Canon M50 with 300m EF 1/4 problems

[Stevecamera]

Hi All,

very new to videography and wanted to use my M50 with a telephoto lens to capture outdoor fitness competions.



Borrowed a 300mm EF lens and bought a EF-M adaptor



All seemed ok, paired it with an ND Filter as very bright outdoors and wanted the cinematic look.

Most of my footage came out garbage from a recent event I went to

Its blurry mostly and some psychadelic effects on it

I have come back and done some more testing. The only thing that has improved it here was for some reason I had digital IS disabled in IS Settings on the camera. Would this have caused it ?



Below are some stills from some of the footage.

Any help appreciated

 

[IoannisZ]

Have you took also photos? Do they have problems?

 

[Advi]

Hi, Steve.

Where you filming at Full HD or 4K?

Focus at 4K should be manual (M50 AF it is not reliable at 4K - it hunts a lot).

If you were filming Full HD, AF should be really fine.

300mm is a really long lens, that can get you a lot of motion blur. Turn on Digital IS, to mitigate motion blur. You may even consider Enhanced Digital IS, to reduce motion blur even more.

On APS-C, 300mm is equivalent to 480mm, which is an even longer lens.

If you were trying to film with 4K, you will have an additional 1,7x which means this lens is equivalent to 816mm. It allows you to film the moon. And you won't be able to film the moon holding your camera on your hands, without heavy motion blur.

You may also consider a monopod (or tripod), to mitigate motion blur.

--
Bye

 

[nnowak]

Hi All,

very new to videography and wanted to use my M50 with a telephoto lens to capture outdoor fitness competions.

Borrowed a 300mm EF lens and bought a EF-M adaptor

All seemed ok, paired it with an ND Filter as very bright outdoors and wanted the cinematic look.

Most of my footage came out garbage from a recent event I went to

Its blurry mostly and some psychadelic effects on it

I have come back and done some more testing. The only thing that has improved it here was for some reason I had digital IS disabled in IS Settings on the camera. Would this have caused it ?

Below are some stills from some of the footage.

Any help appreciated

Were you shooting handheld or on a tripod? Your sample images look like there was severe camera shake.

 

[Andy01]

Not enough info.

What camera settings were you using ? Those frame grabs look like too slow a shutter speed for the length of the lens and/or excessive camera shake, and the fact that you further reduced the light by using a ND filter possibly didn't help.

I can't comment on video, but for a still shot at 300mm (on APS-C) to be reasonably sharp without IS turned on you would need at least 1/500th, preferably faster. If there was fast movement, then faster still.

Colin

 

[UrbaneHobbit]

All of the above is true. Hand-holding a tracking shot at 300mm * the multipliers of a crop sensor and the 4K crop would be a challenge even for a sync-IS setup. Borrow another lens! Preferably something well under 100mm.

 

[R2D2]

Hi All,

Welcome to the Forum! Sorry to hear about your troubles.

very new to videography and wanted to use my M50 with a telephoto lens to capture outdoor fitness competions.

Borrowed a 300mm EF lens and bought a EF-M adaptor

All seemed ok, paired it with an ND Filter as very bright outdoors and wanted the cinematic look.

Most of my footage came out garbage from a recent event I went to

Its blurry mostly and some psychadelic effects on it

First off, lose that ND filter! You can still shoot the (EF 300mm f/4L IS?) wide open @ f/4 in direct sunlight without it. It will cause all sorts of woes, especially if it's not top quality.

I have come back and done some more testing. The only thing that has improved it here was for some reason I had digital IS disabled in IS Settings on the camera. Would this have caused it ?

Digital IS is a double-edged sword. Better stabilization, but worse IQ.

Below are some stills from some of the footage.

Any help appreciated

Shutter speed is way too slow.

I've shot video with the EF 400 f/5.6L (handheld with no stabilization at all) on crop in direct sunlight tracking airshow planes where the stills were rock solid.

IMHO if you remove the filter, shoot at a higher shutter speed, and turn digital IS on, then you'll do much better. :-D

Best of luck! Report back.

R2