jgharding

Alos once you have shot with cinema cameras they all start to have their own foibles and caveats, so a raw sooting small camera like 5D MKiii could well find itself onto cinema shoots. In a few hours I'm getting my first blast on the F55, (an advert project) but I'm more worried about how much of a headache the file formats will give us in post than I am excited about image quality...   I'll be much happier once I get raw working in a small camera, shooting cine cam is a hassle. No matter how far you strip them they still weigh a lot and are cumbersome. The batteries are very heavy... Think about it, plenty of 5Ds are in use as crash cams on big budget shoots. If the ML raw gets to non-alpha status, I have no doubt you'll read about it in American Cinematographer for being used on an action flick.   The point being even for those who have shot on the high end things, these smaller cheaper cameras are still interesting! They're tools, and a new breed of tool opens up new possibilities at lower budgets. To be honest, they're more interesting than the high end because they're reasonable priced due to economy of scale...

Yes a friend of mine had that on a paid job with GH2, it crashed and lost a shot on a celeb interview and he had to start again :S so hacks are always a risk. But then he got the BMD and that physically broke on its first job! Poor fella...   That's why I went to such lengths to stress test Tragic Lantern for 600D and gave my results in the Shoot Preparation section of their forum: i don't like losing shots.    Personally I have a lot of faith in Magic Lantern as a group, so I feel they'll have a stable 5D iii raw after not too long. I too would feel happier if it were not a separate module but in the main feature list! We'll just have to wait for that I'm afraid, or risk it. If I wanted a BMD, I'd probably have to wait longer to get one! You can't record video to SD in 5D, only the Compact Flash, but yes your point is clear and true, that's not as good as an SSD for sustained raw use.   The best solution I've thought of so far for 5D MKiii raw is a NexTo DI and two CF cards. You swap CF cards and dump them alternately to an SSD in the NexTo DI, which clones them to its drive. I've not yet tested it though.   http://www.nextodi.com

I'd say neither is inferior.   The 5D MKiii is a complete reliable piece of kit that can be hacked at own risk to shoot raw and have additional features.   The BMD cameras are designed to shoot raw but are incomplete beta equipment, and cannot hacked to include additional features.   There are no reports of ML raw bricking cameras yet, from reading the forum it seems unlikely to happen, it remains a possibility. Some clips do get lost due to formatting issues. The only person I know who owns a BMD m4/3 had it break on the first job, hardware failure, real life issues with BMD cams are very real and are being fixed as they go. But of course alpha firmware hacks like ML aren't exactly concrete coding either...   Blind faith in either piece of kit is ill advised, each should be approached with the appropriate caveats considered.

Nightly builds or not, Magic Lantern take zero responsibility for any kind of bricked camera   But yes they're openly saying it's an alpha. I've heard one or two reports of problems (lost clips for example) but raw should put less stress on the camera than H264, as it's just saving the live-view stream rather than churning processor to turn that into H264.   Right now there's a few caveats, but I think give it a few more months and we'll be good. It's the top priority overall at ML, and having a raw camera of this quality for 2k or less £ (if you get lucky) plus some donation to Magic Lantern if you believe in karma, is incredible really.   As for what I'd use it on, well when I get a working card I'll try it with a personal project so there's not too much riding on it. Some people have used them on paid jobs already, if I had a decent budget I'd hire something I knew worked, but for ultra-high quality on a budget it could be worth a punt.   I thought the storage requirement was too much, but it looks like Cineform raw is very efficient and quite brilliant.

Yeah Epic starts to get noise one iso (EI)800 in my experience. Not unusable, just clearly noisy. The pattern is not as nice as Alexa. It also has an issue with magenta/green skin sometimes, and when it clips out things go magenta too.   It seems to me that the movement is rendered in a different way. 5D looks less traditionally cinematic but more 'really there', almost like the frames are less distinct across time or something?   Then again it reminds of the look of The Master, slightly hyper real, so maybe it's the sensor size that's responsible, since 5D sensor is so much bigger than S35?   It's incredible what the 5D can do now, no more excuses from anyone eh ;)

Do you know what their total budget is? Also what kind of thing are they filming?

What do debayer errors look like? What do you mean combining pixels? I'm keen to learn a little more.

Maybe the mids are noisy because they were once shadows, and it's pushing out of camera, hence the small overexposure latitude?   Unlike the alexa, which uses a low-gain pass for the shadows, this and most other cameras push the single sensor pass to boost dark areas. (I don't know about the high-end Sonys yet).   Effectively this means applying ISO (gain) to the underexposed areas of the sensor, so naturally they become noisy.   Arris really nailed it with Alexa, maintaining something like 7 stops over, and the clean shadows, using those two gain settings at once, reading the sensor with double channels.   This is what ML dual ISO on 5D MKiii mimics with some issues.   Maybe the 70D double photodiode sensor could be hacked to do what Alexa does? Let's hope so... It would depend on the number of channels off the sensor, so probably not.   Those who've done a lot of raw photography will notice this noise from when they've boosted shadows to the middle, suddenly those areas have a lot of gain, so a lot of noise.   In short what I'm suggesting is the channels that read the sensor are already reading a single that's gained quite a bit, so what read as mids, were once the shadows, and the sensor isn't quite as sensitive as it should be?   That might explain the low overexposure latitude. It's an issue with Red Epic to, that's much noisier than Alexa.   Just a hypothesis though, I've got no scientific method to back it up, just bits of knowledge I'm trying to tie together.   What's truly wonderful is that the Amira may come in at 20k, and that's basically an Alexa.   Then the C300 can f*** right off.   But yes for the money this is great. I do love and prefer the 5D MKiii raw now I've started playing with it though, and prefer it, but the colours really need taming in that. Horses and courses etc!

That I don't know. I'd be surprised if the EM1 didn't have manual control, or the EM5 for that matter.   Andrew reviewed the EM5 here : http://www.eoshd.com/content/8565/olympus-om-d-e-m5-review

Nice stuff! Tree goats are the best...

For what you're doing there, probably not, the amazing stabilisation of the EM5 will be a more useful function than higher bit rates and so on.   Of all of those I'd either choose the EM1 so you're upgrading to something you'll be used to, still with the stabilisation, or the G6 for sharp slow motion video.

I suppose they kind of "baked in" the ETTR rule.   Alexa beats most of the rest due a complex reading system that works something like Magic Lantern 5D MKiii dual ISO...   DGA simultaneously provides two separate read-out paths from each pixel with different amplification. The first path contains the regular, highly amplified signal. The second path contains a signal with lower amplification, to capture the information that is clipped in the first path. Both paths feed into the cameras A/D converters, delivering a 14 bit image for each path. These ima-ges are then combined into a single 16 bit high dynamic range image. This method enhances low light performance and pre-vents the highlights from being clipped, thereby significantly extending the dynamic range of the image. ALEXAs sensor design provides 32 pairs of outputs. Each channel is divided into a high amplification (gain) path (H) and a low gain path (L), resulting in 64 channels arriving at the 14 bit A/D converters. In the final images, the shadow areas are re-constructed from the high gain path and the highlights are reconstructed from the low gain path for an image containing meaningful luminance information in all 16 bits.

From what I can gather so far, the highlight rolloff is more like a cliff jump, and is gnarlier than Waynes World

Loved it! I did a similar film with marbling inks in water for live projection at a music festival, and as you said, I used the 600D zoom crop mode a lot!

That's interesting.... I wonder too.   I think It will be some of their high-end broadcast rack-mount units and so on.   Here's the full lineup: http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products   I spent some time sat a sound magazine reporting from AV shows, and a huge chunk of stuff at the Blackmagic stands (around the third biggest in some of the shows) was for live and studio broadcast. The US and international broadcast market is enormous and lucrative, and their gear provides great features at competitive prices, much like the cameras do.   They are well-liked internationally, a company full of great people (when I traveled the shows I always really looked forward to going to see their stand) and produce innovative products, and I don't doubt they'll get there with the cameras. It's a brave move and we all have our own opinions on what could be done better... but that's hindsight. It's great that they've done it!   I just hope they're engaged with their market in terms of feedback, there's a lot to be gained and lost here for them as the years roll on.   As it is they still have plenty of new 4K broadcast gear knocking around which will take off as sports start to be shot in Ultra HD or whatever they're calling it in the high street!

Received wisdom is that Canon accidentally created DSLR video. They added simple 30p recording to the 5D MKii for journalists, and as more people used it and bought the camera for video they started expanding the features. Then we get the 7D. The 550D was a big milestone, bringing all this to a cheap plastic body. without that camera god knows what I'd be working as...   But shortly afterwards it all stalled a bit, they realised it was a big market, and created EOS C to capitalise on the professionals using their lower-end products.   Now they will protect that line at most costs. Magic Lantern can hack what they like as long as it's not a C camera, because C is worth too much to Canon. It's a big part of their future. Though the C500 is a big mis-step and shows their lack of experience at the top end: you can't take the piss out up there. Give us everything now please, or we'll hire an Alexa ;)   This year, the majority of jobs I've been involved with one way or another were shot on C300. That is expert business really. To completely steal the market previously occupied by Sony camcorders in a few years, out of the blue, Canon cemented themselves even more firmly in the professional consciousness than they ever had.   It does give the bare minimum but it's just so easy to use and works wonderfully. It's mostly hired, hence that silly price, though I know one owner operator.   One little feature in the 5D MKii kicked it off, now they own corporate, internal, and small scale advertising. They dominate the low end. That's a great success story for them. Our market though, is still a niche. they want consumers and pros, and they're happy to mop up the bit in the middle with the help of the unpaid Magic Lantern crew.

I also would to see full frame cameras with a super 35, micro four thirds, and 16mm crop in them. That's be great.   Red Epic has had it for ages, with speed going up as you crop into the sensor. It's ace and saves time swapping lenses...

Just got some F5 footage to edit, it's AVC 4:2:2 10-bit 110mbps High profile Level 4.1 I-frame Rec709   That's a good type of AVC/MP4 etc!   Beats AVC 4:2:0 8-bit 24mbps Baseline Long GOP by a long margin...   Tha AVCHD standards contain loads of excellent options, they just aren't implemented.   Let's hope manufacturers start to put such nicer standards into crossover cameras, not just pro ones...   ***   I agree on out of the box features, I wish more were available that way...   I feel "hack" is something of a misnomer for most Magic Lantern, I've used it on every pro job I've done with DSLR for a long time. With regard to raw though, it definitely is a bit of a hack (separate module and so on) but so far it's proven relatively stable. I'd be reticent to use it without backup at the moment for a budgeted job, though, as there are reports of corruption and lost footage.   But if we are to consider cameras without hacks you're right that some are pretty shocking. No focus peaking on any Canon SLR including 1DC is pretty sad. That's why I never use them without Magic Lantern on board! There are other odd decisions, like Panasonic's G6 with peaking but GH3 without! weird...

Well, let's all just see how it turns out then! Could be a decent Isco alternative for those without sacks of cash or the luck to find one cheap 

Perhaps I should be optimistic about 7D MKii, since even an iPhone now has 120fps... but I'm not... once bitten, twice shy and all that... :S If their 15,000 pound video camera doesn't have it, why would an SLR?   Yes if Sony take the five-axis stabilisation and put it in an amazing NEX-9 or something, with more than 24/28mbps we could be talking.   If I see 24mbps AVCHD written on another new camera I'll punt it into the nearest lake.   The trouble is it's a "standard", but it happens to be a shit and outdated one, like PAL SD for example.    Canon at least ignore these standards and implement their own codec forms. The AVCHD nearly ruins the FS700, for example. Shit just falls apart after a bit...

It's all down to what you want to do really.   As I've said on here, I personally went for 5D MKiii because I can see raw improving and the cards, processing and storage getting cheaper, so it's kinda futureproofed but I can shoot with it now!   Also because my low-light portraiture with 600D I was finding was a little noisy for 300DPI prints, and I wanted more resolving power. Here sensor size does a lot. I don't like using flash.   Some of that 5D MKiii raw is f***ing stunning, as is the BMD stuff, but the 5D has quite the low-light and noise advantage.   I don't need 4K for my own stuff usually and couldn't store or handle it. Where I do need it (for comping heavy jobs) they're always company based or budgeted so I'd hire. In fact I'm soon to get a crash course in F55 for a comping-heavy job that is so complex in cinematographic terms I shall have to blog about it! The camera is the only global-shutter 4K raw camera for a reasonable hire price so it shall be picked.   Were it an option in pro-sumer cameras I'd use 4K selectively.   So in the 5D MKiii there's the best balance I could find  the best of photography video and future raw in a balance. Other tools do each individual thing better, but nothing else has a finger jammed in every pie quite so deeply. Mmmm, pie.   Had Magic Lantern not existed, I never would have bought this or the 600D though.   It's a weird market, competition is not just on features but availability, support, so on.   I'm all for a shakeup, but though I want Sony to make a full-frame or APSC mirrorless with five-axis stabilisation and a decent codec, I can see them saying PROFESSIONAL 24mbit AVCHD!!!! on the box again, which is sad.

Since they fixed aliasing in 5D MKiii, next they will fix it in a model further down the line (like a 7D), then in the xxxD models, if they follow the patterns from before.   Though they are running out of numbers, so eventually they'll have to carry out the total still/video merger strategy they've often talked about. maybe in 10 years? ;)   They did introduce a new APSC sensor to 70D and still leave the aliasing in, but the 70D does outstrip the 7D in many ways, so they'll need a new 7D soon.   I'm sure it will crawl up in specs.   My predictions:   The 7D MKii will gain a few MP and FPS in photo mode, in video it will gain the ALL-i feature, lose video aliasing, gain a crop video mode.   At the moment the 600D and ML is just better for video than the 7D, unless you want to shoot in the rain and have L-lenses.   They need to make it so the 7D is better all round so the lineup makes sense.   They probably won't give it a touchscreen though, that would offend its market, though it's useful for autofocus.   It will gain something in video over the 5D MKiii (probably a crop mode), so that 7D MKii is more video oriented and 5D MKiii is crossover.   There won't be 1080p/50 or 60, because they don't give you that in the C300 even.   Go get a G6 for that.   A 7D MKii will not have raw recording out of the box, this won't happen. It may appear in Magic Lantern form later on.   There will be the usual crawl upwards in other photo specs, some funny modes and bits we don't really care about. Spreading the incremental updates across the user base.   Is that it? Yes, yes it is...   The 5D MKiii update was astonishingly conservative even for Canon. There is no way the 7D MKii will be any different, sorry peeps...   EDIT: as mentioned below it will probably have that new half-pixel autofocus sensor too...

Maybe you have a bad copy, I'd try sending it back...

M = mbps. Amount of data per second. megabits per second   Higher is better quality (in general) but larger files.   Professional formats range from around 50 mbps to 700mbps or so and more. so 24mbps is a bare minimum really, don't use the lower setting.

Anamorphic selling on eBay is beyond disgusting now. I've watched items get bought one day, and go up with the same set of pictures on a big lens shop's store two days later for three times the price buy it now. Doesn't it just make your skin crawl?   To top that every giant dual-focus anamorphic projector lens is advertised with the word "Iscorama", which is very dishonest, and the wording appears designed to fool buyers, since there are no returns.