DP | @ekhoophotography

Merry Christmas 2009 Everyone!

Here's my little video of us setting up our Christmas tree in our humble little home. For those a bit technical, it was shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with a 24mm f/2.8 lens. The little bit of video at the end was with my makeshift glidetrack, EOS-5D Mark II and 50mm f/1.8 lens. The assembled video was Graded with MagicBullet Looks and Colorista.

"What? He's doing video also now?"

That's what my brother-in-law said when he found out I was attending a video workshop. Funny but that's where I was on a Sunday morning. In fact, the workshop ran on till past 7pm! We had a blast.

Why would a stills photographer attend a video workshop? Well, my DSLR has been called a VDSLR but I like what Vincent Laforet calls it, a HDDSLR -- a SLR that shoots HD video. It's also a world apart when working with stills and video. It's not easy but it's something that requires a different kind of planning, approach and all that stuff.

While I'm not sure if I'll be producing a lot of movies, I do believe that no learning is wasted and that if you only stop learning when you die. So, even from the stills photography side of things, movie-making does give you a few ideas and a cinematic approach is not a bad thing to add to your array of styles or ideas.

It was fun to see how things are done in the movies and learn some interesting camera tricks as well. There was basically an overload of information and I think it would be best done as a 2-day workshop as the video project takes time to work out, and do. Also, movie-making isn't a solo endeavor so teaming up is a good approach but time is a biggest factor here. That said, the entire workshop taught me a lot of things, not to mention that if you want a cinema look, try not to use the zoom! That's pretty easy... zooming on a HDDSLR is not the easiest thing to do.

Sorry bout the some of the photos below... I was using my iPhone as the class pace was fast and loaded, making it difficult to reach for the HDDSLR and take notes at the same time! The only thing I wish there was more off would be more examples and sample videos but this is an intro workshop so can't go into such depth. Time to save up for my Redrock Micro video DSLR rig and the Intermediate Video workshop

A fun thing would be to have a Collision Conference or Re:Frame right here in Malaysia.

By the way, I'll post our end result once I get the final copy from Karan.

Canon has released a firmware update for the EOS 5D Mark II that enables manual control of ISO, aperture and shutter speed while the camera is set to capture video. Firmware v1.1.0 also disables the depth of field preview button when playing back photos or accessing the on-screen menus and corrects various bugs.

More information on firmware v1.10, as well as links to download it, are here. Two PDFs describe how to use the new features: English/French/Spanish or Japanese/English/Chinese.

Fully pumped up (and out due to having a bad night yesterday and catching very little sleep) about the shoot tomorrow! Yes!! Looks like I need to figure out the video mode in a jiffy... 8Gb Sandisk Extreme IV cards standing by!

Time to head over to have a lip-smacking dim-sum breakfast, pick-up a new camera body and settle-in a roast goose dinner before the flight home? Crazy? Ambitious? I don't know yet as Canon Malaysia hasn't announced anything about availability here. Echo Photo & Audio has a nice price... let's hope Canon Malaysia doesn't disappoint otherwise, it'll be another Canon gastronomical adventure in HK. In case you didn't know, I got my EOS-40D in HK last year. The 5D Mark II sells at HK$19,500... it's about RM9,000. A full RM4,000 less than what the 5D launched at three years back!

Thanks Roland for the head's up!

Canon has made available three full resolution (1080p) video files available for download. The video was shot by Vincent Laforet. Go over here to drop Canon a comment that we also need 24 and 25 fps instead of just the 30fps. I'm drooling all over my keyboard! These video files are huge. So far, no stutter or dropped frames. I'm playing them on a Quad-core CPU machine with 4Gb RAM.

� Laforet Visuals Inc - blog.vincentlaforet.com

From Vincent Laforet's Blog entry on the 5D Mark II... Looks like I might have to pre-order one to get it!

I had it in my hands for less than 72 hours before I had to send it back - but the time I did have with a prototype of the Canon EOS 5D MKII will possibly change the path of my career as well as the photography industry to some degree.

I shot one still with a 400mm 2.8 of a silhouette of a woman�. a beautiful woman - a model - and you could literally count the hairs on her face in a full head profile� at 3200 ASA -with close to ZERO noise� this camera is STUNNING - I�m not throwing around expletives needlessly here�