Tips and Tricks for the 5D MKII – Part I

December 5th, 2008 in Articles
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This will be the first of many tech tip posts on the 5D MKII and video in general – specifically aimed at still photographers making the jump to video.

First – I got my 5D MKII production camera yesterday(yep I had to wait ’til yesterday to get mine…:) and I also received a battery pack.  One small details that I didn’t know about (because I only use 1D EOS series cameras for the most part) is that you can use AA batteries in this pack – should you run out of the rechargeable ones… again – this is common with most of the Canon cameras outside of the 1D series – but many pros might not know this.   And given that the Canon 5D MKII batteries are hard to come by – I thought I’d share this simple tip.

The second tip that I picked up is that the WIFI base to this camera will allow you to trigger the camera’s video on and off remotely (when you’re connecting (pairing) your computer to the camera via WIFI.)   Most of your won’t care about this – but to others (ME) that’s a big deal.   Currently – if you have LiveView enabled and the camera in video mode – if you plug a pocket wizard or other device into the camera and trigger it – it will trigger a still frame – NOT the video.   And that’s a problem for some of the stuff I’m working on.  I also hear that the Canon IR trigger will also do this (start and stop the video function)- the more expensive and newer one that is – the LC-5.  UPDATE: THE LC-1 works as well.

That’s it for now. Time for some zzzzs.