I’ve recently had two additions to my family. First is the recent birth of my second child, a beautiful baby girl. Second, and I’m still waiting for the UPS stork, is my recent purchase of the Canon EOS T1i.
I decided to blog about my experience as a videographerr with the T1i because there seemed to be a lack of professional videographers reviewing this camera. I found plenty of still photographers willing to give there opinion as well as show off their shaky hand held footage. I appreciate all the input I can get, however, these reviews were probably as helpful as a review by me of a pro-DSLR.
I’ve been looking for a second HD camera for some time now and surprised even myself when I decided to buy the T1i to fill the need. There were several factors leading to this decision, but I must admit that price helped make it an easy decision. Considering the cheapest (errr least expensive) HD video camera I was even considering was the Panasonic AG-HMC70 (worth a look event videographers) at almost three times the price, I definately decided take a closer look at the T1i. The other non-financial reason for my decision was artistic freedom. The larger sensor, interchangeable lenses and relatively small size, closed the deal.
Since I don’t have the camera yet, this first entry will be a list of what I believe, according to my research, to be the pros and cons of the T1i as used for videography. Currently I use my Canon XH-A1 HDV camcorder as my primary camera. I love this camera for what I do, (wedding and event videography) it is a workhorse. However, I’m hoping the T1i will help me add a bit more style to my projects. The lens on my XH-A1 is fantastic, but when It’s focusing on a 1/3 inch ccd a shallow depth of field can be a bit tricky. I’m not the best at imperical to US conversions, but I believe the sensor in the T1i to be about 20mm give or take, and I figure that to be around twice the surface area as my XH-A1s sensor. I’m not really sure how Canon is getting such great color reproduction out of a single chip compared to the 3 chip (RGB) standards of video, but I’ve seen some footage, and the color reproduction appears fantastic. I also love the thought of being able to put on an actual wide or telephoto lens without having to use the “adapters” required with my XH-A1. Finally the small size of this camera can’t be beat when compared to my XH-A1 or any respectable 3ccd video camer for that matter. I love moving and flying shots. I’ll often use my monopod as a boom or click my camera onto my knock off glidecam. A smaller lighter camera sounds quite desireable.
Now, for what my research turned up to be the cons. The biggest and most reported con, being the lack of a mic/line input and only being equipped with a mono onboard mic. Oh well, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll always have two mics feeding into my XH-A1 not to mention my second videographer usually runs a channel or two of audio himself. I feel I’m pretty well covered in that department and if I need more audio recording options I could go to an off camera solution like a Zoom h2/h4. I don’t even know where I’d put a wireless receiver on an SLR body. I do understand though that this is a major missing component if Canon wants to market this camera to pro videographers. Now that I think about it, they probably don’t want to sell these cameras to videographers when their entry level video cameras start about 4 times the price. Things that make me go Hmmmm (whatever happened to Arsenio?).
An under reported con seems to be the lack of an articulating LCD. Videographers need this feature. I haven’t looked through an EVF since ’97. I’ll have to report more on this inconvenience after I get to shoot a bit. I don’t think they’ll be able to fix this problem with a firmware update, so, I’m guessing I’ll have to deal with it.
It’s my understanding that many of the manual controls may be switched to auto, in video mode. It seems like there are some tricks or workarounds out there (like locking Auto Exposure/Aperture in a darker area). Again, I’ll have to play with the camera a bit and report back in a later entry.
Finally, I’ve read in a few blogs that there’s a 4gb file limit. I’ve found no official info on this on the Canon site. The closest I found was a chart that said a 4GB SDHC card could hold approximately 18minute 720p video at 30 fps.
And that brings me to another serious limitation. 720p only at 30fps. 1080p possible at 20fps! YES, 20fps why even include 1080? A few bloggers seem to think this may be fixable with a firmware update but I don’t really see why they wouldn’t include it off the bat if 1080p 30fps is possible, the 5d II has it. Anyway, I can live with 720p, and since I sell few HD packages as of right now I hope it won’t be an issue for awhile. Not to mention, 720p is perfectly AWESOME quality and many networks broadcast in that format.
Heres a link to the most useful article I found about this subject.
I guess that wraps up my initial “Videography with the Canon EOS T1i” blog entry. I hope this and future entries will be useful to other curious videographers.
