This is why you won’t see any video quality settings when casually browsing through the menus with the camera set to Live View rather than Movie mode. Conflicting menus are also avoided by simply only showing the movie options when the camera’s set to Movie mode. This is so much more intuitive than previous Movie mode implementations on Canon DSLRs and a very welcome improvement. When switched to Movie mode, the mirror and shutter open straightaway to allow you to frame with the screen, while the button starts and stops recording. When set to Live View, pressing the button in the middle flips open the mirror and shutter to deliver a live feed to the screen, and pressing it again exits live view. The switch has two positions: Live View and Movie mode. In stark contrast, the EOS 7D now features a brand new circular switch to the right of its viewfinder with a Start / Stop button in the middle. The resulting operation was unsurprisingly unintuitive and left most owners reaching for the manual. On the EOS 5D Mark II, you almost got the feeling the company was either uncomfortable promoting the movie mode, or implemented it after the design team had already finished the physical controls. Moving back to the EOS 7D, Canon’s greatly improved the way you enter and operate its movie mode. The only thing in the D300s’s favour at this point is the Motion JPEG format, which may seem old fashioned compared to the H.264 of Canon, but it’s considerably easier to work with on your computer. So the Canon EOS 7D not only offers higher resolution 1080p video, but the choice of frame rates and longer maximum recording time per file. The maximum file size is 2GB, although additional restrictions limit the HD mode to five minutes. The D300s’ files are encoded using the Motion JPEG format and stored in an AVI wrapper. It only offers a single HD movie mode at 1280×720 pixels and 24fps, with audio captured by a built-in microphone, or an external model connected to its stereo input. So it seems churlish to complain after Canon’s gone from one to five different HD modes between the 5D Mark II and 7D, but it’d be wonderful if we could also either have a 720 mode at 30 / 25fps or some higher compression options for more manageable output.Īt this point it’s worth comparing the facilities of the Nikon D300s. This is a bitter-sweet result as on the one hand it’s nice to have a 720 file at 60 / 50fps for capturing fast action or grabbing still frames from the footage, but on the other hand anyone who’s struggled to edit the hefty 1080 files of the 5D Mark II would have welcomed a lighter 720 option. So that 4GB file limit will actually be reached after approximately 12 minutes, regardless of the HD quality setting. You’re looking at about 330MB per minute in any of the HD movie modes, with the 720 option consuming the same as the 1080 due to its higher frame rates. The maximum recording time per file remains 29 minutes and 59 seconds or 4GB, whichever happens first. As before, video is encoded using H.264 with uncompressed PCM audio, stored in a QuickTime MOV wrapper – and as before, while the mild video compression ensures great quality, the encoding format remains a challenge to edit (or even play) smoothly on many computers. The use of an external microphone, like the Rode stereo model, can transform the audio quality and is highly recommended over the internal microphone. Like the EOS 5D Mark II and Nikon D300s, there’s a built-in microphone and a stereo mini jack for an external microphone. As with other Canon cameras employing the same encoding system, the playback may be jerky under QuickTime for Windows we recommend playing the files under Windows using VLC Player, but even then you’ll also need relatively quick hardware for smooth results. Don’t worry, the file is otherwise identical, and you can rename the extension to MOV if necessary. Note if you’re downloading the files from Vimeo using Internet Explorer 8, you may find the file extension is MP4 rather than the original MOV. Click each link to download 1080p at 30fps / 1080p at 25fps / 1080p at 24fps / 720p at 60fps / 720p at 50fps. Registered members of Vimeo can download the original files for evaluation on their own computers. Immediately following this clip we filmed the same sequence using the 25 and 24fps modes, along with the 720 options at both 60 and 50 fps for comparison. We used the EF 24-105mm f4.0L lens with IS disabled and the camera mounted on a tripod. Here’s a sample clip filmed with the EOS 7D under bright conditions in its Auto mode at 1080 / 30fps.
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