We have just polished off “Chalk”, a music video for the New-York based band, Aaron & Mordechai. This is what Vish, the DoP, had to say about the experience of shooting on the Canon EOS 5D Mark II:

Launched late 2008, the camera has a 35mm full frame digital censor, capable of shooting HD at 30 fps. Combined with the range of Canon EF lenses, this allows effects and depths of field beyond what is offered by traditional 35mm motion picture cameras because of the larger frame size.

The camera is not primarily designed to be a video capture device; it is definitely a stills camera with video as a bonus. The design of the camera is practically unchanged from its predecessor, the Canon 5D, which makes it a three year old design. So controls are not necessarily where you would want them and focusing is tricky, making focus pulling extremely difficult.

The viewfinder or screen is extremely high quality on the other hand and it is easy to see when something is in or out of focus, which does compensate for its difficulties. Live AF is effectively pointless as it relies on face contrast detection. In other words, the focus is correct when the highest contrast is achieved, which is not reliable auto-focusing so you are better off doing it manually. The technology may be in its infancy but the capture quality is surprisingly good and with decent lighting and a bit more practice, I believe it is well worth sticking with this camera to see what can be achieved.