Messages

76

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: EOS 5D Mark III Firmware 1.2.1 Available for Download

« on: May 01, 2013, 01:24:26 AM »

...
15. Removed "support" for 3rd party batteries...

16. Removed the unofficial support that was apparently left in the f/8 firmware improvement for the 1DX that let the 1.4x TC III work with the 70-300L (if you keep it at 300mm).    (Kinda ironic that they force you to sell your Canon TC and go buy a Kenko it seems or spend an extra $250 for a Kenko and, assuming it is not as sharp, not get the full performance you should be able to and need to get out of the 70-300L. Still hoping that they will put out a 1.2.2 with 'various minor fixes' and they will support this combo unofficially.) I don't have the 1DX but two people are telling me that they see it report as f/8 and work on their 1DX after they put in the f/8 firmware for that body. Canon removed it from the officially reported list (maybe since the TC only fits if you use it on the long end at 300mm) but apparently left the support code in on the 1DX and seemingly removed it when they took six months to otherwise perhaps copy and paste the code over the 5D3.

Although now 1DX users are telling me it doesn't work in that combo and, even worse, now a 5D3 user says it does't report or work with the Kenko either (hopefully this user was using a different Kenko). I don't know. Maybe I got bad info from people at first. I will try the Kenko myself and see what the real deal is. (if someone gives me a 1dx a will test that too and give a definitive answer )

77

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: EOS 5D Mark III Firmware 1.2.1 Available for Download

« on: April 30, 2013, 06:00:12 PM »

Magic Lantern is working on a true RAW and 14 bit video recording along with 4:2:2 to the card, something we'll never see from Canon.

And they've already said it will never be something that will work for video people...best they've gotten so far is 720 at 24fps for 2s...the reality is you'll never get long recording times because the camera has a buffer to deal with. 1080p wont happen.

Really, it's an upgrade for time lapsers and may have some cool other uses.

If this is the case, the soft output of the 5DmkIII compared to other cameras, as documented on many of his tests, may in fact be impossible to fix with a firmware update, at least one from canon.

That said, what they did find interesting was that the resolution of the DNGs they got from their RAW mode were way higher resolution than just the traditional h.264 video stream from Canon. Not sure if that means that Canon intentionally is crippling it, or if the h.264 encoding loses a lot of resolution, but, that could be useful for some purposes.

Of course, if you want Raw video at 2k, you'd just spend the same amount on a BMCC instead and get a much nicer workflow.

I wonder if they can feed that 'raw' DNG stuff into the h.264 compressor and get better quality out? Or if they can push it out frame by frame over the HDMI and delete each frame from the buffer afterwards so nothing would ever overflow and you could at least get an 8bit or maybe 10bit crisper image out over HDMI? It seems like it should be possible but it's hard to know the internal Canon subsystem, it might not be, or even if it is, it quite likely might require all sorts of knowledge far beyond what they have been able to hack out so far and might only be reasonably doable by Canon people with full docs and access?

I checked out the DNG file posted on eoshd.com. Each file is about 5MB. Therefore, to get 30fps, you need a sustained write bandwidth of 150MByte/s (that is 1.2Gbits/s). That will be quite challenging even for the fastest notebook SSD. A 64GB CF card, even if it were fast enough, would only store about 7 minutes of video.

Therefore your suggestion to use the HDMI out is potentially the solution. HDMI 1.0/1.2 supports a bandwidth of 4.95Gbit/s and HDMI 1.3 supports about 10Gbit/s. BTW, does anyone know which version of HDMI is supported by 5D3?

Ofcourse, I am no camera engineer. These are just rough calculations that I came up with.

Lastly, pardon my ignorance in video, doesn't the 'uncompressed HDMI' output as provided by firmware v1.2.1 mean raw? Is the ML DNG just a higher resolution raw compared to the one provided by firmware v1.2.1?

Actually neither are truly RAW since they are debayered and binned in either case and somewhat processed. The 'raw' DNG ML found does retain 14bits though and 4:4:4 I believe, so it's sort of raw in that sense and seems to have had no NR or anything done and seems crisp.

1.2.1 send ucompressed out over HDMI but it is not RAW, it has been debayered, scaled to 1920x1080 and clipped to 8bits and 4:2:2 color information.

1.2.1 appears to retain more detail in shadows and is crisper (worse AA and artifacts are a question mark) whether recorded internally or externally.

78

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: EOS 5D Mark III Firmware 1.2.1 Available for Download

« on: April 30, 2013, 05:55:03 PM »

Well now someone else is insisting that the 1.4x TC III + 70-300L + 1DX doesn't report f/8 or AF well so maybe I got bogus info at first. Maybe there is no way to make that combo report f/8. A huge shame, but what can you do, sounds like you can't blame the firmware after all.

(Although they could add a custom function called force f/8 AF mode hint hint ). Not that I expect that to happen. Usually companies with more than 4 employees don't do that sort of stuff. But it would be awesome (and boost Canon TC sales vs Kenko hint hint ))

I guess I'll order the Kenko (apparently it has a chip inside that can spoof things or something and tricks it into reporting f/8 even though the 70-300L doesn't have TC pins) and hope the image quality it provides is enough to make it worthwhile.

To bad the Canon TC III didn't have some fancier logic in it to spoof things when needed or a force f/8 mode custom function is unlikely.

Anyway guess they didn't remove stuff from the f/8 addition so it's all good on their part. Glad we have f/8 ability for what it does handle .

Unless I hear otherwise yet again.

79

EOS Bodies - For Video / 5D3 video new vs. old firmware - might be different after all

« on: April 30, 2013, 03:11:42 PM »

A tweet from J.M. offers this sample of video taken using the internal recorder with the same settings, old vs. new firmware:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vuwbn2582pv67i3/5d3121.png

So maybe I actually was correct in my initial take (a post I since deleted) where I said it looked like the video was sharper. I first I was sure that it was crisper, but then I decided I had tricked myself.

Internal vs external seems similar but new vs old firmware seems different.

Maybe it does grab more details and not mush details in shadows as much now.



(I think I have seen a few very weird artifacts with the new firmware though perhaps popping up in video. A couple nasty weird things, but not sure yet.)

(It doesn't look as crisp but artifact free as the 'raw' DNG stuff ML discovered though.)

80

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: EOS 5D Mark III Firmware 1.2.1 Available for Download

« on: April 30, 2013, 03:09:42 PM »

A tweet from J.M. offers this sample of video taken using the internal recorder with the same settings, old vs. new firmware:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vuwbn2582pv67i3/5d3121.png

So maybe I actually was correct in my initial take where I said it looked like the video was sharper.
Internal vs external seems similar but new vs old firmware seems different.

Maybe it does grab more details and not mush details in shadows as much now.

(I think I have seen a few very weird artifacts with the new firmware though perhaps popping up in video.)

81

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: EOS 5D Mark III Firmware 1.2.1 Available for Download

« on: April 30, 2013, 01:47:05 PM »

15. Removed "support" for 3rd party batteries...

Yes, this is true unfortunately..All my 3rd party batteries no longer register with the camera so i won't know how much charge they have left..this really sucks.

Sorry about that. However, I guess as you have a number of batteries, you must have numbered them in order to keep track of them. I am guessing that you have a "bin" for charged batteries and another for uncharged batteries. Keep them fully charged. Always keep a spare. More depending on the shoot. Shoot till the battery dies. Recharge immediately (or as soon as you possibly can...). I think that all you will miss is the flashing battery indicator... As for me, even though I have only Canon batteries, I seldom pay attention to the indicator when I am in the throes of shooting. I usually look at it as an afterthought...

When you are shooting video if the battery conks out when you are rolling you are very likely to lose the current shot. It can be recovered with voodoo but its not easy.

No audio on the HDMI out makes that feature less useful for recording as well. You'll need to use a good slate and / or roll the recorder and record on internal then try to match the TC in post. Very disappointed that they hyped this feature and failed to mention the NO AUDIO part. Nikon / Sony HDMI out has audio.

I didn't test that yet, that is unfortunate. I thought people using beta 1.2.0 said audio over HDMI worked fine? And that some docs for 1.2.1 implied it should work?

82

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: EOS 5D Mark III Firmware 1.2.1 Available for Download

« on: April 30, 2013, 01:45:39 PM »

15. Removed "support" for 3rd party batteries...

Yes, this is true unfortunately..All my 3rd party batteries no longer register with the camera so i won't know how much charge they have left..this really sucks.

They released a new manual document warning about counterfeiting along with this improvement to insure that you don't use phony batteries. 

83

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: EOS 5D Mark III Firmware 1.2.1 Available for Download

« on: April 30, 2013, 01:43:55 PM »

Magic Lantern is working on a true RAW and 14 bit video recording along with 4:2:2 to the card, something we'll never see from Canon.

And they've already said it will never be something that will work for video people...best they've gotten so far is 720 at 24fps for 2s...the reality is you'll never get long recording times because the camera has a buffer to deal with. 1080p wont happen.

Really, it's an upgrade for time lapsers and may have some cool other uses.

If this is the case, the soft output of the 5DmkIII compared to other cameras, as documented on many of his tests, may in fact be impossible to fix with a firmware update, at least one from canon.

That said, what they did find interesting was that the resolution of the DNGs they got from their RAW mode were way higher resolution than just the traditional h.264 video stream from Canon. Not sure if that means that Canon intentionally is crippling it, or if the h.264 encoding loses a lot of resolution, but, that could be useful for some purposes.

Of course, if you want Raw video at 2k, you'd just spend the same amount on a BMCC instead and get a much nicer workflow.

I wonder if they can feed that 'raw' DNG stuff into the h.264 compressor and get better quality out? Or if they can push it out frame by frame over the HDMI and delete each frame from the buffer afterwards so nothing would ever overflow and you could at least get an 8bit or maybe 10bit crisper image out over HDMI? It seems like it should be possible but it's hard to know the internal Canon subsystem, it might not be, or even if it is, it quite likely might require all sorts of knowledge far beyond what they have been able to hack out so far and might only be reasonably doable by Canon people with full docs and access?

84

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: EOS 5D Mark III Firmware 1.2.1 Available for Download

« on: April 30, 2013, 01:40:49 PM »

Will I lose all my custom settings when performing this upgrade?

no

85

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: EOS 5D Mark III Firmware 1.2.1 Available for Download

« on: April 30, 2013, 01:36:08 PM »

...
15. Removed "support" for 3rd party batteries...

16. Removed the unofficial support that was apparently left in the f/8 firmware improvement for the 1DX that let the 1.4x TC III work with the 70-300L (if you keep it at 300mm).    (Kinda ironic that they force you to sell your Canon TC and go buy a Kenko it seems or spend an extra $250 for a Kenko and, assuming it is not as sharp, not get the full performance you should be able to and need to get out of the 70-300L. Still hoping that they will put out a 1.2.2 with 'various minor fixes' and they will support this combo unofficially.) I don't have the 1DX but two people are telling me that they see it report as f/8 and work on their 1DX after they put in the f/8 firmware for that body. Canon removed it from the officially reported list (maybe since the TC only fits if you use it on the long end at 300mm) but apparently left the support code in on the 1DX and seemingly removed it when they took six months to otherwise perhaps copy and paste the code over the 5D3.

86

EOS Bodies / Re: Download Firmware 1.2.1 link for 5DIII

« on: April 29, 2013, 10:29:18 PM »

The one on the AU Canon site has the same MD5 hash as the one leaked earlier from Dropbox.  I just compared both downloads

5D300121.FIR                                   3cab840cd3d4cf175b5b4e0ea514eba9

So nothing new and nothing less.  I am impressed with the list of fixes.  I guess it's been a while.

damn so then they locked out 70-300L+1.4x TC III AF?!?! The 1DX f/8 firmware had that in, even if unofficially. damn that was one of the things I was most looking forward too.... may have to sell off my canon tc and buy kenko and hope they are sharp....

87

EOS Bodies - For Video / Re: ML apparently discovers hook to 'raw' liveview feed

« on: April 29, 2013, 09:02:42 PM »

I wonder if the new firmware doesn't actually make things a touch sharper after all, maybe comparing HDMI vs new internal is the same but maybe new internal is sharper than old? Fine edges seem to get mosquito noise sort of, maybe part of making it sharper. I need to shoot with the new, rollback and shoot with the old and compare. Maybe they did sharpen it up a bit? It is a different look than the 'raw' though, less fine micrcontrast still and yet maybe more aliasing than old video or the 'raw' video buffer?

EDIT: the artifacts, fine detail shimmer and such seem to be something going wrong in Premiere Pro (h.264, High, 5.1, 40Mbs CBR; USM/sharpen/colorista tools) since both the original Ninja recorded files and ones recorded by the 5D3 with new firmware DO NOT have that weird stuff going on. So whatever that is it is definitely not the fault of the 5D3 and/or new firmware.

EDIT: EDIT: well other than in one file where there is some weird black band that pops on and off across a few letters of white text in a weird way on one file, that is on the original
MORE EDITS: actually that weird stuff is in all the files, slight bumps to cam and almost like a bit of 5D2 line skip sorta aliasing jitter, just without sharpenin git wasn't as easy to spot

88

EOS Bodies - For Video / Re: Canon 5D Mark iii HDMI Clean Output?

« on: April 29, 2013, 09:00:51 PM »

I wonder if the new firmware doesn't actually make things a touch sharper after all, maybe comparing HDMI vs new internal is the same but maybe new internal is sharper than old? Fine edges seem to get mosquito noise sort of, maybe part of making it sharper. I need to shoot with the new, rollback and shoot with the old and compare. Maybe they did sharpen it up a bit? It is a different look than the 'raw' though, less fine micrcontrast still and yet maybe more aliasing than old video or the 'raw' video buffer?

EDIT: the artifacts, fine detail shimmer, aliasing and such seem to be something going wrong in Premiere Pro (h.264, High, 5.1, 40Mbs CBR; USM/sharpen/colorista tools) since both the original Ninja recorded files and ones recorded by the 5D3 with new firmware DO NOT have that weird stuff going on. So whatever that is it is definitely not the fault of the 5D3 and/or new firmware.

EDIT: EDIT: well other than in one file where there is some weird black band that pops on and off across a few letters of white text in a weird way on one file, that is on the original
MORE EDITS: actually that weird stuff is in all the files, slight bumps to cam and almost like a bit of 5D2 line skip sorta aliasing jitter, just without sharpenin git wasn't as easy to spot

89

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Firmware 1.2.1 for the 5D Mark III in the Wild

« on: April 29, 2013, 04:38:59 PM »

You take a big IQ hit with the doubler.  I rarely use it (2XIII) anymore except on my 70-200 2.8L IS II.  I find I can crop without it and get better IQ.  I believe the added "feature" is not worth all of the hype.  Might prove useful with the video folks where the loss if IQ is also lost in the downscale to HD.  For stills, cropping is still better than using the 2XIII.

Depends on the lens. The 2x III is MUCH better than upscaling from a bare a 300 2.8 IS or 300 2.8 IS + 1.4x TC III. At first I was all oh no my 300 2.8 IS looks like a tamron 70-300 vc now when I used the 2x TC but I learned to get over that since in the end you put so much more detail on birds and such that when compared in a fair way you see the 2x does so much so it's almost permanently locked on my 300 now for birds (even often enough for surfing, but basically never for soccer or football) unless I am in a close blind or something.

It even brings a bit more detail on a 70-200 f/4 IS than upscaling (compared to bare lens or with 1.4x TC III on)! Although the image does suffer in some ways that makes me think it is not worth it so much in that case despite a tiny bit more extra detail.

The 70-300L definitely does better with the 1.4x TC III than upscaling, not even close. Just hope they enable the AF like they did, unofficially, for the 1DX!!

90

EOS Bodies - For Video / Re: Canon 5D Mark iii HDMI Clean Output?

« on: April 29, 2013, 01:26:38 PM »

Biggest disappointment so far is the lack of audio on the HDMI output signal. I'll be that the leaked firmware is the same thing canon will be releasing. No audio on the external recorder makes this feature less useful. I think Canon does care about video users. The c300 and c100 have been a big success. Dumbing down the still camera capabilities keeps them from cannibalizing sales of higher end gear with bigger margins.

But but doing that also makes them just one of many and there are many hungry players. Not dumbing it down may have been the way to really get tons of sales. WHo cares about a bit of margin if you get 100x the sales instead? Who knows but it seems like they reacted in their usual conservative way instead of trying to aggressively go after the gold mine they accidentally hit on. Who knows.