5D Mark II

Have you seen the movie "Captain America: The First Avenger"? Released in theaters on July 22nd, it is the second major motion picture to film portions using a DSLR camera ("Iron Man 2" was the first). Jonathan Taylor, second unit director/director of photography on "Captain America: The First Avenger", chose Canon's EOS 5D Mark II Digital SLR to capture select point-of-view action shots in the film.

Why the 5D Mark II? The camera is smaller and lighter than a traditional motion picture camera, allowing Taylor to mount it on moving vehicles to capture dramatic action shots. The camera's size also made it "invisible" to the film cameras shooting the same scene from a distance. The action scenes in "Captain America: The First Avenger" in which Taylor used 5D Mark II cameras for POV shots include a car chase and crash, and a high-speed motorcycle pursuit.

"The challenge with a lot of action photography is getting the camera in the right position," Taylor noted. "I'm always looking to get the camera into impossible to reach places because those kinds of shots make action sequences much more exciting. Most 35mm motion-picture cameras and even the leading digital cinematography cameras are just too big to get into interesting positions."Read more

Videographers pay attention! The free firmware upgrade we told you about earlier this month for the Canon EOS 5D Mark II Digital SLR Camera is now available via the following link: http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/firm-e/eos5dmk2/firmware.html.

Firmware upgrade 2.0.3 adds video acquisition and changes the 30p video frame rate to 29.97 to comply with TV production standards. Shutter and aperture priority modes have also been added for movie shooting. Audio capability is enhanced for professional use too, adding manual audio level control, and the audio sampling frequency has been increased to 48KHz from 44.1KHz.

Get all the details by visiting the Canon website.

Canon announced that the firmware upgrade 2.0.3 for the EOS 5D Mark II Digital SLR Camera will be available in March of 2010. 2.0.3 enables 24p movie recording on the 5D Mark II. Also, the 30p video frame rate has been changed to 29.97 to comply with TV production standards, and the audio sampling frequency has been increased from 44.1KHz to 48KHz.

The free upgrade will also add a new histogram display while shooting movies and allow users to manually control sound recording levels. When shooting movies manually, the new histogram display facilitates monitoring, while Shutter-Priority AE mode (Tv) and Aperture-Priority (Av) mode provide flexible options when controlling exposure.

The firmware will be available to download from mid-March from the Canon website.

What camera company does NBC's Saturday Night Live turn to when they want to shoot a new opening title sequence? None other than Canon. The entire opening montage for the new season was shot using the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and the new EOS 7D digital SLR cameras.

For the opening, the director and crew wanted to capture characters that make up the New York City nightlife…and they wanted it to look as natural as possible. The EOS 5D Mark II and EOS 7D Digital SLR cameras were the answer, thanks to their low-light performance, small size, and amazing depth-of-field, which let the crew shoot without using big lighting gear. Another plus, the crew could easily shoot around the city without drawing a crowd.Read more