Canon 5D Mark II tip sheet

I prepared this document ahead of the 2009 NPPA Multimedia Immersion program held in Las Vegas in June.

In it you will find tips and do’s and don’ts based on my experience with the Canon 5D Mark II. It is current with the most recent firmware upgrade, 1.1.0.

Included is:

Pros/Cons of the camera

Exposure control

Working with Audio

Focusing

Accessories

Shooting workflow

Final Cut Pro workflow and export settings

Photo Blogging 101

I gave a presentation on photo blogging at the NPPA Convergence 09 in Las Vegas in June. I am posting a pdf of that keynote here, along with a list of links and resources that I mentioned in the talk.

An outline of the presentation includes:

A discussion of what a photo blog is or can be.

Questions to ask yourself if you are thinking about a photo blog

CMS – Content Management Systems

Wordpress.com vs. Wordpress.org: Whats the diff?

Installing Wordpress

Finding good themes for photo blogs or photo portfolio sites, both free and premium

How you won’t make money, and how you can make money

Wordpress plugins, themes, SEO

Download the PDF

I refer to the following in the presentation:

Blogs/Sites:

project dateline
Jonathan Palmer
bellcoveclub
Scott Strazzante
heraldleaderphoto
mophojo
ishootiphone
Strobist
Noah Devereaux
Daniel Houghton
Denverpost.com: Captured
Boston.com: Big Picture
msnbc Photo Blog
Steve McCurry
Zach Brake

Other resources and themes:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/29/ultimate-guide-to-using-wordpress-for-a-portfolio/
http://www.wordpress.com
http://www.wordpress.org
http://www.blogger.com
Multimediashooter.com video tutorial on installing Wordpress

Free themes
http://webrevolutionary.com/sharpfolio/
http://redworks.sk/wp-themes/linquist/
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/monotone
http://demo.wordspop.com/fotofolio/
http://labs.paulicio.us/viewport/

Premium themes
http://frozr.com/photopro/
http://graphpaperpress.com/
http://www.studiopress.com

Testing the manual exposure controls for Canon 5D Mark II firmware update

Canon released a major firmware update 1.1.0 for the 5D Mark II on June 1, 2009, which will finally allow users to have manual exposure control while recording video.

I tested out the new controls and have found them to be easy to use and very functional. One interesting surprise is the increase in available shutter speeds. Previously, the camera limited shutter speeds from 1/30th to 1/125th. Now, shutter speeds up to 1/4000th can be used in manual exposure mode. It’s unclear where the shutter speeds will top out when in one of the automatic modes since you can’t see your exposure settings in those modes.

To use the manual exposure while recording video, you must have the camera set in Manual (hello Mr. Obvious). I use the top control dial to change the shutter speed and the rear control wheel to change my aperture. You can see your exposure changes on the LCD screen and you can see your shutter speed, aperture and ISO settings as well.

If you have your ISO set to AUTO, though, then the camera reverts back to a kind of automatic exposure setting even if you are in Manual exposure mode. What happens is this: if you are setting your aperture and shutter speed and you have ISO set to auto, then the camera automatically adjusts the ISO up and down to give you a correct exposure. This will not allow you to over- or under-expose your image until you max out the range of the ISO. And you won’t be able to use exposure compensation, either. So I would advise NOT using the ISO AUTO setting while in manual exposure mode – kind of defeats the purpose.

Here are some other tips I have found to be true with this firmware update:

• If you use the shutter or aperture priority modes, the camera will go into a modified auto exposure mode – you won’t really be giving priority to the shutter speed or aperture. It appears that it reverts to the old way of auto-exposing but it’s hard to verify that.
• If you set the ISO to “AUTO” and are in manual exposure mode, you can see the ISO numbers on the LCD by pressing the AE lock button (asterisk) or tapping the shutter button. By default, it appears that the display will show ISO AUTO until you press one of those buttons.
• When using manual exposure mode, AE lock and exposure compensation cannot be set (’cause, well, your manual settings are doing that for you).
• If you set the ISO to “AUTO” when shooting movies in manual exposure mode it is possible to set the aperture and shutter speed and the ISO will adjust for the exposure. So this amounts to having combo Aperture/Shutter Priority mode.
• When ISO is set to “AUTO” the range will be 100-6400 even if the ISO expansion is set.
• When manually setting the ISO and enabling ISO expansion range will include H1 (ISO 12800).
• Shutter speed range will be 1/30 – 1/4000 sec.  The faster the shutter speed the less smooth the subjects movement will appear to be.
• If “screen setting” is set to “stills display” or “exposure simulation” manual exposure for the movie mode will not be possible.

Tutorial: Using QuickTime to build your time lapse

Our first-ever video tutorial! We dubbed this one a tuTORYal in honor of our beloved voicer.

In this video, you’ll learn how to take your hundreds of still images and make a .mov time lapse out of them using QuickTime and the Image Sequence function.

You can see the result of this particular set of images below: