Canon 7D

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fraught
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Canon 7D

Post by fraught »

I've been lucky enough to get myself a Canon 7D. Had a play shooting some footage last night, but haven't got round to attempt any editing yet.

Does anyone have any tips for using HD footage?
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Stephen
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Re: Canon 7D

Post by Stephen »

Hiya Fraught..... 7D eh?..... very nice piece of kit !

having done 35mm with a humongous range of cameras for the last 30 years that particular camera will stand you in good stead my man !

not sure about using it for Video work mind .... Tom will be along soon to give us the low down on it !

I agree with what has been said in many other forums... the still image capability from it (with the right lens setup) is awesome but the ergonomics for video work not so good.

I've had a bash at the5D and found it excellent (for still work!)

happy shooting!
Stephen

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fraught
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Re: Canon 7D

Post by fraught »

Cheers Stephen. I'm more of a photographer these days than a videographer, and the move to the 7D seemed like a good choice especially since Canon seem to have basically reinvented themselves with it.

The issues with regards to using the 7D as a video camera i can see will annoy me, but you can buy rigs to allow you to hold and use the camera in a more appropriate way.
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Pqtrick
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Re: Canon 7D

Post by Pqtrick »

Yes Fraught, it does indeed look a great piece of kit. As a still camera it must excel. However, to use the final video output may pose some problems.

If there is any comparison technically which I highlighted in previous post marked 'Frame-rates'. You will undoubtedly get, as I did with my Panasonic Lumix camera, some excellent video images and you can achieve that much wanted effect where you can close focus on an object. But, the video format is 30fps and possibly a .MOV file which is the MAC format. You can look-see the images with most media viewers i.e. QuickTime for windows but converting and editing the media is another problem.

However, having a recent look on the Web at QuickTime PRO is there a possible solution here? QuickTime is almost standard on most computers for free. QuickTime PRO you have to pay for. But it states it will convert formats such as .MOV at 30fps to .AVI at 25fps. Does anyone know whether it is worth putting ones hand one pocket and buy this a solution to this problem?
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fraught
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Re: Canon 7D

Post by fraught »

The good thing with the 7D is that you can alter the frame rate of the recording. You have the option of shooting at either 24 or 25fps at the full 1080p HD resolution or at 50fps at a slightly lower resolution. So you can now perfect those perfectly smooth slow motion sequences. :)

I'm currently using Pinnacle Studio 14 Ultimate for my editing, so i just need to do some playing to make sure i'm happy with the results.
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Re: Canon 7D

Post by fraught »

Still having a few 'niggles' using the 7D's Output.

Using Pinnacle Studio 14 i can import the footage fine for editing, my only problem is that when i want to use the footage that was shot at 50fps, Studio will only play it back at 24fps, thus loosing the super slow motion look.

From surfing forums etc, it would appear my only choice in getting this to work is to buy Adobe Premiere. Surely that's not the answer?
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col lamb
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Re: Canon 7D

Post by col lamb »

I also have the 7D and it is brilliant.

To get the best out of it you need to tweak a few settings, see: -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKS_Y_nRmUk

http://www.vimeo.com/7622493

Both these videos help in getting the settings even better than out of the box.

Whilst on VIMEO do check out the HD videos and join the Canon 7D and 5D movie groups there you will see plenty of inspirational movies.

Enjoy

Col Lamb
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Col Lamb
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fraught
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Re: Canon 7D

Post by fraught »

Cheers Col... will give those a look.

What do you use to edit your footage, etc?
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Re: Canon 7D

Post by col lamb »

I use Edius Neo but a considerable number use a Mac and FCP.

As with most AVCHD video not many editing packages natively edit the MTS files, they have to be transcoded. If you do not transcode you need a very fast, high specified PC to play back the files without a stuttering timeline.

FCP uses a simple Log and Tranfer command and then the files are transcoded into Apples Intermediate Codec for easy editing.

Using Edius you can transcode using a supplied Canopus/Grass Valley HD converter and the files are then edited easier, my PC is a 3GHz duo with 6Gb RAM and it stutters when playing native mts files, render the sequence and it plays just fine. I find that just roughly editing the files and scrubbing the timeline works well enough, then I render and fine tune, simples!!!!!!

You literally can throw any format of video onto the Edius timeline and it will work seamlessly without crashing, eat your heart out Adobe
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fraught
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Re: Canon 7D

Post by fraught »

Thanks for that... i'll see if i can get a demo of that Edius.

Anyone know of a Free Transcoder i can use in the mean time?
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col lamb
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Re: Canon 7D

Post by col lamb »

I did find that I could keep Edius going for ages by doing the following: -

1 When you first load the demo of Edius make a note of the PC's date and time you started and shutdown the PC.

2 Next time you start the PC go into the BIOS and change the date and time to 1 minute after you last shutdown the last time

I kept the 30 day trial version of Edius going last year for 9 months on my editing PC before the paper with the dates and times on got lost.
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tom hardwick
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Re: Canon 7D

Post by tom hardwick »

I was chatting to Alan Robberts (who tests cameras for the BBC) yesterday. He was punching the air with excitement over Canon's decision to supply an optical filter to be used with their vDSLRs to counteract the ailiasing that's such a problem when you shoot movies with them.

tom.
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Re: Canon 7D

Post by daveswan »

Hi Tom, any idea when this will be available? And for what cams?
I've just bought a 550D to learn on, but I'm editing in Avid MC3, waiting for MC5.
SOP is to transcode to DNxHD which then plays and edits beautifully.
Cheers,
Dave
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fraught
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Re: Canon 7D

Post by fraught »

I've been chatting to a brilliant bunch of guys who are in the process of making a film called 'Harold's Going Stiff', which was all shot on the Canon 7D.

They used a great piece of kit called the Z-Finder (http://store.zacuto.com/Z-Finder-Jr.html) which helps when using the Canon for video rather than stills.

Check out the films website... http://www.stiffmovie.com/
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billyfromConsett
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Re: Canon 7D

Post by billyfromConsett »

Looks a pretty impressive project and a bunch of talented doods. The quality of their clip is about the best I've seen via the web.
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