The snow has been falling in Vancouver, and that means its time to shoot urban! I took a break from shooting stills yesterday though to film for a couple of minutes with my 5DMKII to see just what sort of video you can get with fast moving subjects and panning. I think I have a lot to learn about video if i’m to put it to good use. As usual, pointing a camera at a snowy scene provides less than stellar results from autoexposure mechanisms. Snow is typically rendered 2/3 of a stop or more underexposed as the camera exposes it for a neutral grey instead of white. If you are shooting stills you can just shoot on manual but the video on the 5DMKII doesnt allow this so generous application fo the exposure compensation dial is in order, with hindsight i might have been a touch heavy handed with this example…. but I did learn something. The exposure compensation dial in movie mode seems to adjust the ISO setting and not the shutter speed or the aperture. I haven’t figured out if this is the same in all situations yet though. Click here to view the HD version.
5dMKII test from Dan Carr on Vimeo.
To me it looks like the shutter speed it picked for this shot was too slow? It was very dark , far far darker than this video would have you believe. The sun was long below the horizon. But I haven’t found a way yet to check what shutter speed was used after you have shot it. I think the results would have been far better in brighter light. Perhaps I will give it another try next week.
