My Canon 5D Mark II arrived three days before Christmas and I haven’t had as much time as I would like to put it through its paces. Shot some test video to try and learn the camera’s capabilities and shortcomings.  For someone used to shooting video with a standard videocam this will take some getting used to.

First impressions:

• Focus is a bit tricky with the camera’s live view function.  The quick focus feature is not all that quick, no compared to the focus on EOS pro bodies while shooting stills. I hadn’t played with Live View all that much on my 1D MKIII or 1Ds Mark III so this is a learning curve.
• Low light capability is incredible. In low light, the detail blows away my Sony V1U HDV camcorder, which shoots 1080p at 24, 25 and 30p.
• The H.264 Quicktime files produced by the 5DII will require some equipment upgrades on the editing in. My trusty Power Mac G5, duel 2.7ghz may need replacing even with 8gb of memory and 10TB of raid storage. I have to convert the footage to Apple’s Pro-Res 4.22 to edit the footage in Final Cut Pro.
• I was able to capture good quality sound using a wireless mike setup (Sony UWP-V6).

I’m hoping to spend most of today editing some of the video and will post some when I’m done.