The ghost of squig

The screenshots I posted are from the final export.

Nope. Like @deezid said: "I really hope BMD adds a setting allowing spatial noise filtering to be turned off. In this example the grain would become smaller at least and less blocky." Otherwise I can see a Z6 with ProRes raw landing on my desk sometime soon.

"This should not affect renders" Looks like I won't be filming any blue skies with my Pocket 4K, which is a shame because we get the occasional blue sky in Australia. It's a good thing I got one of the new not defective in any way cameras that can't be downgraded to CDNG then. I didn't pre-order because this time I wanted to wait until all the bugs were fixed ??

No issues to be concerned about that I'm aware of. I've been using the same 4 Lexar and Toshiba 1066x 64GB CF cards for years. The only way to ensure against data loss is to shoot with a camera that either records to 2 cards or records internally and outputs a clean feed simultaneously.

The only instances I'm aware of where all footage has been lost is due to card failure, which is just as likely to happen with any camera. This unreliability thing is a myth perpetuated since day one of Magic Lantern. Sure nightly builds have had some bugs, but anyone would be crazy to shoot a job with an untested nightly build. The nightly I'm using has been around for a year, and it's solid. I've been shooting with ML for over 7 years, and I've never had any worries about its reliability. I follow the ML forum closely, it's definitely the latter. I'm not taking any stills with the X-T3, I know I'll want to keep it, but I don't make my living shooting stills so it has to go. If you're mostly shooting daylight and 5600k, sure. It's just code man, not voodoo magic.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bTrb4QlNxZRQW2dZPMQ5_7U5b0jMxrQ5 I haven't shot any ProRes, been quite content recording Braw to a T5 drive and UHS-1 Sandisk extreme pro cards. The P4K pairs better with the 5D than the X-T3, much easier to match in post. Keeping in mind I've been working on doco with no control of the lighting, the X-T3 would do a lot better with controlled lighting. I wouldn't bother with LP-E6 batteries, the run-time is too short. I haven't bought a cage, I have it rigged to 15mm rails with the Sony L battery hanging off the back of the rails and the T5 mounted to the rails under the lens. If you're booming you can mount the L battery on the top thread. I have v-mounts and powerbanks, but I'm satisfied with the Sony L setup for now. It's probably the cheapest option, and I only have to charge 2-3 of them at the end of the day.

I recorded all 3 at different exposure levels, the ones you can see were the optimum exposures for DR. The 5DMk3 CDNG raw format gives it the edge in the grade. Have you tried dragging and dropping the images? Not bad considering the MK3 is 1080p and the other two are 4K. One of the things I don't like about the X-T3 is it loses chroma in the shadows, that's something the 5D has always handled better than every other camera I've tested over the years. I recently filmed 3 jobs exclusively with the 5D over 3 weeks with a nightly build; it only crashed once, and I only lost one frame. The 5D upscales to 4K nicely. We should be doing this in my comparison thread. My bad.

Anyone with the OG Pocket have any issues with compressed CDNG or ProRes macroblocking?

It's definitely compression artifacts. Grading accentuates it, but even ungraded it's noticeable. Any large monochromatic areas could be problematic. I haven't tested ProRes, in my experience ProRes is less prone to macroblocking like that, but I'll do a test anyway. I don't remember having any macroblocking issues with CDNG 3:1 on the BMMCC, but I didn't use it much. Lossless would definitely solve the problem, adjusting the variable compression algorithm might help too. This is how it looks rendered out to ProRes4444. Braw up first, followed by the X-T3 and 5DMk3 raw: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bTrb4QlNxZRQW2dZPMQ5_7U5b0jMxrQ5

After a week on the the road with the 3 cameras shooting 5 events over 3000 kilometers I got a good feel for the 2 newbies vs the 5DMk3 under a range of uncontrolled practical low lighting conditions. It didn't take very long for me to decide to ditch the X-T3. I love the design, and it can produce a good image, but under those kind of conditions HEVC 10bit is no match for 14bit lossless raw or Braw. Even custom white balancing with a grey card was hit and miss, and slight underexposure was disastrous. I did love the OIS lens, so much so I'm getting an OIS lens for the Pocket 4K. I just posted some dynamic range test pics here: With the Viltrox speed booster, the Pocket 4K has a 1-2 stop low light advantage over the 5DMk3 raw, which has been very handy. I did see some moire on some grey blinds, and there's the macroblocking in blue skies issue, but apart from that the Pocket 4K has been behaving well. I used a Sony L-series battery to Canon LP-E6 dummy battery, and a generic NP-F970 battery lasted around 1.5-2 hours. Interestingly, the batteries still had a 60% charge when the P4K was ready to conk out. I really hope Fujifilm get it right with the XH2 or X-T4 with ProRes raw or some other flavour of raw over USB-C or to internal XQD/CFexpress cards. Perhaps Fujifilm could do raw to USB-C on the X-T3 with a firmware update?

Those examples look OK, but it's only been a problem with clear blue skies. I did a test with the P4K Braw, X-T3 HEVC 10bit, and 5DMk3 magic lantern 14bit lossless, graded in Resolve and exported to ProRes4444, only the P4K shot has the macroblocking in both 3:1 and Q0 at varying exposure levels. It may not look so bad on a 27" screen, but I wouldn't want to risk it on a 40 foot screen. These are screenshots taken from the ProRes4444 file. Pocket 4K X-T3 5DMk3

I find it amazing it's been over a year and nobody mentioned it, I noticed it the first day I got the camera. I'm fine with the detail of Braw, but the macroblocking is a worry. Thanks for the link.

Try shooting a blue sky, Braw is macroblock hell even set to Q0 and 3:1. Braw has looked good with everything else I've shot, but I'll have to rely on my trusty 5DMk3 with magic lantern for anything with a blue sky in it.

This debate was settled a long time ago, but just to recap: ML raw is true 14bit raw, you can open a ML CDNG file in ACR and manipulate it just like a Canon CR2 raw photo file, the DR is identical, and there's no noticeable loss of DR in 12bit. More bit depth is good, but there are other factors that determine available dynamic range: https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=11097.0 I haven't worked with ProRes raw, how well FCPX recovers highlights and shadows on ProRes raw files will be a bigger determining factor than whether the Z6 is outputting 12bit or 14bit raw video.

Why not? Magic Lantern raw matches photo raw dynamic range. The visual difference between 14bit raw and 12bit raw on the 5D Mk3 is imperceptible.

Hehe, bring it on. Actually it's the Pocket 4K and 5DMk3 that are about on par for noise at 3200 ISO, so far the X-T3 noise is very grain-like, and looks good to me up to 10,000 ISO with NR set to -4.

It's a great little lens, too bad it's not f/2.8 throughout the range. Great bokeh, but a bit lacking in character for my liking,. I'm gonna try the Black Promist with and without the Iscorama. OIS anamorphic, how cool would that be

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The 20ms rolling shutter on the 5DMk3 is a little too high for my liking for shoulder-rigged doco work, the EOS R has more rolling shutter than the 5DMk2 (25ms), way too much for my liking. Are you using an OIS lens with the R? One of the things I like about the X-T3 as @andrew_dotdot mentioned, the 1080p resolution is on par with the 5DMk3 raw, and the 1080p rolling shutter is only 12.6ms, slightly lower than the BMMCC.

After a couple of days playing around with the 3, I can get them all to match up pretty well with Filmconvert and a bit of tweaking, sometimes I couldn't tell which was which. What made the P4K and X-T3 shine was my old Leica 35mm Summicron-r, it really helps take the 4K digital edge off, and adds some nice flare, not always welcome on run and gun doco work, but that's why I carry a mattebox. I've got a 1/8 Black Promist filter on order, it will be interesting to see how that works with the 18-55mm Fujinon. What did surprise me is the X-T3 is cleaner and sharper than the P4K at high ISO, my Viltrox speed booster hasn't arrived yet, that extra stop of light and S35 crop should even things up a bit. At 3200 ISO the P4K looks to be on par with the 5DMk3 noise wise, albeit without the fixed pattern noise. I'm shooting some stuff for a doco next week where the P4K will be on sticks shooting a 2 hour 12:1 Braw master, whilst I move around a dining table with the X-T3 shooting FHD on a monopod to get close ups. It's been overcast here, I'm waiting for the sun to come out so I can do some definitive dynamic range tests. The 5DMk3 still has the edge in terms of post manipulation, Braw doesn't have as much highlight control. 10bit HEVC and Braw are quite close in post. The P4K and the X-T3 both lose saturation and detail in the shadows, the 5DMk3 does better there, but it's noisier in the shadows. I saw a test on the X-T3 vs the Nikon Z6, the Nikon did much better than the X-T3 in the shadows, if only Nikon would bring out an update with a good internal 10bit codec, with an XQD or CFexpress card, it could do internal raw ?.

Yeah it's the 95MB/s write card. Interestingly, Sandisk lowered the specified write speed on the 170MB/s read cards to 90MB/s write. 400Mbits/s write is only 50/MB/s so both cards have plenty of headroom. The faster read speed will be welcome ?

I've been using an old Sandisk Extreme Pro 128GB SDXC UHS-I with no problems recording 400Mbit/s HEVC. I just ordered 2 of the newer 170MB/s read ones, glad to hear they're working OK.

It begins. Evaluating new cameras isn't my favorite thing, so I thought I'd share the pain. I've got a lot of work on ATM, so this will be an ongoing project. I might even end up making a youtube vid ?. I've been shooting with the 5DMk3 ML raw exclusively for many years, you can check out some of my recent work here: A few contenders have come along over the years like the A7s and BMMCC, but all have failed to measure up to the 5DMk3 with Magic Lantern raw. These jobs I did recently were particularly gruelling, up to 19 hour days, days on end, uncontrollable lighting, no recce, no crew, constantly on the move, a great stress test for any camera or operator. The weaknesses of the 5D have never been more apparent. With a slight lull in the storm, and some technical hurdles in upcoming work, I took the plunge and bought these two sought after bodies. Not being able to get a Pocket 4K for like 8 months allows a lot of time to pixel peep and contemplate the future. Pixel peeping is one thing, but you really don't know if it's for you until you test it for yourself, or wait for a crash test dummy like me to do the work for you. Very early impressions: I have to say that of the 2 cameras, I was more excited about the arrival of the Pocket 4K, at least until I remembered the lens adapters I ordered haven't arrived yet. I rummaged through one of my four film detritus drawers and found 5, yes 5 ? Nex adapters (remnants from a brief Sony affair) but not a single M4/3 adapter of course. So I unboxed the P4K, grabbed one of my Canon batteries, and fired up the little beast. The fan: super quiet, probably the quietest fan I've ever heard, a non issue. The firmware: 6.2.1, no CDNG for me. For those who haven't heard: BMD have put a new touchscreen in the latest cameras that only works with 6.2.1 firmware. I'm not really fussed, the Braw stuff I've seen looks really good, and the file sizes are amazing, 4K Braw files are smaller than 5DMk3 raw 1080p files. UHD 12:1 Braw files are roughly the same size as 1080p ProRes HQ files,and 200Mbit/s 1080p X-T3 HEVC files. I've had the X-T3 for a couple of days and I got an 18-55mm f/2.8-4 OIS lens with it. This lens is fantastic, creamy bokeh, and the OIS is amazing, I can get super steady shots at the long end handheld, I know I'm very late to the party with OIS, but wow. Can't wait to put an Iscorama anamorphic on this puppy, no 58-52mm step down rings in the detritus drawers either ?. Low light on the X-T3 is a mixed bag: up to 8000 ISO the noise is tolerable, film-like chroma grain, no fixed pattern noise, however: the X-T3 image falls apart in the shadows, that's a big minus. The other image related issue that comes to mind is: white balance. I had to go digging into the detritus drawer for a grey card! I mean srsly, what's the world coming to? I haven't used a grey card in years; I'm so accustomed to shooting raw I just don't even think about white balancing anymore. I haven't drawn any conclusions on custom white balancing yet other than it's absolutely necessary with the X-T3 ?. Ergonomics: the X-T3 is terrible in big hands, I rarely handhold a camera, rolling shutter micro jitters are a thing, but the OIS lens makes it doable. The Smallrig cage has a handgrip extension, so that may help. The P4K is much better in the hand. Stay tuned.

It's all about having the right tool for the job and efficiencies. On a 30 day Alexa shoot, a 1st AC would add $8000 to my budget, including food, accommodation, travel, etc.A gaffer, that's another $8000. Steadicam operator for that Alexa? There goes another $10,000. All fine when you have a 500k budget, not so much with an 80k budget. Tech like DPAF, dual ISO, and Braw makes lower budget projects with high production values more viable.

Will do. The X-T3 does look good, but like every camera I'm discovering its quirks which have me thinking I'll probably have to shoot with it and the Pocket 4K to get everything I want to film shot. Unfortunately we're still not at the point where there's a sub $10,000 camera that can do it all. By all I'm speaking in terms of internal raw and DPAF in particular.