5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

[syder]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

Hmm... I prefer the Canon one over the Magic Lantern one.

Give it a real try and you will NOT say that.

It depends what you mean by a real try... On a typical day I might shoot 150 clips. Processing each one of those using the current methods for getting raw video out the 5dm3 would be 1) a massive pain in the ass 2) so time consuming that it isn't worthwhile for anyone actually making professional work.

At the moment it's amazing for hobbyists (or other people for whom time doesn't equal money) - but unusable for anyone who makes videos for a living.

 

[RGomezPhotos]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

Yes.. I was thinking the same thing.... This is great for hobbyist... But pros really can't us it as effectively as 3rd party devices to control the camera won't work with it.

 

[cayenne]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

Hmm... I prefer the Canon one over the Magic Lantern one.

Give it a real try and you will NOT say that.

It depends what you mean by a real try... On a typical day I might shoot 150 clips. Processing each one of those using the current methods for getting raw video out the 5dm3 would be 1) a massive pain in the ass 2) so time consuming that it isn't worthwhile for anyone actually making professional work.

At the moment it's amazing for hobbyists (or other people for whom time doesn't equal money) - but unusable for anyone who makes videos for a living.

How much time do you currently spend, on footage from you shoots in post? I'm talking total time from editing, to color correction to color grading....sound...etc?

Just curious, I mean, for most people it isnt' like they shoot, and BAM, have a finished product out the door in 1-2 hours later.

I usually take a good bit of time auditioning takes, sync'ing or dubbing sound, layering on effects, titles...hell, just figuring out the music for things takes time, etc.

I'm guessing when the ML guys get this stuff ready for the general public (remember, it ain't even release to the general public as alpha yet really), I'm guessing they'll have the tools to prep it for whatever entry into the usual workflow worked out pretty straightforward.

Sure, you're gonna need a bit of horsepower to do the early processing of that RAW footage, but you need that with any camera that is currently outputting RAW video...so, I shan't think its gonna be as much of a PITA as you seem to be describing it when this stuff from the ML boys is ready for prime time.

And for some of us, it isn't just turning and burning for the sake of getting something out the door. If it is another hour or so to get super high quality footage with an incredible amount of dynamic range allowing for major color correction/grading in post...then it is definitely worth it.

Quality over Quantity.....it strikes again what balance you are gonnna go for.

C

 

[AAPhotog]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

Hmm... I prefer the Canon one over the Magic Lantern one.

Give it a real try and you will NOT say that.

It depends what you mean by a real try... On a typical day I might shoot 150 clips. Processing each one of those using the current methods for getting raw video out the 5dm3 would be 1) a massive pain in the ass 2) so time consuming that it isn't worthwhile for anyone actually making professional work.

At the moment it's amazing for hobbyists (or other people for whom time doesn't equal money) - but unusable for anyone who makes videos for a living.

There are professionals who shoot RAW and make a living doing so. Whats the difference between the other cameras RAW and the 5d3's?

The ONE step of dragging your RAW clips to raw2dng???
ok.

 

[dirtcastle]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

[smell of coffee]

Pros are already using this.

 

[Mantanuska]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

they look the same except for contrast... pretty hard to compare them that way . if they wanted to show a valid comparison they should have processed the RAW to match the h.264 in terms of contrast and saturation

 

[dirtcastle]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

Yea, sounds like Canon is doing some crazy tricks. It's funny, Canon engineers clearly could have made a better/simpler output pipeline I'm sure with more or less the hardware that's in there, but I'll bet much of it was marketing & feature segmentation decisions to avoid that. Yet ML still has managed to coerce the camera into giving us this crazy high quality output.

Or maybe Canon decided to just reuse whatever work they had done for the 5D2 in order to shorten the time to market for the 5D3 by cutting out extra software R&D?

At this point in time, a very small number of CF cards work with this feature. Had Canon of brought this out in the mainstream model, it is highly likely that they would have received a large number of complaints/returns because people would expect it to work with all CF cards.

Business is all about marginal return. The extra effort and headaches probably wouldn't have translated into proportionally larger sales for the 5D3. The 5D3 is already a winning product without RAW video. And the directly competing DSLRs (D800, for example) don't yet have it, so there was no major competitive advantage to including it.

RAW video seems revolutionary now, but in 3-4 years it will be standard for high-end DSLRs. It will be relatively easy to implement for smaller resolutions. Already, the cards are more than capable of handling the lower resolutions. And eventually 1920x1080 will be supported.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

Hmm... I prefer the Canon one over the Magic Lantern one.

Give it a real try and you will NOT say that.

It depends what you mean by a real try... On a typical day I might shoot 150 clips. Processing each one of those using the current methods for getting raw video out the 5dm3 would be 1) a massive pain in the ass 2) so time consuming that it isn't worthwhile for anyone actually making professional work.

At the moment it's amazing for hobbyists (or other people for whom time doesn't equal money) - but unusable for anyone who makes videos for a living.

Yeah but the other guy was talking about output quality not workflow.

If you are really small or hobby then it is workable or if you are really big it is workable. If you are shooting like crazy for money and just barely getting by and barely able to keep up with even current workflow to get enough money in then it's probably a pretty rough or probably impossible way to go though yeah. But if you are in quite in that situation it should be possible, especially if you get some big, fast RAID setups going and higher-end PC.

I mean it is more of a pain, especially since even quick previews are so now (but already some attempts at rawtodng that also make quick preview files are being tested at which point you'd then be able to quickly scan stuff you shoot without all that much more extra time being needed). In some ways the RAW is so good it can make color development a breeze. But with slow HDs and an old computer it would take ages and yeah be a rough go for some, too rough in many cases.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

Yes.. I was thinking the same thing.... This is great for hobbyist... But pros really can't us it as effectively as 3rd party devices to control the camera won't work with it.

Does it really prevent anything? For now it prevents full scale external monitoring until they make it work with 1.2.1, but people did have that all this time anyway.

 

[eyeland]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

If you prefer sticking with in-camera H264, by all means, enjoy your time-tested workflow. For me however, Raw will give me a competitive advantage and will help me gain access to a more lucrative market segment.
It could have to do with me coming from stills photography and thus being used to dealing with raw, but personally, I find it MUCH less time consuming to grade Raw rather than the stock H264. I don't really care about the time spend on converting files as I just work on something else meanwhile (eg. titles, sound etc.)
Either way, being skeptic at this point of development seems just outright silly... Great attention is currently being devoted to multiple different developments (in-camera bit shifting to 12/10bit, easy generation of proxy clips, automated/scripted workflows etc. etc)
As to canons design choices, besides from their corporate structure, could have to do with memory card speeds as well?
Anyways, I am stoked but I guess YMMV and so on...

 

[hutjeflut]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

magic lantarn seems to hae a to high contrast and altered saturation kicking the red to purple in some samples and at high iso the canon clearly winst even tho its grayer its more realistic and has less distracting noise.


the raw just doesnt seem t be raw but edited and if you edit the canon video it will look better at high iso

 

[syder]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

Hmm... I prefer the Canon one over the Magic Lantern one.

Give it a real try and you will NOT say that.

It depends what you mean by a real try... On a typical day I might shoot 150 clips. Processing each one of those using the current methods for getting raw video out the 5dm3 would be 1) a massive pain in the ass 2) so time consuming that it isn't worthwhile for anyone actually making professional work.

At the moment it's amazing for hobbyists (or other people for whom time doesn't equal money) - but unusable for anyone who makes videos for a living.

There are professionals who shoot RAW and make a living doing so. Whats the difference between the other cameras RAW and the 5d3's?

The ONE step of dragging your RAW clips to raw2dng???
ok.

One can only assume that you've never shot anything using a RAW camcorder or don't understand the ML workflow...

Nothing else requires you to 1st compile a dng sequence into a clip (as you point out) and then compile the DNG files into a sequence (using something like AEX) - a process which is massively computationally intensive (and yes i do have an unlocked and overclocked i7 workstation with 32gb of RAM and a CUDA graphics card) and enormously time consuming.

Using a BMC you can go straight to Resolve, perform a quick grade and render your footage as something edit friendly (dnxhd or similar). No processing RAW to DNG. No turning stills into a sequence. And BM are learning from their mistake with their 1st gen camera that uncompressed RAW is a massive resource hog that no-one wants to deal with.

How much time do you currently spend, on footage from you shoots in post? I'm talking total time from editing, to color correction to color grading....sound...etc?

Just curious, I mean, for most people it isnt' like they shoot, and BAM, have a finished product out the door in 1-2 hours later.

I usually take a good bit of time auditioning takes, sync'ing or dubbing sound, layering on effects, titles...hell, just figuring out the music for things takes time, etc.

As an editor the vast majority of my time is spent... Editing (shock horror). Color correction and grading are the same thing and actually take very little time (even using something like resolve to make a load of secondary corrections - which is more work than a lot of work actually needs). Titles likewise (unless you're talking about some fiendishly complex motion graphics).

When clients pay for my time as an editor they want to have stories told in a compelling way. They're happy to get some work done on grading, motion graphics etc, but that isn't where the majority of an editor's time should be spent, and adding a few days to a project to manually compile the RAW stills into the 600 clips that become a 30 minute documentary is a waste of time.

If you need RAW for your high-budget work rent a Red camera for your shoot. If you want RAW but cant cough up the cash for a Red for your indie work buy a BMC (amazingly cheap for what it does, but has some big limitations outside of fiction work imo). If you're a hobbyist with loads of free time (or just someone who doesn't shoot very much) use the ML RAW.

Phillip Bloom has quite a good post about why the vast majority of people don't need RAW or 4K at the moment http://philipbloom.net/2013/05/28/4kraw/ he's pretty much spot on.

magic lantarn seems to hae a to high contrast and altered saturation kicking the red to purple in some samples and at high iso the canon clearly winst even tho its grayer its more realistic and has less distracting noise.


the raw just doesnt seem t be raw but edited and if you edit the canon video it will look better at high iso

You cant output RAW video... Anything you see online will be graded and exported before being compressed for streaming on Vimeo/Youtube

 

[InterMurph]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

Had Canon of brought this out in the mainstream model, it is highly likely that they would have received a large number of complaints/returns because people would expect it to work with all CF cards.

Canon will not add a raw-video-to-CF-card feature to the 5D Mark III because it is unreliable.

The Magic Lantern folks have done remarkable work, but they have discovered that 1) most CF cards can't handle the throughput, and 2) even the CF cards that can handle it cannot do so reliably.

If Canon ever releases a DSLR with raw-video-to-CF-card support, it will likely be with lossless video compression. The CPU in these cameras is not up to that task, so it would have to be added in hardware (to the DIGIC chip).

Compressed raw video could then be written to CF cards reliably. And then Adobe et al can write code that imports this compressed raw video.

And then we will all be happy. In three years. After we buy another camera...

 

[Jent]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

I agree with Syder.

This looks like a MASSIVE P.I.T.A. just to get a few minutes of footage at enormous file sizes. YES it looks great. And YES it will look greater if your film makes it to blow up on a big theater screen. However, with people compiling 40-50GB of memory for only 8min (many only achieve 10 or so seconds in the rez they want) of footage all the while converting, color grading, uprezzing, break dancing and dosey doeing to do it, I'll pass or wait until ML works out the kinks. I own a 5D Mark II and have seen people going through HELL to get this thing to work right. I've seen the MkII shoot RAW at 1880X860. And while it's beautiful to look at, it's eating up memory, and there is no 1920X1080 (1:85) resolution which is what I want. It's good to know it's possible, but it's not worth the hassle yet.

 

[dirtcastle]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

Yes, of course it is extra work over H.264, Blackmagic Prores, Canon Cinema, etc. But consider a few things...

Blackmagic is the only direct competitor. Let's stay away from apples-to-oranges debates. It's just an option. There are pluses and minuses to everything. If you are comparing the 5D3 to Red or Canon Cinema... you are comparing a Camry to a Porsche. Apples to oranges.

ML RAW is brand new. We just had a breakthrough and the situation is in flux. We won't know the final details of the RAW workflow until the dust settles and the development dominoes have all toppled. Who knows?... maybe there will be a plugin for Adobe or official support in CS7. Again, this is all completely new.

The Workflow. Will there be improvements to converting bundled DNGs to single files? Currently, the weakest link in the chain is the conversion of files in ACR/LR. A batch process here would save a lot of time (especially if it exported to single files, instead of bundles of files). It would be great to bypass ACR/LR altogether. The question is whether the resulting loss of quality would negate the benefits of conversion.

Hardware Requirements. Clearly this will require more than simply having a 5D3. It requires a very fast computer, lots of big drives, fast CF cards, etc. These are similar requirements to the BMCC (again, the only direct competitor).

The Editing Process. I agree that it would be unfair to dump thousands of DNGs on a full-time editor (who was previously receiving single files). Magic Lantern is camera firmware and, as such, I would see it as the responsibility of the shooter to supply the required format to the editor. In this regard, I think pushback from editors is good, because it will provide an impetus to improve the file conversion process.

Good times.

 

[cayenne]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

I agree with Syder.

This looks like a MASSIVE P.I.T.A. just to get a few minutes of footage at enormous file sizes. YES it looks great. And YES it will look greater if your film makes it to blow up on a big theater screen. However, with people compiling 40-50GB of memory for only 8min (many only achieve 10 or so seconds in the rez they want) of footage all the while converting, color grading, uprezzing, break dancing and dosey doeing to do it, I'll pass or wait until ML works out the kinks. I own a 5D Mark II and have seen people going through HELL to get this thing to work right. I've seen the MkII shoot RAW at 1880X860. And while it's beautiful to look at, it's eating up memory, and there is no 1920X1080 (1:85) resolution which is what I want. It's good to know it's possible, but it's not worth the hassle yet.

Again a few things.

This stuff isn't even released as Alpha for the public...still under heavy first stages of development.

When it is more ready for primetime, I'm sure the output and tools for workflow will improve.

Also, the prime camera for using this in a regular fashion, for 1080p video...is the 5D3.
The older cameras will get some form of RAW, but it may or may not be useful for anything but special short footage shots, but looks like on the 5D3 you will be able to use this for real shooting (not long documentary style, but shoots where you shoot only a couple of mins at a time). I think as of now, you can get about 15 min on a 64GB card....nearly half an hour on the 128GB cards.

I figure with things I shoot..I could have one 64GB in the camera and the other unloading data in the computer...etc.

But again...this is in EARLY development stages....with a lot more work to be done and improvements along the way. It speaks loads that the ML folks have made this much progress this quickly.

Once they get the process in camera to a final stage, I expect them to then turn their attention to the external processes to get that output into a form quicker that will then fit into more normal workflows.

I forsee the end product to being something maybe where you take your Canon RAW output, run it through one app to put it into some type of commonly used RAW form, similar to what you get out of BM or Red cameras...and you use it then as you would those forms of footage.

 

[Niki]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

I have the the 5d mark III with good results...is the 5d mark II getting better or less results??

 

[Drizzt321]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

I have the the 5d mark III with good results...is the 5d mark II getting better or less results??

I think right now they're concentrating on the 5d3, getting that stable and refined, then looking at it on other cameras such as the 5D2 & 50D, and maybe the 6D.

 

[eyeland]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

Haters gonna hate
Slightly off-topic: Even if you think raw video on 5D is a dud, you gotta admit that the prospects of turning the old 50D into a cinema camera (albeit not FHD) is wicked awesome. Granted, it does not give you the FF advantage, but apparently the 15MP sensor has its advantages too
Personally, I am quite exited about the prospects of doing in-camera slides and such, not just the raw capabilities.

 

[Jent]

Re: 5D Mark III & RAW Video, A Case Study

LOL eyeland ;D

In all seriousness, as Phillip Bloom said, it is an awesome accomplishment for ML and it is phenomenal that they have allowed DSLR owners to shoot RAW. However, do most people need to shoot RAW - no. Unless you're super well off, you are going to be blowing alot of cash. I'm gonna wait to get a 5DIII after they fix the kinks.