5D Mark III with Continuous RAW Video Recording

[LetTheRightLensIn]

and might be better than the C300 and definitely better than the BlackMagic Cinema Camera.

The BMCC still has more than a stop better DR (than the 5D3), and as of now, more resolution for continuous shooting. And while the c300 is a much easier camera to use, BMCC's best image blows the c300 out of the water.

Oh please not more BMCC Koolaid. The C300 image (especially recorded externally) is one of the cleanest 1080p images in the entire business with virtually no moire or false color artifacts and lovely color science. The BMCC fanboys (some of whom are or were apparently secretly in the employ of Blackmagic Design) keep repeating nonsense but repeating something ad nauseum does not make it true. IQ test: hand a better DP (who isn't taking money or gear from either company, and who didn't learn what they know from reading online forums) a C300 and a BMCC and see which one s/he hands to the intern to shoot BTS.

Yes even Andrew (who I think, to his credit, is too random a figure for anyone to consider buying off) has declared the BMCC dead with this new hack. It's just about as annoying to use as RAW on a BMCC and the 5d3's a much better sensor and camera. I think even the official HDMI out from the 5D3 recorded into a Ninja 2 is a superior image to BMCC RAW.

RAW is really not all that as so many people insist. If the only choice is between RAW and JPEG, ok, we all choose RAW. But ProRes 422 HQ 10 bit with a log gamma is every bit as good as RAW in practice, and vastly more practical. JPEG (and the video version MJPEG) is very lossy like H.264 is, and 4:2:0 AVCHD is very constricting in post. But the system we have working today with the 5D3, recording the entire pixel-binned sensor in 8 bit 422 with Cinestyle onto a Ninja 2 in ProRes HQ is quite a nice image. (Though not nearly as nice, lowlight or otherwise, as the C series image externally recorded.)

This RAW hack will give only an incremental improvement over that, in one of two ways. You will get 12 bit color but still it will be subsampled to 4:2:2 (not exactly RAW in my book, which I define as "a lossless record of all sensor information"). And your dynamic range will be stored in full fidelity 14 bit as opposed to being mapped to a gamma...gaining you about 1 stop in practice and a bit less propensity for banding than using the Cinestyle/Ninja approach. Worth constantly swapping costly CF cards and then having huge post hassles for? Maybe in an extreme HDR run-n-gun situation where it would be more hassle to use gels/lights/reflectors/butterflies to control DR.

The other thing against this hack is, if they are using the full sensor, they must be downsampling (binning?) to 1080p or similar resolutions. Which will give at least some of the 5D3 soft video look. Either that or they are cropping (and I understand at least in some settings they are) to the native resolution of the sensor. This cropping to 1:1 pixel is going to be terribly noisy and will require NR in post. You can also get this cropping/digital zoom trick with the current HDMI out, by zooming in 5x or 10x in focus assist and recording the zoomed image (which comes out 4:3 but you can crop in post) and it is noisy too.

The quality of the samples posted here looks amazing. I don't know why you are talking about softness and noise. Look at the comparisons, in both cases it's way better than recording to camera internally through normal software or through recording over HDMI to Ninja2 (in fact it is the latter internal vs Ninja 2 where the difference is very slight; ML vs not using ML is huge).

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Looking forward to this once there are faster and more affordable cards in the next year or so.  Canon more than likely had zero involvement with this, it was discovered on accident while creating a histogram for RAW photography.  Seeing this live DNG feed through the HDMI is not possible, this has been discussed extensively on the Magic Lantern forums.  Heat is also not so much of an issue because the sensor is already pushing out the RAW feed.

BMCC will still be the way to go for RAW video due to it being more reliable and the easier workflow with compressed RAW, but this is a gamechanger for people on a budget or hobbyists.

I have read about the DNG feed not being able to be fed through the HDMI, but, I wonder if this 'raw' feed discovered here could be sent through the cable?

After all, it is just data...it would be the bee's knees (did I just really say that?) if they could push this data out of the HDMI, or maybe even the USB connection to the camera, to an external recorder.

At that point, all bets are off on this I'd say....

C

That would be awesome if they could get a super crisp 1920x1080 with slightly better DR over the HDMI, pu tthat into a ninja 2 and it would be quite practical. Of course to a CF card and RAW would be best, but you could have a half way there option that would be easier to use when you value that more.

[cayenne]

Looking forward to this once there are faster and more affordable cards in the next year or so.  Canon more than likely had zero involvement with this, it was discovered on accident while creating a histogram for RAW photography.  Seeing this live DNG feed through the HDMI is not possible, this has been discussed extensively on the Magic Lantern forums.  Heat is also not so much of an issue because the sensor is already pushing out the RAW feed.

BMCC will still be the way to go for RAW video due to it being more reliable and the easier workflow with compressed RAW, but this is a gamechanger for people on a budget or hobbyists.

I have read about the DNG feed not being able to be fed through the HDMI, but, I wonder if this 'raw' feed discovered here could be sent through the cable?

After all, it is just data...it would be the bee's knees (did I just really say that?) if they could push this data out of the HDMI, or maybe even the USB connection to the camera, to an external recorder.

At that point, all bets are off on this I'd say....

C

That would be awesome if they could get a super crisp 1920x1080 with slightly better DR over the HDMI, pu tthat into a ninja 2 and it would be quite practical. Of course to a CF card and RAW would be best, but you could have a half way there option that would be easier to use when you value that more.

You know, the more I think about this...the more I wonder if it would be possible for ML to output the 'raw' video out through the USB port.

I'm pretty sure it is only usb2, but perhaps that still would be fast enough to push out the raw data that ML is capturing from the sensor?

Just wondering and pondering....

C

[LetTheRightLensIn]

14-bit RAW on Canon 5D Mark III vs. factory default - Night Image Quality & Dynamic Range on Vimeo

The A/B test to do is the RAW version vs. the HDMI out using Cinestyle, recorded to the Ninja 2 in 220Mbps ProRes HQ and graded in post with the proper LUT. Because anyone who cares about getting the most IQ out of the camera will be using that setup (or something very similar) rather than internal...of course the RAW is going to kill the miserable internal codec.

And BTW, all my testing has repeatedly shown ALL-I and IPB are 100% identical IQ on the 5D3 internal. Haven't seen anything credible to refute that...I think it's just Mbps marketing to counter the GH2 hack.

That is alot of misinfo.

1. The internal codec isn't what does much damage. Point at a static scene and record with Ninja 2 at ProRes HQ and record internally 1.2.1 and there is NOT much difference you can see at all. A little but it is all very subtle to be honest. It's vastly smaller compared to the difference between what this ML recorded stuff looks like compared to normally internally recorded video.

2. For static scenes or ones with just bits moving around in the frame all-i and IPB are pretty much the same and all-i is just a horrible waste of space, perhaps worse if anything. If you pan around or the entire scene is changing frame to frame then ipb totally falls apart and all-i holds up much better (as does say pro res on ninja 2).

[LOALTD]

Looking forward to this once there are faster and more affordable cards in the next year or so.  Canon more than likely had zero involvement with this, it was discovered on accident while creating a histogram for RAW photography.  Seeing this live DNG feed through the HDMI is not possible, this has been discussed extensively on the Magic Lantern forums.  Heat is also not so much of an issue because the sensor is already pushing out the RAW feed.

BMCC will still be the way to go for RAW video due to it being more reliable and the easier workflow with compressed RAW, but this is a gamechanger for people on a budget or hobbyists.

I have read about the DNG feed not being able to be fed through the HDMI, but, I wonder if this 'raw' feed discovered here could be sent through the cable?

After all, it is just data...it would be the bee's knees (did I just really say that?) if they could push this data out of the HDMI, or maybe even the USB connection to the camera, to an external recorder.

At that point, all bets are off on this I'd say....

C

That would be awesome if they could get a super crisp 1920x1080 with slightly better DR over the HDMI, pu tthat into a ninja 2 and it would be quite practical. Of course to a CF card and RAW would be best, but you could have a half way there option that would be easier to use when you value that more.

You know, the more I think about this...the more I wonder if it would be possible for ML to output the 'raw' video out through the USB port.

I'm pretty sure it is only usb2, but perhaps that still would be fast enough to push out the raw data that ML is capturing from the sensor?

Just wondering and pondering....

C

Unfortunately USB 2.0 is bottlenecked around 40-45MB/s   I thought the same thing for a second.  Too bad they didn't put a USB 3.0 port on there!

[Marsu42]

The only reason ML doesn't release for the 1Dx is because Canon have made a very bold, public statement, that if any third party modifies any camera in the EOS 1 line at a software level then they will feel the might of Canon's entire legal team

Completely wrong, while Canon gave ml a "hint" there was really no pressure needed. The (afaik majority of the) ml devs feel that backporting the 4k feature would be stealing from Canon since this cuts away the main feature of the 1dc, and Canon is free to set up their camera line as they want it.

As for the 1d line: "Magic Lantern is a community project aimed to enhance the low- to midrange DSLR cameras, not to save money for rich people. We only want to make our great cameras even better - and share these modifications with you."

... but of course since ml is open code other people might grab it and port it to the 1d, but the current ml team won't.

For those of us who still shoot stills, wonder if they can do anything to improve the camera.  Like bracketing focus for focus stacking, ...

Focus bracketing is available in the dev/nightly builds (actually I added the original version myself to ml since I wanted it that badly) :-)

[cayenne]

I've been poking around. Apparently the Lexar 1000x cf 64GB cards are 'on sale' now for about $299.

Hmm...I wonder if it might be a good idea to pick up one of these in anticipation of ML raw video coming online soon.

It isn't like I couldn't be using it right now for normal video/stills photography.....

Hm......


cayenne

[Rienzphotoz]

AWESOME

[eyeland]

This is so sweet, a pain having to wait for new CF's to ship before trying it out

[scrup]

Only a Canon will get better as it ages.

[LetTheRightLensIn]

I've been poking around. Apparently the Lexar 1000x cf 64GB cards are 'on sale' now for about $299.

Hmm...I wonder if it might be a good idea to pick up one of these in anticipation of ML raw video coming online soon.

It isn't like I couldn't be using it right now for normal video/stills photography.....

Hm......


cayenne

The two packs of 32GB cards are less, 64GB total for $250.

[cayenne]

I've been poking around. Apparently the Lexar 1000x cf 64GB cards are 'on sale' now for about $299.

Hmm...I wonder if it might be a good idea to pick up one of these in anticipation of ML raw video coming online soon.

It isn't like I couldn't be using it right now for normal video/stills photography.....

Hm......


cayenne

The two packs of 32GB cards are less, 64GB total for $250.

Interesting...got links for those?

Then again...thinking.

From what I understand, with this 'raw' recording, you're gonna get basically 15min per 64GB card, which would make 32GB only about 7 Min.

I could make due with 15min at a time, swapping out with 2x cards shooting at home (one in camera, one uploading to computer), but I think only 7 min at a time would cause a lot of stoppage.

I'll need to find out what those times vs space numbers are.....

C

[neighborsgoat]

...  Canon does build in some safeguards to protect the camera from self destructing into a ball of flames.

Hmm, right about now comes into my mind that piece of black duct tape Canon used to fix the light leakage merely one year ago! That for sure must have been a fire proof duct tape

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I've been poking around. Apparently the Lexar 1000x cf 64GB cards are 'on sale' now for about $299.

Hmm...I wonder if it might be a good idea to pick up one of these in anticipation of ML raw video coming online soon.

It isn't like I couldn't be using it right now for normal video/stills photography.....

Hm......


cayenne

I bought mine for $278 last fall from Adorama, so $299 is not much of a sale.  I'd wait for a better price.

[LetTheRightLensIn]

I am always hesitant to post new ML features from the dev stage here because general users aren't advised to use the stuff yet - but since the news ended up here anyway:

Another great feature of this discovery is the raw histogram which will let you actually see if anything is under- or overexposed in raw and not just in jpeg like with the vanilla Canon fw.

Wait. Is the Trammel Hudson heavily involved with all of this the very same famed hacker of old Atari 8 bit days Tram Hudson??