US Army 5d mark2

Recently the United States Army bought 2000+ 5d mark 2s, as their "standard" video camera.
http://www.definitionmagazine.com/journal/2010/7/2/us-army-and-navy-buy-up-stocks-of-canon-5d-mkiis.html

OK I understand there is a very small rig for the 5d the army uses. Basically they use the 5d2 "body armour" and some very small stabilization device?

Does anyone know what the armys 5d mark 2s look like? I saw their setup before but I can't find anything on google. I think it was in a video.

http://blog.planet5d.com/2010/04/the-first-planet5d-live-interview-with-tylerginter/

Thanks Dave, thats actually not the video I was thinking of, but thats better. I didn't realize that hood thing was made for them.

So I guess they don't normally use anything except the 5d body armor?... but when they do its the "captain stubling" ... 8 months of research and a 200 page explaination, and they thought that was the best system around.. thats interesting.

Mark, you are slowly becoming to vDSLR what Jake is to NeoScene. ;-)

Someone mention NeoScene?
I should get a cut of the action everytime I pushed that product.

lol, not really, its just someone I know asked me what the best all around rig was for outdoors type stuff. So I guess I am like a DSLR consultant :P

I don't know much about rigs honestly, Ive never used those Zacuto things, Online reviews are always biased.... I knew the army did a lot of testing on different ones, and I figured their choice would be relatively unbiased.

Our taxes at work. A bit or really a lot of overkill for "most" field uses in the military.

wow, seems like an awful choice as a standard video camera, unless they are using stabilized lenses and improved audio. I would want to give out a more user-friendly camera to those in the army (I'm assuming these are for use on the battlefield?)

Yes they are partially for combat cameraman, and the stock footage they shoot for the news/archives, and other uses too.

Apparently they havent been complaining, the Navy just bought more. I guess marines don't care about 'ergonomics'? :) I guess they save money because they dont need a photo camera and a video camera as seperate purchases.

Remember though a small camera will always be shakey. Larger cameras have more mass and more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertia. Which is the principle behind the gyroscope stablization devices. Large cameras would not be suitable for the military.

If you want to make any camera more stable the best way to make it more stable is to give it weight.

Has any one checkout or watched the link Dave posted? I did had nothing better to do. It's an hour and 15 minutes long. The Lt. said that they had tested other cameras but 5D Markll was the one they chose over other cameras and that setup was around 25,000.00 bucks. Also, all footage/photos are taken hand held when in combat zones. The only time tripods and lights are used are either on base or special assignments outside the war zone.