With all the various HDSLRs appearing on the market, keeping their features straight can be a bit of a challenge. Abel’s Andy Shipsides has put together a handy chart comparing five of these cameras side-by-side. He compares the Canon 5D Mark II, 1D Mark IV, the 7D, the new Rebel T2i, and the Panasonic Lumix GH1. His chart is available to view or download in the Resources section of abelcine.com.

Many people have asked me about CF card requirements for shooting video on the Canon HDSLR cameras. Compact Flash cards come in many speeds, and the faster they go the more expensive they get. Canon lists the data rate of the Canon 5D Mark II and 7D video modes at a maximum of 330 MB/minute (a bit less for the 5D Mark II). That’s 5.5 MB/second video, which can be converted from MegaBytes to Megabits (1 Mbit = 0.125 MByte) to 44 Megabites per second. So what speed cards do you need? Well, to be safe I suggest cards with a minimum transfer of 8 MB/second, and there are many of these cards on the market at very affordable prices. You may see CF cards listed in X values (40X, 60X, ect), so to help you decode I have provided the following chart.

…continue reading CF Card Specs for Canon HDSLR Cameras

Switronix has released an adapter to power a Canon 5D Mark II or 7D off a power tap. It is a simple adapter called the XP-DSLR-C that allows users to adapt the Canon DC coupler directly to a battery or other source with a power tap plug. So an Anton Bauer Gold Mount will work as well as the D-Tap found on an IDX battery. This will greatly extend the battery life of the cameras, and the adapter has an additional power tap on it to power other 12V accessories. Look for an adapter for the Panasonic Lumix GH1 in the future as well.

Zeiss has just recently launched two new ZE lenses, an 18mm T3,5 and 21mm T2,8. For those of you unfamiliar with Zeiss SLR lenses, please allow me explain a bit.  Zeiss makes a range of beautiful full frame SLR lenses and they come in a variety of mounts. They break down like this -  F bayonet (ZF), EF bayonet (ZE), K bayonet (ZK) and the traditional M42 screw threads (ZS). So these new ZE lenses are Canon EF mount and work fantastically on the Canon 5D Mark II and the new Canon 7D. I am especially fond of the ZE lenses because they are designed for manual focus control and have very little breathing. This is a real benefit for anyone shooting video on an SLR. With a geared ring they can easily be adjusted to work with a follow focus, and the focus ring stops in both direction for easier pulls. The 18mm and 21mm look great and will be especially nice on the Canon 7D which has a crop (APS-C sized) sensor.

Canon has just announced the highly anticipated EOS 7D HDSLR camera. I’m so jealous that Jon Fauer over at the Film and Digital Times got his hands on it first. Read his review here – Canon EOS 7D HDSLR. The camera has a 18 megapixel APS-C sized CMOS sensor that can take fabulous stills and HD video at 1080: 30p (29.97) / 24p (23.976) / 25p,   720: 60p (59.94) / 50p, and SD: 60p (59.94) / 50p. I’m very excited to see this camera in action. It ships at the end of September and Abel will be selling it.