Editing EOS 5D Mark II videos - the simple way

So, there's been lots of talk about the EOS 5D Mark II and the video capability. But no-one is really talking about editing what they shoot. So here's the simple take on it. We'll deal with some of the more complex methods in future posts.

Upfront - an apology as this is a Mac based 'tutorial'. (I'm not sure about calling this a tutorial as it's so simple and quick, it feels a bit of a cheat!)

Anyway, I digress.
Start by copying the images and movies from the memory card on to the computer. You can do this anyway you want, but I'd suggest a card reader. It's quicker (and that's enough for me) but it also doesn't use battery power and doesn't cause any driver issues.

With the files on the computer, import them to iPhoto. You can either put all the photos and videos in there or you can just put the videos in there. I create an album just for putting the videos in, but you may have other thoughts on this.

With the files imported into iPhoto, the wonders of Mac make them available in the media browser in all the other 'i' apps. In this case, you want iMovie.

Open iMovie, navigate to the media tab and look for photos in your iPhoto library. Find the album you put the movies in and viola, they're ready to be used in your new movie file.

Simply drag each clip you want to the timeline and arrange, trim, transition etc as needed. Getting clips into a computer and using them really is that simple!

-blabpictures-

Video editing

In the coming weeks and months, we're going to be doing quite a bit on using video from the EOS 5D Mark II, looking at both the high end editing areas, as well as the consumer options. For now though, I just wanted to flag up a bit of software I found that makes it easier to edit videos. 

Streamclip has two things going for it:

1. It is available for both Mac and PC

2. IT'S FREE! Yep, you read that right, it's free. Free, free, free, free, free. And we like free stuff!

It's also useful. Basically it's a convertor, player and editor for video files. While it may not be the most full featured editor (in fact, calling it an editor is stretching the definition a little) it does trim movies. It also plays most of the files you want and more importantly, the EOS 5D Mark II files. It's real strength is in converting files though.

Now, the MPEG 4 files from the EOS 5D Mark II will play nicely with most editing software, but there are other formats that play better - the most common currently being used for editing 5D Mark II files is ProRes 422. This makes much bigger files (by way of example I converted a 461MB H.264 compressed EOS 5D Mark II file to Pro Res 422 and it came out at 2.42GB!) but they also work better when you come to edit them in software such as Final Cut Pro. 

So, we'd urge anyone thinking about playing with the movie functions of an EOS 5D Mark II to at least go and download Streamclip and have a mess around with it. Hey, it's free. What you got to lose?! 

-blabpictures-