RAW 4K Capture Feature Coming for Frame Grabs? [CR1]

[sanj]

At first I thought this video screen grab feature would be extremely useful... then I remembered this thing is supposed to shoot 14fps, which would serve the exact same function. Am I missing something here?

Yes. 10 frames.

 

[dash2k8]

At first I thought this video screen grab feature would be extremely useful... then I remembered this thing is supposed to shoot 14fps, which would serve the exact same function. Am I missing something here?

Yes. 10 frames.

Sorry, can you elaborate? You're saying this video burst is 24fps?

 

[Tugela]

My NX1 can do 15 fps shooting in jpeg for a surprising length of time when using a 1000X UHS-II card, apparently it lasts even longer with 2000x cards.

That is more data than a 4K raw frame, so it should be possible to shoot short movies at 15 fps using something like that.

 

[Tugela]

As a professional sports photographer i would not use that.
The major reason is shutter speed.
Normally i use a shutter speed that is 1/800 or faster.
White filming requires shutter speeds that are a whole lot longer.
Also, prefer higher resolution. Since i crop most of my images.
(My work can be found here: http://jkpg-sports.photo/ ).

There's nothing stopping you from using 1/4000th per second in video mode if you want. I think you're confusing shutter speeds needed for smooth motion (1/50th for 24fps video, 1/60th for 30fps, etc...) vs any speed you want for stills. There's no limitation. You can manually set shutter speed for video capture now with current DSLRs. It's just that, were you to playback 1/800th or 1/8000th second shutter speeds in motion at 24fps, the MOTION would look VERY choppy, but each frame would be a perfect 8.8MP RAW still (in the case of this rumor). So yes, it could absolutely work.

Only if there is significant motion. If motion is moderate or low then the shutter speed is irrelevant.

 

[Tugela]

There are plugins who can add motion blur to videos with short shutter speeds, many tv setup's standard settings do have motion blur settings that hide it, and there are also scene situations where you don't see short shutter speeds anyway. Just staying at 1/50 is more or less filmmaker tradition, but isn't always necessary. If 4k60fps, or as rumored even 120fps are coming, technically by rule the shutter speed for video even would have to be 1/120 or 1/240. Depending on the object, that's already enough for many photo situations.

Something that would be much welcome on the other end would be new possible video frame rates like 1, 5, 10 or 15 that allow LONGER shutter speeds and would be nice for timelapse and lowlight scenes with little movement - and then parallel photos who do require such longer shutter speeds. That should be very easy to implement Canon!

Motion blur will cease to be an issue at high frame rates, so the "rule" regarding shutter speed will disappear. It is only necessary to use that rule at low frame rates or when shooting subjects that have extreme relative motion.

Sensors can already do 240 fps. The sensor used in the NX1 for example is designed for full sensor reads at 240 fps (and that is a 28 MP sensor), but the problem is that no commercial processor available can handle that sort of data flow. In order to be able to deal with what the sensors can deliver we will need next generation processors that are much faster. The NX1 would require a processor about 5-6X faster than what it currently has to handle what it's sensor is capable of. So it might be quite a few years before 120 or 240 fps at 4K is feasible in most cameras. 60 fps might not be all that far off though. make it feasible.

 

[arcer]

Ultimately, the overwhelming number of stills will be taken this way, with quality superior to anything we currently have.

Only reactionary holdouts, the same types who cling to film, will keep trying to capture the perfect moment one shot at a time.

I appreciate the value of this kind of shooting, and I concede many still-only shooters will eventually use video (or super high speed shooting on/around the shutter depression) at some point, but this is still in its infancy.

Consider: as much as 8 MP is more than many folks need to share on instagram or FB, how many of us are currently taking stills with 8 MP sensors? (I mean on our dedicated rigs, not on cell phones.) So as much as I concede this will be a part of my future, I'll happily keep snapping stills for now.

- A

I'm still using my 350D from 10 years ago for some shooting in the summer daylight or in controlled lighting, it was my first Canon and it has sentimental value, so I didn't throw it away. It's also fun to use ancient but capable camera for fun shooting occasionally.
Even though its resolution is quite small compared to the big MP cameras nowadays, it still deliver good images for web use.
Nevertheless, RAW video for still grabs is quite a development for Canon and hopefully, 4K RAW video is not that far off for the consumers.
http://canonrumors.com/forum/Smileys/default/rolleyes.gif
Well, Sony is going to get ahead of Canon in this aspect with the Sony fans jerking themselves off before finding that the Sonys were not what they expected.

 

[9VIII]

If they put fast Dual Pixel AF on the 1Dx2 and let people snap 4K images at 20FPS, they'd better put the same thing in the High End EOS-M.

And if we do see something of this sort transitioning over to EOS-M that puts Canon in an interesting position.

 

[expatinasia]

I think Canon would need to explain exactly how this works for us to discuss it properly.

I know from personal experience that shooting video on the 1D X eats through the battery quickly, whereas with stills I can shoot well over a thousand stills at an all day event and may not even need to reach for my second battery.

There's also the issue of the media contract signed with different events/venues etc. Most do not allow for any moving images to be taken (if you are just an accredited photographer and not the official broadcaster etc.).

Plus there are a load of other issues, but until we know more I would prefer the stills and video sides of my business to remain separate. And for both to be the best possible quality they can be in the 1D X package.

 

[sanj]

At first I thought this video screen grab feature would be extremely useful... then I remembered this thing is supposed to shoot 14fps, which would serve the exact same function. Am I missing something here?

Yes. 10 frames.

Sorry, can you elaborate? You're saying this video burst is 24fps?

Yes.

 

[Nininini]

Can't they just delete the video function altogether?
Much simpler and it would save a bunch on R&D!

Video is an increasingly important market for camera makers, I would say more important than stills.

Maybe you've heard of this thing called Youtube, a large market offset for Canon are Youtube videographers.



Being able to take 8mp stills from a 30fps 4k video feed, is nothing short of amazing. It is the same as an 8mp camera with an unlimited buffer.

When I shoot on 4k on my panasonic, and am getting 8mp at 30fps out of them, the 10fps on my DSLR looks increasingly weak.

You don't really realize the power of 4k video for stills until you try it, grabbing 8mp stills from 4k, is brilliant.



There will always be a place for just taking stills. You don't need to take video if you just want to shoot architecture, or landscapes, or are documenting something.

But for action...once you start grabbing frames from 4k video, it's really hard to go back to shooting in small bursts.

 

[Nininini]

like wading through the vast amounts of data that could be generated

It's much easier for me to pick a frame from a 4k video, than wade through thousands of pictures.

It's easier to recollect what was happening on video and what frame you want, than just wading through tons and tons of individual pictures.

4k video has made fps and buffer size on a camera irrelevant to me.

 

[Neutral]

As a professional sports photographer i would not use that.
The major reason is shutter speed.
Normally i use a shutter speed that is 1/800 or faster.
White filming requires shutter speeds that are a whole lot longer.
Also, prefer higher resolution. Since i crop most of my images.
(My work can be found here: http://jkpg-sports.photo/ ).

There's nothing stopping you from using 1/4000th per second in video mode if you want. I think you're confusing shutter speeds needed for smooth motion (1/50th for 24fps video, 1/60th for 30fps, etc...) vs any speed you want for stills. There's no limitation. You can manually set shutter speed for video capture now with current DSLRs. It's just that, were you to playback 1/800th or 1/8000th second shutter speeds in motion at 24fps, the MOTION would look VERY choppy, but each frame would be a perfect 8.8MP RAW still (in the case of this rumor). So yes, it could absolutely work.

Exactly.
I see some confusion for some people around understanding concept and difference of shutter speed and frame rate in video mode
For cinema look video shutter speed needs to be twice of frame rate , just to simulate old film camera with rotating shutter disk. This is why people shooting movies usually use set of ND filters to keep shutter speed low for smooth/fluid cinema look videos and professional video cameras use internal switchable ND filters. Each frame itself is blurry in cinema mode.

If person wants to shoot video just to grab frames later from videostream then shutter speed could be set manually to what is required to get sharp non blurry image.
So it could be set up to the max shutter speed if required - up to 1/8000 on most of the cameras.
So one can set frame rate to what is required ,e.g. 25 fps, or less or more and set sutter speed for 1/2000 to freeze motion.
Ability to have RAW video captures ( as rumored fo 1DX II) could allow much more flexibility in post-processing and make it close to stills burst mode.
Each selected frame then could be processed as normal RAW still image.

 

[dash2k8]

At first I thought this video screen grab feature would be extremely useful... then I remembered this thing is supposed to shoot 14fps, which would serve the exact same function. Am I missing something here?

Yes. 10 frames.

If that's the case, then it will definitely be useful to me because I often have to shoot both at the same time at a wedding. Hopefully this will mean I won't have to choose one over the other, but have both at the same time.

Sorry, can you elaborate? You're saying this video burst is 24fps?

Yes.

 

[Nininini]

you don't have to use the 180 degree shutter angle rule

you can shoot 30fps video at like 1/320

if you shoot 30fps action video at 1/50, and try to pull frames from the video, it's going to look blurry as hell of course

some hollywood movies are shot at 1/50, some are shot at 1/200 or higher, depending on the movie and how action oriented it is


4k video is nothing more than an 8 megapixel camera doing 30/60 fps burst mode with an unlimited buffer, it's interesting to say the least

in fact, the MP4 and H.264 algorithms, have some shared similarities to JPEG compression, you can actually think of them as JPEG burst mode

once you wrap your head around that, it's easy to see why this is interesting for a stills photographer not interested in video too

it is only with 4k that pulling stills became interesting, 1080p stills are only 2 megapixel, but 4k stills are suddenly 8 megapixel...that's suddenly not too shabby anymore, 8mp is good enough for many scenarios


I shoot at a 90 degree shutter angle, twice as fast as traditional film, so I shoot 4k 30fps at a 1/120 shutter speed, which is good enough to freeze light motion for pulling a still, while still retaining a pleasing video

 

[Neutral]

you don't have to use the 180 rule

you can shoot 30fps video at like 1/320

if you shoot 30fps action video at 1/50, and try to pull frames from the video, it's going to look blurry as hell of course

some hollywood movies are shot at 1/50, some are shot at 1/200 or higher, depending on the movie and how action oriented it is


4k video is nothing more than an 8 megapixel camera doing 30/60 fps burst mode with an unlimited buffer, it's interesting to say the least

in fact, the MP4 and H.264 algorithms, have some shared similarities to JPEG compression, you can actually think of them as JPEG burst mode

once you wrap your head around that, it's easy to see why this is interesting for a stills photographer not interested in video too

it is only with 4k that pulling stills became interesting, 1080p stills are only 2 megapixel, but 4k stills are suddenly 8 megapixel...that's suddenly not too shabby anymore, 8mp is good enough for many scenarios

Well said.
For some people this concept is new so it might be difficult to grasp it easily for them.
As I mentioned above some people do not undestand well that frame rate and shutter speed are completely different things.
I would like to see newer H.265 format support in addition to old H.264 in 1DX II.
H.265 is is twice better than H.264 regarding video compression and surpasses H.264 in final video quality.
This is what Canon should have in expensive flagship camera so that it could be called up-to-date to the latest standards. 1DX II is for next 4-5 years and they need to look ahead a bit and implement new technologies and not aging ones.

 

[sportskjutaren]

You don't have to use long shutter speeds, it is selectable. And if you are shooting for the photo, you could set shutter speed as high as you need to.

That's just what i do it already
Just that it works better with still images for several reasons.
And so it will continue to be for several reasons.
(Se my previews posts in this thread).

 

[gsealy]

This has its place. It's not going to replace high fps sports/wildlife shooting at the top end for a while yet. There are issues - like wading through the vast amounts of data that could be generated (hopefully software could be developed to help). But still, it has potential, and should be cautiously welcomed I reckon.

If these are video files being created such as .MOVs, then it is easy to import the video into a video editor. Each frame in a video editor can be saved as a .JPG. So, if I want to use a given frame capture for some purpose, then I simply watch the video or jump to the place I have in mind (after all I did shoot it, so I know where to go). I have used many such frame capture JPGs for all kinds of things. For example, after I save a frame as a .JPG I can use a paint program to create a poster using the JPG as a starting point.

 

[Nininini]

I pull stills from my 4k video all the time. I use Corel VideoStudio (yes, I don't have a $1000000 software, this is good enough for me)


pause video and pull frame

(it gets automatically moved to a folder and saved as a JPEG, you can save as uncompressed bitmap too, I personally don't care, I use JPEG)

8 megapixel JPEG image:

I have also tested if the quality is the same as taking a picture.

If I take a still in JPEG and change it to 8 megapixel, is it the same quality as pulling a frame from my cameras 4k video.

It is, there is no loss of quality. I don't pixel peep my pictures, but I don't notice any difference in quality.

Of course, you are limited to 8mp, but in turn you get..video, it's like shooting 8mp pictures at 30fps with an unlimited buffer.

 

[DigiAngel]

Cant be that hard or expensive to put enough memory in there to hold a few dozen 4k frames....

 

[scyrene]

like wading through the vast amounts of data that could be generated

It's much easier for me to pick a frame from a 4k video, than wade through thousands of pictures.

It's easier to recollect what was happening on video and what frame you want, than just wading through tons and tons of individual pictures.

4k video has made fps and buffer size on a camera irrelevant to me.

Well I guess we differ then! I've tried it, and I much prefer 'wading through' stills. Partly it's software - Lightroom is geared towards stills, and only has the bare minimum ability to process video. As for recollection - our memories must work differently too