Cedar Point fall video

I got a new camera, and took it out Saturday night to experiment a little. I wouldn't call this an "official" PointBuzz video because most of what I shot I hated, but I wanted to share at least some of it.

http://vimeo.com/7254711

For the camera nerds, the camera and lenses used are listed on the Vimeo page.

I liked it. Great quality too.

Looks great Jeff.

I like it.

Looks like Tony had a different makeup artist this weekend.

Quality of the video is great. Canon is always the way to go:)

Wait, that's video shot with the EOS 7D, a DSLR, not a video camera? Color me very impressed! Very nice shots there, and I didn't really notice much noise. It was of course more noticeable during the night shots (TTD especially, but didn't watch it all), but that is expected. I was looking all over Canon's site for a 7D video cam, despite knowing that naming convention is for their DSLRs.

That was really nice! I enjoyed it very much!!!

Very shape video Jeff, my screen is 1680x1050, and in full screen viewing mode the picture is still shape.

The only really noisy shots I kept were one of the girl monster being painted (the profile close-up) and the one of the Monster ride ops. They don't look terrible on Vimeo at 720p, but the original 1080p footage it's more obvious.

Looks great Jeff. I really liked the shot of the first guy getting makeup.

Maybe it's just the vimeo player or my computer, but it seems like the super himalaya was a little 'blurry' or at least it didn't seem to handle motion as well as most video cameras.

The more 'still' shots were amazingly high quality though. I imagine it's somewhat hard to shoot video/hold a shot steady with a DSLR body.

I'm jealous, but I at least got to hold a 7D the other day... :)

edit: Oh, and the 24-105 f/4L - I've been kicking this one around, good to see a quick review from someone other than one of the many photo review sites. I've been debating between the 24-70 f/2.8L and the f/4 but I think the IS does it for me.

At 24 fps and a 1/30 shutter speed, any ride is going to appear blurry. That's to be expected.

The 24-105 is the most versatile lens I've ever had, period. On vacation at Disney World last year and in Hawaii in the spring, that was the only one that I brought, scaled down in a camera bag that only holds the lens and the body. Not once did I wish I had the other lenses. And if you shoot around ISO 800, and your subject isn't moving, you can shoot freehand at 1/10 and it'll still be sharp. Kitting it with the 5D was brilliant.

Beautiful. That's the lens I'm going to pursue. I'm shooting weddings now, and at 28-70, 28 is barely wide enough, and 70 was just short of the zoom I'd like to have. The f/4 kind of scared me at first, because some churches don't allow flash photography during their ceremonies, but if I can hand hold that low with the IS on that lens, I'm pretty much sold. Not to mention between ceremony/family photos/reception, I wind up using 3 different lenses.

Obviously, do some experimentation first, and keep in mind that I'm talking about a full-frame 5D (not sure what you have). I haven't done enough with the smaller sensor to have a qualified opinion. 1/10 freehand works well with scenery that doesn't move, but people with moving lips and hands probably not so much. :)

I've been with the smaller sensor since my 10D, and I'm going to jump to full frame as soon as I get a nice, versatile L lens.

Hell, I've even been thinking about buying a 1D body for $400 to play with. I know it's 11 years old, but it still looks to have amazing features.

That's the problem with photography - so many toys, so little money and time.

With high end equipment that is certainly true. You could drop a ton of money and still have a long list of stuff you still want to buy. And with the pace of change even if you had everything you wanted today, tomorrow some piece of equipment will be announced that you will want.

But for the casual photographer, things have never been better. There are a lot of great options out there. You can get very good dSLRs for under $1000 and very good point and shoots for a couple hundred bucks. You won't get professional results but you can get very good results (and I think more of the results has to do with skill/experience of the person taking the pictures than it does the equipment). You can always find a better camera body to buy or better lenses and accessories. But you can still get very good results without spending a lot of money.

That's what I used to think before I bought nicer stuff, the glass in particular. You get what you pay for.

"You get what you pay for" is true for most things and certainly isn't unique to photographic equipment. And that would be true if you had spent a few thousand dollars more for the top of the line Canon/Nikon slrs/lenses. It would also be true if you had spent 10 times as much on a top of the line medium format digital camera/lens. But that wasn't my point.

From I can tell in this thread and in other threads where photography has been discussed, you know a lot about photography and high end photographic equipment. But that puts you in a very small percentage of people who take pictures. Rather than spending $1000+ on a rig to hold their SLR to take movies, the vast majority of people just buy a camcorder.

Most people taking pictures with no intention of selling them do not need to get professional results. They are basically taking snapshots of special events, kids, vacations etc. It just doesn't matter if they get professional results. And for most people, they couldn't tell the difference between pictures taken with a $600 dSLR and pictures taken with a $6000 dSLR if both are taken by the same photographer. And put the $600 camera in the hands of a professional photographer and the $6000 camera in the hands of your garden variety weekend photo taker and I suspect most people will prefer the results of the professional photographer. And most people also have no idea how to use many of the features that the high end equipment provide and really have little if any use for them.

People can go get an entry level Canon/Nikon slr for about $500 and get very good results and certainly results that fit the needs of most people taking pictures. 30 years ago, you needed to know something about photography, light, metering, shutter speeds, etc. to be able to get good pictures with a film slr. That was less true of the film cameras that could automatically select aperture and shutter speeds but you still needed to know more about the basics than you do now with modern dSLRs. And with the instant feedback, rather than waiting a week to get your film developed and having missed the picture because you didn't consider lighting, composition, etc. when you took the shot, you can now retake the shot when you see the problem on your camera back.

At this point, dSLRs are very close to point and shoots in terms of how much you need to thing about what you are doing. The camera is doing all of the work in terms of the technical elements of taking the picture. Composition is still very key to the quality of the picture though. And the results you get will be significantly better if you are taking pictures of things that are moving if you use an SLR rather than a point and shoot. Though in the last couple of years, I have taken a lot of pictures with a Canon point and shoot because I can carry it in my pocket. Quality of the pictures are not as good as they would be with my dSLR but the quality of a picture not taken because the camera is at home sucks. I think the same is true for someone holding out to get a mid/high level slr rather than an entry level one. And the entry level camera will be more than enough to suit the needs of most folks taking pictures.

Now none of that is to say that serious photographers won't appreciate the better quality that comes with higher end equipment. And those folks will want to pay for the better equipment.

Nice video Jeff. That was shot with a still camera? Very nice.

Of course, I was expecting to see a video of someone falling at Cedar Point, so I was a little disappointed. ;)