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Sign of the Times

Apr 9, 2009 12:00 PM, By D.W. Leitner

A look at the Canon Realis WUX10, Canon EOS 5D Mark II, and other signposts on the road to low-cost innovation.

To explore these matters further, I got together with friend and fellow cinematographer Mark Forman, an active member of the New York Section of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and owner of the Forman HiDefinition Screening Room, one of the first professional HD review theaters in New York. Forman’s screening room still features an overhead Sony VPH-G90, a massive three-eyed CRT monster from the late ’90s. You’ll remember that CRT projectors, whatever their many flaws, produced the best blacks of any type of electronic projector, to this day.

Forman also happens to be an early adopter of Canon’s groundbreaking EOS 5D Mark II DSLR—which, as you probably already know, can capture 1080p at 30fps as H.264/MPEG-4 AVC at 38Mbps (variable bit rate), recorded as QuickTime .mov files to CompactFlash cards.

Forman has the distinction of having shot the first Canon 5D scene ever included in a theatrical feature film: Fox Searchlight’s Notorious (2009), a biopic on the life and death of rap star Notorious B.I.G. Otherwise filmed in Super 35 for release in a 2.40:1 aspect ratio, the film was in the final throes of editing when a last- minute request came to Forman to shoot a single nighttime shot of the lead actor entering a building. Forman had taken possession of his Canon 5D three days previously; nonetheless, the producers were thrilled with both the result and its low cost. No crew involved.

As in the case of the Realis WUX10 projector, the 5D Mark II embodies imperfection—at least as an HD acquisition tool. In HD mode, there is no control of ISO (camera sensitivity), which leads to runaway increases in gain and heavy noise in low-light subjects. (Iris and focus can be manually locked prior to recording, however.) The 3in. LCD at the back is close to standard-definition in resolution, yet there’s no peaking, making focusing a challenge.

And let’s face it, staring at the 5D’s fixed LCD screen at eye level means always shooting at eye level when hand-holding. That’s a serious limitation. (Older folks, bring your reading glasses.) There’s a reason film cameras and video camcorders have eyepieces and LCD panels that swivel.

The 5D Mark II made a big splash when it was introduced last fall because it couples a full-frame (24mmx36mm) 21.1-megapixel CMOS sensor with full HD 1920x1080 progressive capture for up to 12 minutes of AVCHD recording at a clip. Or 30 minutes of standard-def at 640x480. There’s also a built-in mono mic and a stereo mic input (no phantom power, however, and no headphone jack). With a comparatively inexpensive body ($2,700 retail) and access to more than 60 lenses in Canon’s advanced EF (Electro-Focus) series, visions of a cheaper, more flexible large-sensor alternative to the already cheap Red Digital Cinema Red One (body: $17,500) danced in the heads of many dreamers.

However, the Red One is in no danger here. It uses PL-mount motion-picture lenses in front of a Super 35-sized CMOS sensor to capture 4K compressed RAW files many times greater in pixel count than HD. As Canon 5Ds arrived in stores and the reality set in, Internet boards and chat rooms swelled with calls to add 24p (23.98p) and 25p; adjust 30fps to standard 29.97fps; alter the audio sample rate from 44.1kHz (a CD sample rate) to conventional 48kHz; add a headphone jack along with audio controls and an audio- level display; permit simultaneous use of LiveView and HDMI output for monitoring; permit toggling between LiveView and the optical viewfinder for focus checks prior to recording; and at the very least, enable full manual control of f/stop, shutter speed, and ISO during HD recording.

Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.
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