Readers of ProLost, pat yourself on the back.
In the 18 months since Canon announced the Canon 5D Mark II, you’ve written, you’ve called, you’ve left comments here and on Vincent Laforet’s blog. You politely but firmly harrassed Canon personel at trade shows. Perhaps most significantly, you put your money where your mouth is and bought 7Ds, showing Canon that 24p matters more to your filmmaking than full-frame.
It delights me to no end to read these words in a Canon press release:
Developed following feedback from photographers and cinematographers, Firmware 2.0.3 further enhances the EOS 5D Mark II’s excellent video performance. The addition of new frame rates expands the camera’s video potential, providing filmmakers with the ability to shoot 1080p Full HD footage at 24fps (actually 23.976fps) — the optimum frame rate for cinematic video. 25fps support at both 1920x1080 and 640x480 resolutions will allow users to film at the frame rate required for the PAL broadcast standard, while the new firmware will also change the 30fps option to the NTSC video standard of 29.97fps.
The bit I put in italics is almost directly lifted from ProLost posts and my other communications with Canon.
Does it seem like I’m patting myself on the back? Well I am. But you should too. I know that, at best, I played maybe a tiny role in this. But this is a very cool thing that has happened here — we spoke, and Canon listened.
Read the full press release at dpreview.com.
Take a trip down memory lane and view all ProLost posts tagged Canon 5D Mark II.
And heck, buy a 5D Mark II from Amazon and support this site. I love mine, and I’m about to love it even more.
Update
on 2010-03-02 19:22 by Stu
Looking back at the 24p for 5D campaign waged here on ProLost, something I never felt I needed to do was explain why 24p was so important, beyond simple technical compatibility. If you’re interested in an artistic discussion of the role 24 progressive frames per second plays in the look and feel of movies, check out part two of my interview by Rick Young of MacVideo. Rick asks one question—“why 24p”—and I talk for about ten minutes. Oops.
Part one of the interview is here.