFormRecorder.htm

I’m sure the next “toy” from Cineform (An HDMI portable Recorder for 2000 $ will be a good friend for these Canon D5. Are you agree with me ?

Thanks a lot !

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I’m very glad to hear that Canon is aware of the limitation issue of being restricted to 30 fps. I am rather surprised that the UK model looks like it won’t have the PAL resolution of 25 fps, given that their range of camcorders are tailored to NTSC or PAL markets. I sincerely hope that they address this, as your lovely short shows great potential for this DSLR.

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“I would love nothing more than to allow this video to show up on everyone’s iPhone and AppleTV - it’s on my iPhone and AppleTv… but I am not in a position to decide that for Moby and his music. End of story.”

Why not get Canon to pay for the Moby rights then you get to distribute the vid, they get promotion and we get to keep it. win win

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also just have to say - congratulations on being part of what looks like becoming a turning point in film/still history - amazing!

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Vincent, great take on the business of photography and the risks you took to do this project. You are right on when it comes to demanding to get paid for work provided. As the means to produce work decrease, more people enter the “market.” Competition increases, which is good, but when people start giving away work just to be published (or to give speeches or whatever), bad things happen. Expectations good awry and worth evaporates. This is as true of photography as it is of writing or music. We all dream of making a living at what we like to do. Thank you for holding the line, and stating it so eloquently.

And thanks for having the courage to do such breath-taking work.

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The other thing about the film is that it has made me want to hop on a flight to New York so that I can take a helicopter flight around the city. The city looks absolutely amazing!

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I think that the fact that you have no control over the aperture is the biggest disappointment. Video quality is amazing though.

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Vincent-
I know (and trust your word) that you set out to do this as an independent project without funding from Canon, but I sure hope they are taking care of you with some kickbacks after the fact, especially since this has clearly taken up a HUGE portion of your time for the past few weeks. If I were them you would already have a free 5dmkII in your hands to keep, and you’d be the first person to get a preproduction 1dsmkIV! (Are you listening Canon?

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If the codec sampling is really 4:2:0 it’s even a bigger problem thaan 30fps. 30fps is more information than 24/25 fps. Chroma from 4:2:0 is even worse for postproduction than 4:1:1. It is half of the TV minimum or 4:2:0 and a quarter of film industry 4:4:4. Little color correction is possible and very poor FX. Industrial codec dor industrial applications.

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Sorry for mistake: should be “TV minimum of 4:2:2″

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Man oh man. Anytime something big happens there will always be smart asses out there taking it apart and criticizing it. There are always those that say “it’s fake” or “you’re a fraud” as soon as you do something for the greater good.
Yeah, Vincent is paid by Canon or promoted by him or whatever, and you know, even if this was some viral advertisement and in fact NOT done for free - who cares? Really? The fact is, a quarter million visits later and this camera is generating more hype than the upcoming election down in the states. =)
I don’t know what people expect honestly, it’s a camera. it does motion. yahoo, yes it’s amazing, and in six months we’ll all be wanting the next best thing out there.

i don’t know..i think everyone who is complaining, not believing or just being an idiot with their comments need to step back and look at the rest of the world for a minute.

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Así graba en vídeo HD la Canon Eos 5D Mark II…

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