After getting my hands on a 5D mkii it took a while to figure out how to set it up properly so I decided to start documenting everything here as I learn. This is based on the 5D mkii, but should be applicable to the 1D mkiv and 7D.

Here’s some samples of the first day of testing, shot with the Canon 16-35mm L, and 180mm macro L (coffee shot). Neither are my lenses though I’ll be looking around for 2nd hand manual only primes over the next few weeks.

version history:

14 Feb 2010 (First version, 1 day after receiving camera!)

Shooting your first video

Switch the camera power switch all the way up to allow the use of the front dial.
Switch over to M (full manual) mode using the top left dial.
Press MENU and go to the 6th menu category and select Live View/Movie func. set. at the bottom. Choose Stills+movie, then Movie display.
Go back to the main menu, under the 7th category select Camera user setting, Register and choose one of the the C1 to 3 dials. Im using C3, this will become your goto movie switch with all the settings loaded.
Now switch your dial over to C3.
If you have a fancy Canon EF lens or whatever, switch off AF (auto focus). Using autofocus while shooting is a bad idea, it interrupts the video feed, its slow and won’t look pro.
Go into live view mode by pressing the button just left of the view finder.

To test shooting video just press the SET button in the middle of the front dial and again to stop recording.

Manual control while shooting video

First things first, you need at least version 1.1.0 firmware for manual control while shooting video.

Shutter speed – Use the dial at the shutter button to set it to 1/60 (because the 5D only shoots at 30fps at the moment, 1/60 will simulate 180degree film shutter motion blur the best. If you plan to retime your footage down to 25fps, shoot at 1/50)
Aperture – Using the thumb dial open the aperture up all the way. Obviously you can stop it down if you like, depending on what you are shooting etc.
ISO – Press the 3rd button on top just above your top LCD (ISO speed/flash). Use the dial at the shutter button to set it off A (auto). Anything above 1250 will become too noisy.

If your shooting outside you will probably struggle to get your image darker, welcome to video. When shooting stills you have the luxury of shooting at way faster shutter speeds than 1/50 or 1/60, but with video that will introduce stuttering footage. You will have to either stop down your aperture and loose that beautiful shallow depth of field, or attach neutral density filters to get the incoming light to a more manageable level.

Getting more dynamic range

By default your camera applies a sharpening and contrast effect to your jpg stills and video. This is very bad if you plan to grade the footage on a computer, you want to work on flat footage. To get flatter footage we use the picture styles presets. You can either start off on the Neutral preset and just tweak it, or you can upload a custom preset created in the Picture Style Editor software. It’s too early to tell which method or custom preset is the best way to do this yet.

Modifying the built in presets

Press the picture styles button just under the MENU button (If your in Live view the menus at a bit different, use both dials etc). Go to User Def. 1 and press INFO to edit it. Choose the Neutral preset, and then make sure sharpness and contrast are all the way down. Then move your saturation down 2 clicks as well. This will flatten the colours a bit, and help to keep more detail visible in our shadows and highlights.

Using a custom preset

Have a look at the Marvels Cine Gamma preset and the Cinema 5D picture styles preset thread. No point in repeating the content

Make sure to save all your settings again. Go back to the main menu, under the 7th category select Camera user setting, Register and choose one of the the C1 to 3 dials.

Results

You will probably have trouble playing the HD .mp4 file smoothly on any computer, you should pull it into FCP/Premier/Aftereffects or something similar to edit/grade/recompress it back out to something more manageable.

Useful links

Guides and specific posts (MUST READS): The DSLR Cinematography Guide , The 5D mkII Handbook of Facts

Blogs and forums: DV Info, Cinema5d, DVXuser

test one two three

Haven’t used my old 300D in ages. So when it got to getting the photos off the camera it refused to work on windows 7 (64bit RC in case that makes a difference). No Canon drivers available, everyone just saying “buy card reader”. No, you don’t need a card reader, they are nice and fast, but it is possible without one.

If your camera has a PTP mode this will probably work for you too.

How to get your photos off an old Canon camera with Windows 7:

On your camera set Communication to PTP in the menu.

Plug your camera’s data cable in and switch it on. Windows should try and install drivers, which failed in my case. If it works for you, be happy and on your way if not continue on with the next step.

Start > type in “cmd”
Right click on cmd application top of the list and select run as administrator.

Type in these two commands:

bcdedit.exe -set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS
bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON

No thats not a typo on the DDISABLE. Reboot your pc.

This disables driver blocking and allows the installation of unsigned drivers. Plug in your camera and switch it on. Windows should install the Picture Transfer Protocol drivers now, and you should be able to access the memory card just like a usb drive. Sadly the Canon control software wont work though.

Thought I’d start off with something general, yet technical. Gamma correction and linear workflow. This is going to be hard to hear ( if you don’t know what I’m talking about ) but you’ve been doing it wrong.

In the majority of 3d (and compositing) applications you render 1.0 gamma images by default. Some of the new ones like Modo corrects your renders to 2.2. Without correcting the raw 1.0 gamma image to 2.2 you end up with a darker than expected image.

So what do we do? We push up the intensities of our lights, resulting in blown out speculars and unrealistic falloff on our lights. That’s why many of us used to work around this by separating specular and diffuse lights, pushing up the ambient colour on our materials and rendering many separate passes to try and get a realistic result.

sponza model | left gamma 1.0 defaults | right gamma corrected to 2.2 | directional light for the sun, constant plane for the sky, final gather for bounced light rendered in mentalray xsi

In the second image you’ll notice there is more light in the shadow areas, giving the impression that the bounced light is traveling further and helping to illuminate the scene more. Obviously better than the left image.

Technical Explanation

Have a listen to the fxguide podcast on linear compositing (right click, save as), they do a much better job of explaining the reasons why gamma correction is off by default in most applications, and why you should switch it on.

But to summarize, when you do anything in post, compositing or 3d animation you want all your calculations to be on the raw data (gamma 1.0 linear), and correct the result for display (sRGB 2.2).

How to enable it in your software

Next I’ll show you how to apply linear workflow to various software packages.

Softimage XSI

To enable 2.2 gamma correction of your render viewport/region and shaderball/color inputs go to File > Preferences > Display > Color Management and tick the 4 boxes under Apply To… Be aware that behind the scenes you are still rendering the same you always have, this only applies a “correction filter” on screen.

Next you need to enable correction of texture images. This will remove the 2.2 gamma on images before using them to render, making them darker. If you don’t do this step your textures will appear too bright and washed out. Under Preferences > Rendering > Images tab change Color Profile to sRGB and check that Gamma is set to 2.2.

When you want to render out your scene you have a choice. Preferably you should render out the 1.0 gamma images in .exr format, leaving the Apply Display Gamma Correction UNTICKED.
Or if you want the comping workflow to be the same as before, tick the Apply Display Gamma Correction box in your Render Manager window. This will make your image sequence look the same as your render previews/regions, and you should be able to render out to whatever file format you prefer.

Houdini

In Houdini, Edit > Color Settings > Color Correction tick all the boxes and set Gamma to 2.2 and click Apply (and Save As Default if you wish)

Aftereffects

In Aftereffects go to File > Project Settings and change your Working Space to sRGB and tick Linearize Working Space. I prefer working in higher than 8bit when dealing with subtle gradients to avoid banding, but that is up to you.

Be aware that you might have to color correct your footage using the Effect > Utility > Color Profile Converter.

When rendering out remember to specify the output color profile to convert your linear result back into 2.2 or else it will look way too dark.  Add to render queue > Output module (where you choose your output file/compression format) > Color Management tab.

Coming soon: Maya (mental ray). In the mean time try out the gamma node in your shader network to correct incoming textures/colors and the mia_simple exposure node on your camera to correct your output.

References and links

sponza model by Marko Dabrovic – hdri.cgtechniques.com/~sponza/files/
fxguide podcast linear workflow – http://www.fxguide.com/fxpodcast.html