Canon announces the preavailability of a firmware update to the 5DMk2

Ooh. ; I kinda like what I'm seeing. ; Some of this had already been mentioned earlier, but there were a few surprises.

Let's tabulate the major changes. ; Number one, the existing video modes are changed to drop frame timing. ; Instead of shooting at 30 frames per second it's down to 29.97. ; No biggie for me, but for people interested in professional use it means that the output is compatible with broadcast standards in NTSC countries. ; It does make it slightly easier to deal with the output, video editing packages are usually aimed at broadcast standards and I've run into a few codecs that seem to outright reject being used at 30fps. ; You can just change the frame rate from one to the other, in ten minutes the difference is only 18 frames, but.. aligning with standards is useful. ; Personally I'd have preferred to be left the option to use 30fps, but.. no real harm in going to this.

Number two: 1080p 24 fps mode. ; I don't intend to use it, 30fps is still a lower frame rate than I'd prefer (it's jarring to go from 60i to 30p), but the film geeks will be happy that they can achieve the "film look" of jerky low frame rate video. ; I'll at least try it out to see what all the hubub is about.

Number three: PAL support. ; Nifty for Europeans and others in PAL countries, the 5DmkII becomes a professional level tool in those countries.

Number four: MANUAL AUDIO LEVEL CONTROL! ; This was a welcome surprise. ; I hope that this will include a level meter, otherwise it'll be largely useless, but.. ; yeah, right on Canon.

I'd guess that this would not be a big deal for most of the people here, most of the time I don't expect to be using it myself. ; But it's an option I've been craving, I'm eager to try it out on some live events to see if I can improve the quality any.

And I'll just lump the rest of the changes together. ; Histogram for shooting movies in manual, something I've actually been wishing I had, so nice move there. ; Tv and Av modes for movie shooting, nice again, it was weird having either full manual or full auto modes and nothing in between. ; Audio sampling from 44.1 to 48khz. ; Eh, whatever, maybe that's a little more standards compliant, I'm not sure. ; Slightly higher quality, it'll provide a slightly higher frequency coverage.

And something about a "phenomenon" where communication with the lens is interrupted when the manual lens cleaning function is used being fixed. ; Fair enough, always useful to clean up the bugs.

I was really hoping to see a 720p60 (1280x720 resolution, 60 frames per second) video mode, but no dice there. ; Still I appreciate the surprise appearance of the manual level control. ; Used right it should let me get away from the typical sound of an auto level camcorder, in silent moments it won't jack up the sensitivity making the ambient room noise louder, that sort of thing.

I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. ; I don't expect that they're going to make a habit of adding features to their cameras after release, they must have really been feeling heat from what I still think was their intentional limiting of the video feature set of the mkII.

 

They're trying to get the award for funniest or (or most obvious) disclaimer.

"Firmware Version 2.0.3 is for cameras with firmware up to version 1.2.4. If the camera's firmware is already version 2.0.3, it is not necessary to update the firmware."

Yes, if your firmware is version 2.0.3 then it is not necessary to upgrade to 2.0.3.

I upgraded, and can report that the manual level function does include a level meter. ; So I'm pleased.

Even when using auto levels this may prove to be a useful feature. ; My external mic has a -10db pad switch that will reduce the level of the audio that it's passing on to the camera. ; I've done some testing and can confirm that that function will improve the audio quality in auto level mode, but figuring out at what point the sound is loud enough to warrant the switch was always a matter of guesswork.

I'm hoping that the level meter shows the results of the audio signal after it's been auto leveled, then I should be able to tell if I need the pad. ; The meter is accessible in auto mode, so I think it does what I want, but I'll do a little testing to make sure.

 

Doh!

Okay, well, that's a very specific bug and I can easily avoid it. ; Just don't muck with manual levels in the custom modes. ; Righto.

This is an interesting problem you bring up, Roger. ; In the past firmware updates were typically advanced function that most users were discouraged from mucking with unless they knew what they were doing. ; But yeah, my bluray player (LG brand) recently had a firmware update. ; Apparently the Bluray standard isn't so much a standard as a moving target.

Yeah, I've got say I agree with you, if they're going to force you to update your hardware then they really ought to be taking the rap for the repercussions of it going wrong. ; It's problematic in that the end user can screw it up and it really could be their fault, but apparently it can go wrong of its own accord as well and lacking any way to distinguish between the two they ought to be dealing with all of it.

Or, more preferably, designing smarter hardware that can deal with an update failure. ; This really shouldn't be that hard, I know of multiple devices that that's been done with. ; Amusingly sometimes I've seen third party hardware hackers add such a feature into hardware that they're messing with.

I'm not really that upset about this.. well, I'm not upset at all about it. ; I certainly don't want my audio to fail on me, but it sounds like I can avoid the problem fairly easily. ; I'm just glad that I grabbed the update before it was pulled. ; I want to try to use it this weekend at the bluegrass festival. ; I figure it'll make an interesting test, so long as I can skirt the prohibition against video recording in the concert rooms. ; Yes, I said rooms, it's being held in a smallish convention center.

 

Well it turns out I had the date wrong, the festival is next weekend. ; Woops.

I'm at least pleased with the speed that they patched this. ; I imagine their programmers working through the night in a mad fever trying to get the updated version out.