Night Combat Equipment Airborne Jump

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Night Combat Equipment Airborne Jump at Fort Pickett, Virginia

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a 1DMKIV from Canon. It arrived just in time for our Night Combat Equipment Airborne Jump! However, I was already scheduled to jump on this mission so I had to train up a few of my high speed Soldiers on how to operate the camera.

Sounds easy enough since they are already trained on the 5DMKII… However, Canon does not play nice with muscle memory and so the live view mode and start/stop record buttons are in completely different places yet again. The 7D took me awhile to get used to as well so now my fingers want to go to three different places on three different cameras to get it right. Not a big deal though, after several minutes of figuring out where all the new buttons are, Spc. Christopher Rosario was set.

We turned the 1DMKIV to manual mode at 1080P 24fps, set the shutter to 1/50th, opened up the aperture to 2.8 on the 16-35mm lens, and then tested out several ISOs to see how far we could push it. Meanwhile I was getting rigged up in my chute while Spc. Rosario was running around gathering shots. We figured we’d play it safe this time around and not push the ISO higher than 3200, especially with our 16-35mm topping off at 2.8. We were tempted to put the 50 1.2 on to get better low light but with the 1.3 crop, the 50 turns into a 65mm and was not wide enough for what we needed. Looking back we probably could have pushed it all the way up to 6400 with minimal noise.

After we got rigged up and Spc. Rosario gathered all his footage inside this awesome warehouse (backlit by a really cool sunset) we headed out into the night. Now the 1DMKIV is an amazing camera but it still can’t adjust in these conditions to see better than your eyes unless you want your footage to look like pure noise.

So instead of risking it on the fly we had Pfc. Phoebe Malkowicz with our new GEM-II Night Vision adapters made by Integrity Data Inc. This is a very expensive piece of equipment but did an outstanding job under the pitch black conditions inside the plane. She rigged up the 50mm 1.4 on the lens and was shooting in pitch black on the FF35mm sensor at only ISO 800 with a 1/60th shutter and aperture wide open at 1.4.

We shot 23.976 on the 1DMKIV and 30 on the 5DMKII (can’t wait until the 5DMKII gets this rumored firmware upgrade to 24P!!!) In cinema tools you can batch conform 30 to 23.976. It will slow down your footage slightly and render your audio unusable but it worked out pretty well for this project.

All in all, I am extremely impressed with the 1DMKIV. I haven’t even touched on how powerful of a photo camera it is. However, the 5DMKII is still a powerhouse and will get even better with a frame rate firmware update. Then you have the 7D which is another amazing option for a very affordable camera that has a lot of great features. Is the 1DMKIV body worth it’s $5,000 price tag? I’ve said this from the very beginning but it all depends on your workflow and what tools you need for your job. For Combat Camera we are still extremely happy with the 5DMKII and will continue to invest in them. The 1DMKIV has some amazing features that appeal to us but the size, weight, and price for the features of the 5DMKII is still an incredible deal and fits perfectly into our workflow and mission.

Filmed By:

Spc. Christopher Rosario
1DMKIV
16-35mm f2.8 lens
23.976fps
1/50th shutter
ISO ≤ 3200

Pfc. Phoebe Malkowicz
5DMKII
50mm f1.4 lens attached to GEM-II Night Vision
30fps conformed (slowed down) in cinema tools to 23.976
1/60th shutter
ISO ≤ 800

Edited By:
1st Lt. Tyler Ginter

55th Combat Camera
United States Army

As always, please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns!

-Tyler
blog.tylerginter.com
tylerginter@mac.com
twitter.com/tylerginter
“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” -Steve Prefontaine

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