7Days

By all indications, the 7D begins shipping next week. Amazon is once again accepting pre-orders. I’ll let you know when I get mine!

Dublin's People

Two days ago I wrote of the Canon 7D that “there is no Reverie video to erase all doubts about its capabilities.” Philip Bloom has changed that with Dublin’s People.

Yes, it’s a camera test more than a short. You could even call it Bokake. But it looks freaking great and should be enough to convince folks that you can have your DOF cake and eat it too with an APS-C sensor, as long as you’re willing to invest in fast glass.

Philip did everything right, including sticking to a 180 degree shutter (1/50 at 24p and 1/100 at 50p) and thinking of the frame rates other than 24 fps as opportunities to overcrank for 24p playback.

I took the Canon 7d, Zacuto Tactical rig, Z-Finder V2 and one lone lens, a Canon 35mm f1.4, which becomes more like a 50mm lens on the 7d…

Image wise, it’s very similar to the 5dmkII. Sure it isn’t as sexy image wise, but it is pretty close. It is a tad less sensitive than the 5dmkII but only just. This is as expected due to the smaller sensor. Also I would say it is a little bit noisier image wise than the 5dmk2. But not too much.

For me the thing i love most about the camera is the different frame rates. I can shoot full HD 24p, 25p and of course 30p BUT really excitingly I can shoot 720p 50p and 60p which although when played back at normal speed locks horrible and video like to me it means you can easily tell your editing system to play it back at 24p or 25p or 30p and get a lovely in camera slow motion. I have missed slow motion since using the 5dmk2 so much.

More here.

Log in to Vimeo and download the 1080p24 original and watch it big. The 7D is gonna do just fine, flaws and all.

With the 7D You Might Just Be Forced to Use Your Filmmaking

In my announcement day post I made an argument in favor of the new Canon 7D, a camera I haven’t even seen or used, and for which there is no Reverie video to erase all doubts about its capabilities. For balance, here’s the real quick case against the 7D.

I said of the 5D Mark II that “Buttons and features and resolution charts just had their asses handed to them by sex appeal.” In other words, the video that comes out of the 5D Mark II can be so emotionally stimulating that we forgive its rather egregious shortcomings.

The 7D has many, but not all of the same shortcomings as the 5D Mark II. And while an APS-C sensor is lovely for filmmaking, in that it is so similar to a Super 35 film frame, another way of looking at the 7D sensor is that it is an adequate size for filmmaking, where the 5D’s is excessive.

The 5D Mark II’s excessive sensor size allows excessive sex appeal (in the form of shallow DOF). Enough, for some, to outweigh its downsides.

The 7D’s about-right sensor size means that its shortcomings, such as rolling shutter, poor resolution, excessive compression, and video-as-afterthought features and ergonomics, will stand out much more than they have with the 5D.

You can’t drench your 7D shots in sultry shallow DOF delight quite as easily as you can with the 5D.

So you might actually have to start doing some filmmaking.

The 5D has prompted a ton of “beauty reels,” but not many narrative films. I’m guilty of this too, calling my first 5D short a “camera test” to let myself off the hook for not telling a story. Maybe the 7D, with its more conservative sensor size, will make it less tempting to create another seven-minute boke-porn reel (bokake?), and remind people that audiences want to know what happens next, not what’s going to be marvelously out of focus in the background next.

Canon 7D

I wonder if someday, maybe when I climb both Mount Fuji and Yellow Mountain in the same week, I will understand how Canon names their SLR bodies.

Today Canon announced the EOS 7D. The name makes it sound like the 5D, but it is decidedly unlike it. It is vastly superior in every way, except in pixel count, and by a very significant difference in sensor size. The 7D is an APS-C body, with a crop factor of 1.6.

The main reason you’re reading about the 7D here is that it records HD video. Canon has done with the 7D what they either could not or would not do with the 5D Mark II: they have included a plethora of useful frame rates (revised, see update below).

• At 1920x1080: 23.976, 24, 29.97, 30
• At 1280x720: 50 and 59.94 (often called 60p)

Check, check, and check. That’s pretty much awesome. I mean, we can dream of 50 and 60 fps at 1080p, but in all fairness those frame rates are usually only found at 720p even on very high-end HD cameras.

Combining that with the same manual control that came at long last to the 5D Mark II, and you have a camera that addresses some of the biggest shortcomings of DSLR cinematography.

Some, but not all. Does the 7D skip lines to create its HD images? Seems so. Is the compression still aggressive and unfriendly to post? Probably. Rolling shutter Jell-O? Likely. And there’s still no video-friendly autofocus such as we find in the Panasonic GH1.

(I know that we classy filmmaking pros are supposed to hate on autofocus, but as I wrote in the DV Rebel’s Guide, the truth is that, for the crew-of-few, it’s a nice option to have. Especially when it’s smart enough to track faces, even specific faces. Focus pulling is hard. Focus pulling while operating a clumsy camera with no focus aides of any kind and a VistaVision-sized chip has had me secretly longing for video autofocus on my 5D Mark II. Focus pulling while swinging your SLR around on a Steadicam Merlin is actually impossible. So please forgive my pining for fingertip on-off smart-as-heck autofocus on my big-chip digital cinema camera.)

What’s missing from the 7D?

• Autofocus (see above).
• Focus-assist while recording, in the form of an edge-detection display overlay.
• Gentle compression (although it seems the 7D’s video bitrate might be a little higher than the 5D’s).
• Funky frame rates. Even Jackie Chan shoots his fight scenes at 22 fps. After a big lunch, he might call for 21 or even 20fps.
• Decoupling shooting frame rate from playback. I’ll probably shoot a ton of stuff at 60p for slow-mo, adding more fun to the workflow puzzle posed by these cameras that crash the video party without a SMPTE invite.
• Video ergonomics. The 7D lacks a flip-out LCD. They call it that because if the 7D had included one, I would have seriously flipped out. I’d like to lose the double chin.
• Quality. The 7D still skips lines to make its HD images, resulting in aliasing and color artifacts. And it still has rolling shutter issues.
• Recordable HD HDMI output.
• Full-frame.

Yeah, let’s talk about that last one. Yesterday, when the 7D’s specs were “translated” from Chinese into English by some sort of cruel, sadistic computer, many people, presumably 5D fans, called its APS-C sensor a “deal breaker.”

The 5D Mark II is the camera I want for shooting stills. How luxurious that it also shoots video, albeit with many limitations. I very publicly hoped Canon would shore up those shortcomings, and they did, some. It did occur to me though, when the Canon/Nikon DSLR arms race grew to encompass video, that my ideal stills rig may not always happen to be my perfect motion rig.

Ever since I treated myself to the original 5D, I’ve been hooked on full-frame. Or should I say re-hooked, as it was the 5D that made digital photography once again as rewarding as it had been with my 35mm Nikormat. I have no interest in a crop-sensor DSLR for shooting stills. But is APS-C an acceptable sensor-size for filmmaking? Ask any RED One owner. Or for that matter, any 35mm motion picture camera owner. APS-C is quite similar to the Super-35 imager size regarded as a holy grail in digital cinema.

APS-C is a perfectly awesome sensor size for filmmaking. The proof is… movies.

But it’s not that simple.

RED, Panavison, Arri, and others have optimized their cinema prime lens offerings for that Super 35 size. Canon’s range of big, expensive primes make sense on their big, expensive, full-frame cameras. Canon’s 24, 35, 50 primes become 38, 56, and 80 equivalencies, respectively. There’s a pricey 14mm that becomes a 22, but nothing between that and the 24(38)mm. To achieve a nice range of focal lengths for 7D filmmaking, you’ll have to use zooms. Since you have to work harder to achieve shallow depth of field, you’ll need expensive, fast-and-wide zooms. The optional kit lens will kill your DOF fetish faster than a $3500 1/4” JVC GY-HM100U. The 16–35mm f/2.8L will be a popular lens for filmmakers—it is to the 7D (roughly) what the beloved 24–70mm f/2.8L is to the 5D.

UPDATE: Several commenters have pointed out that the less-expensive, longer-ranged EF-S 17–55mm f/2.8 IS (27–88mm equivalent) might be an even better choice if you don’t care about compatability with a full-frame body. The 17–55 seems like a terrific lens, but I will stick to lenses that I can use for both video on the 7D and stills on my 5D Mark II.

The twice-as-vast area of the 5D Mark II’s sensor means more flexibility with more lenses, and more control over DOF. Yes, this includes the option to push it to a fetishistic extreme, but also the ability to achieve cinematic DOF with the slower stop of an affordable, flexible zoom lens. So Canon, if complaints about the 7D’s sensor size get annoying, you have no one to blame but yourself. It was you who hooked us on the glorious excess of affordable digital VistaVision filmmaking.

So now there’s a camera that, technically speaking, does everything better than my 5D Mark II. Better autofocus, more stills-per-second, better weather sealing, and better flash control.

But I don’t care. For stills, I’ll stick to my 5D Mark II. Eight-perf VistaVision, what stills folk think of as “full frame,” is the right sensor size for my kind of photography.

But APS-C, roughly the same as four-perf 35mm and what cinema folk consider full-frame, has been well-established as a wonderful size for filmmaking.

So you got me Canon. I’ll probably buy a 7D, and use it for nothing but video. I may have to switch up my lens shopping list, bumping up the 16–35 ahead of the 70–200. At least I can buy lenses that I can use with both my stills rig and my interchangeable lens, variable-frame-rate, Super 35(ish) sensor HD video camera.

That costs $1700.

And that’s the punch line: An interchangeable lens, variable-frame-rate, Super 35(ish) sensor HD video camera for $1700.

Canon, you’re gonna sell a bazillion of these. And you deserve to.

It’s tempting to project right past the 7D and imagine that maybe the rumored successor to the 1Ds line will capture all the new stills improvements of the 7D and combine them with a full-frame sensor. For a mere several thousand dollars you could have it all. Maybe. At some indeterminate time in the future.

Screw that. The 7D costs as much as a nice lens and it’s real.

If you can get your hands on one.

Do I still love my 5D Mark II? Absolutely.

Do I wish Canon would sprinkle it with magic 24p dust? Of course.

Is the 7D the perfect DV Rebel Camera? No. I still recommend a good, solid HD camcorder for filmmaking that doesn’t require fetishistic shallow depth of field. Which, FYI, is almost all filmmaking.

Has DSLR cinematography arrived?

Yes.

As of today (and barring any unforeseen surprises), the answer is yes.

Pre-order your 7D from Amazon now.

I sure did.

Update on Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 12:13PM by Stu

Chuck Westfall clarified the 7D’s frame rate options on the CML today:

The accurate video frame rates for the EOS 7D are stated correctly in the Canon USA press release: The 30p setting is actually 29.97 fps; 24p setting is actually 23.976 fps; and 25p setting is 25.00 fps. In the 720p and SD video modes, the accurate frame rates are as follows: The 50p setting is 50.00 fps and the 60p setting is 59.94 fps.

He’s right, the press release reads like this:

The EOS 7D Digital SLR camera will record Full HD at 1920 x 1080 pixels in selectable frame rates of 24p (23.976), 25p, or 30p (29.97); 720p HD recording at 50p or 60p (59.94) and SD video at frame rates of 50p or 60p (59.94).

I’ve revised my frame rate list above to match.