Stephen Eastwood|Beauty and Fashion Photographer

5D Mark 2 Video Control workarounds.

Q: Video looks great, but focus pulling is going to be a problem, with these FF video cameras. Does it autofocus? Otherwise, prepare for an endless slew of defocused like "films"...

A: While it does autofocus, its not good at it during video mode.. Pulling focus and making sure its focusing on the right spot is still important. Overall: the autofocus is available but not at all useful, it will have to open up the camera fully to focus, that means the exposure will be varied, maybe get screwy and jump up and down, and the camera like normal may hunt and lose focus and snap back in, that is not ideal while shooting.

Q: What about manual controls of exposure, aperture, shutter?

It does have an exposure lock ability, so you can lock exposure and release and relock while shooting. It does not have direct actual controls for iso (gain) f-stop (iris) and shutter speed but you can trick it somewhat. Put the caemra in video mode, set it to Live view, stills and movie and in movie display., not exposure simulation. The camera will adjust iso first, than shutter speed then iris in that order, also by defualt the camera can only select an iris of f22, f16, f5.6 and wide open (lens dependant). So knowing that, you can start the exposure facing a bright area and get the camera to stop down or a dark area and make the camera open up, when you start shooting it will adjust the iso and shutter (1/30th-125th or so) first attempting to keep from having to adjust iris unless that is needed to maintain proper exposure at the limits of the other two. And since you can trick it to be open or closed down, and can lock exposure you can do the most basic f stop adjustments. So using exposure lock, and having the camera in movie display mode, you can see the aperture and iso and shutter speed, adjust the exposure compensation plus 2 stops, then adjust the camera by blocking or adding light to get too about iso 1000 at the desired aperture, the camera will always move he iso first up to 3200 or down to 100, then adjust the shutter, at 1/80th or 1/100th it will then adjust the aperture to the next closest setting. Once you lock it in at your at about 1000iso, you can then dial down the EC to get the aperture down to a larger number (less depth of field)

To get other f-stops, you need a manual lens, like a canon FD or zeiss, (with EOS adapter) or you can do a more dangerous method, set teh camera to the aperture you want and slightly unmount the lens, or tape the contacts off, this is not wise, the lens can fall off the body if not careful, not recommended, but possible if needed.

For overall best control try using something with a follow focus like this redrock unit. http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.472981/it.A/id.593/.f And I would add teh matte box.