BIG NEWS - Hands on with CONTINUOUS raw recording on Canon 5D Mark III

[galenb]

Is it just me or do you guys see a complete lack of rolling shutter?!

[squig]

For the most part, I don't think pros don't want to mess with hot-rodded cameras.   :lol:

 

I'm officially renouncing my pro club membership and pledge my allegiance to the ML RAW fanboy club. If the Red One isn't a hot-rodded camera I don't know what is.

[Chrad]

To be honest, I actually like the look of the BMCC footage more. Yes, it's weaker in low light and less clean, but it has an intangible 'cinematic' quality to me. It's just very pleasing, particularly the colours, and the widest DR out there for prosumer video helps too.

 

I don't think this necessarily needs to hurt BMD either. Their 4K model with no rolling shutter could see a sales boost after this. 

Let's not forget that if you don't own any raw shooting camera, you could buy three pocket cameras for the same price as a Mk III.

 

Also, Vitality Kiselev needs to step his game up, heh.

[Sean Cunningham]

For the most part, I don't think pros don't want to mess with hot-rodded cameras...

 

This is going to be a factor in some cases.  I'm attached to a small collection of scripts out looking for funding right now and the writer/executive producer told me I wasn't going to be allowed to use a hacked camera (referring to my GH2).  While being immediately offended I also knew he was raising enough to support a decent camera rental package so I've got him convinced a good alternative would be for production to buy a couple BMD cameras.  

 

No matter how cool this development is we'll still likely be going the BMD route, or some flavor or RED rental.  He's not going to risk other people's money on potential hang-ups on set, beyond the usual expectation that they can happen with any camera, and I can't really blame him.

 

I might just have to revisit my own plans for my next personal camera, with this in mind, though I don't particularly like the extremely narrow anamorphic options with FF.

[Chrad]

What sensor size is effectively being used in 16:9 crop mode?

[VanWeddings]

magic latern should rush out this hack before canon tries to clamp down on it. after all, they did treaten to unleash the lawyers on 1Dx to 1Dc hack and this is much more significant.

 

amazing feat the ML team has pulled off...

[WilliamGill]

Andrew's still from the footage looks amazing. I wonder how realistic it is to think about using ML and a 5D mkIII for longer form work - that is to say shooting plain vanilla 1080p, in mpeg mode, for things like docs and corporate work. For some jobs, the whole raw conversion isn't feasible time wise, and many clients will be unwilling to get a bill for the extra computer time. I'd be very interested to see some 1080p mpeg stuff, and also any rough ideas on how much space on a cf card it will eat up.

[markm]

This could be a good marketing strategy for canon who now have an excuse to get out of there overpriced lineup and upsetting those invested and sell a lot of 5D's to compensate before bringing out new models that compete with the BMC and make their present lineup redundant.

 

The BMC is the better choice with its form factor reliabilty and effectiveness As for the 5D it will need a lot of work keeping that large sensor focused and bokeh is way way over rated..

[Dane]

Can't believe Magic Lantern pulled this off! Full frame raw video!! So awesome!

I wonder if it would be possible to overcrank to 48 or 60fps raw in lower resolutions?

[Julian]

So they figured out how to manipulate the resolution, right?

Could that mean some anamorphic love? custom aspect ratio's? 4:3?

[KarimNassar]

fantastic work from the magic lantern team congrats!

 

Shows how much of an effort canon has being doing in selling the weakest technology possible to the highest price possible.

 

And let's not forget how they blatantly lied saying the mark III was not capable of clean out hdmi only to provide it via firmware later on.

 

I suppose the 1DC is better equipped for video than the mark III with a faster buffer and better heat management?

Could turn into a decent camera with this hack.

 

Anyways in the end this will bring money to Canon that they do not deserve.

[nigelbb]

Is there some technical reason why the raw images have to be written to the CF card when Canon just released firmware for the 5D3 that gives a clean HDMI output so that a Ninja or Hyperdeck Shuttle can be attached as SSDs are cheaper & larger capacity than 1000x CF cards.

[Thomas Duvrai]

I'm a bit confused about the resolution thing.

 

I presume the "full frame modes" use the full height or width of the sensor (or both depending on the aspect ratio),

 

That would mean that the camera is down scaling from the full resolution of the sensor to the output resolution.

 

But that would mean the data is not raw in the sense that it has to be debayered.  Does this mean you can only have video output in the full frame modes, or is it kind of like 14 bit bitmap frames with a blue, red and green component for every pixel?

 

You are correct, the full frame video files are debayered and downscaled to 14bit YUV422. Usually this format is not called raw, it's an uncompressed intermediate format.

 

How does 14bit YUV422 compare to 14bit Bayer RAW? They are both designed to take less space than pure RGB (which takes at least 24bit per pixel) but they do this by imitating the sensibility of the human eye.

 

Bayer RAW

It is the closest to what the sensor records. All commonly used sensors are essentially black and white. Every "pixel" gets a color filter that makes it sensible to only one color. A color sensor usually has a repeating pattern of 2 green, 1 blue and 1 red "pixel": the Bayer pattern. The final RGB pixel you get on your screen is actually an R, G or B pixel, with the rest of the color calculated from neighboring pixels: this is called a debayered image.

 

YUV422

It's an intermediate format because it's always the output of some kind of transformation. No sensor will capture directly in YUV422 format.
In YUV422 every pixel has a brightness value, but color information is combined for every 2 pixels. 

[Xiong]

This is fantastic news! When this trickles down its going to be great. Great stuff ML team,

[ScreensPro]

I've been following this with interest, and it just keeps getting better and better. I've never used an ML hack before, but these guys will be getting a hefty donation from me and my brother, when we get this working on his 5DIII.

 

Good work on the article, Andrew. Keep up the good work.

[mtheory]

It is ALIVE!!!!

 

 

Meanwhile, somewhere at Canon HQ...

 

[HolyManta - Thomas Läräng]

Very cool! When shooting in 1920×1280, is the raw image really sampled from the whole sensor or is it cropped down?

[Patrick Jennings]

has anyone else noticed the vertical stripes in a few of the frame grabs. can see in the shadows of the dog one. and the blue sky of the plant shots.  what is this? the debayering? or an error? or the sensor?

 

hmmmmm

[Ernesto Mantaras]

Truly great news for Canon users! And if they can port this to the 600D and there are chances of it working, I'm definitely getting one.

What about some 4:3 aspect ratio? That'd be ideal for anamorphic, since 3:2 will yield a 3:1 final image (which is stil a lot better than 3:55 and digital crop!).

[Zigmars Zilgalvis]

Mr. HD is the footage suffering from crazy rolling shutter what seem so be the case? i hope not!