3.5k Canon 5D Mark III raw video with Magic Lantern and latest updates

[tomekk]

Hi guys,

Don't know if it's plausible but this: http://www.amazon.com/Tanboo-Photofast-quot-Adapter-Silver/dp/B00B8QY2KE/ref=sr_1_31?ie=UTF8&qid=1367508846&sr=8-31&keywords=photofast + extension cable + fast 1.8 inch compatible SSD + glue it to the camera. Anyone? ;)

[blackrat]

It is a strange development. But I understand why canon did not implement it. These bursts are interesting but not really workable for filmmaking.  Unless there will be a way to film as long as we want. This is just a nice effect.

I still don't get why they didn't give it 2x2 block read crop modes and even larger crop modes.

Or how they mangle the DR so badly when it seems well mapped in these DNGs or why they hit the crispness so badly before feeding it to the h.264 compressor (since the external compressor doesn't really make static stuff much any sharper we know it's not the h.264 compressor making the big hit).

 

If only we had full and detailed documentation we might be able to send the frame to the h.264 system before whatever weird stuff gets done to them and at least retain the full detail even if not the 11+ bits. Same for the HDMI out, just send each frame straight out ot the HDMI (with proper offsets to get it to 1920x1080), although again it might have to be clipped to 8bits (unless it is an HDMI 1.2 or better interface).

 

Even look at stills stuff, it's been more than a decade since the first EOS DSLR and we still don't have a fully usable AutoISO for stills on any Rebel/xxD/7/5 series body. They dribble such a little thing out year by year it's so absurdly picayune. The 5D3 is so close, but they lock out EC when in M mode AutoISO and in AV AutoISO they put an absurd limit, with no basis in anything other than marketing making it only work at the shutter speeds where AutoISO would be LEAST used, on the setting for minimum allowed shutter speed, 1/250th?? for action stuff which is when you need AutoISO since you don't have time to set things for each shot in real time?? Why? It takes until maybe the 5D4 or longer to get such a basic, trivial feature? DOesn't every other brand have working autoiso for stills even on Rebel-level stuff for years? Does anyone buy a 1 series just for a better AutoISO, it's absurd.

 

It is what happens when you have conservative leaders and marketing droids ruling over the engineers (who they probably have locked up in closets and cowering in corners) while the marketing MBAs lord over them or something.

 

But back to video, how does conservative, and react when others move, get you to dominate in the cinema world??

[blackrat]

I wonder which part of the "plan" was to lose both their pro/ama video film market to Black Magic?

Exactly. Instead of worrying about internal market segmentation and this and that they should've charged ahead. I started getting on them years ago because I saw where they were headed from how they were talking and acting and what stuff they had and were either sitting on or not deciding to improve yet and got called a troll, but now we see a bit that their short term margins and safety lead to loss of perhaps much larger sales in the long run. Sure they are surviving overall fine, but....

[HurtinMinorKey]

Poor Andrew, he gets so much shite for being a Canon hater, when deep down he really wanted to love the 5D3 for video. He's going all out, trying to save the 5D line from the evil engineers at Canon.

 

It's like watching someone perform CPR even though they know the patient is already dead.

[leo]

They hold back so much because they don't want to kill the camcorder market, it's bad enough the 7d and 5d took the event videography market from the camcorders, now if they give crisps video with ultra high dynamic range from the 5d's then who will buy those 4000-5000 euro canon xf300/305.

Blackmagic is proof of what can be done if it is desired.

I doubt we will see 2k from the 5d's, they need processing power and it's not there.

What can be done is more dynamic range and less compression.

Man are the days of camcorders numbered.

[Andrew Reid]

A XF305 is totally different use to a DSLR.

 

Great AF, great zoom.

 

Also no pro with a C300 will dump that and go for a hack running on a DSLR just for raw or a better image.

[Bruno]

Does anyone else find it quite funny that an outside programming team have been able to deliver 30fps burst before Canon's own team delivered it to the market!?

 

You mentioned some of the reasons in the article yourself... this camera is still in a very general segment, and they would have a lot of tech suppoty to do once people started to shoot 3.5k DNG sequences and tried to open that in their home computers...

 

Also, "1 second video burst" doesn't sound like a very appealing feature for most of the consumers, on the contrary, they'd probably see it as a ridiculous feature (and you try to explain them why they should shoot huge raw files), because like it or not, there's probably more parents buying these cameras to shoot their babies than indie filmmakers.

 

Then there's the reliability issues, overheating, etc... This is far from being a feature, it's a curiosity, and you either make it a full feature or you keep it out. While even a 10 seconds burst would feel short, maybe they could market that somehow, but not 1 second.

 

It's definitely cool to see the potential, but that's all it is so far. I'd love to see it's possible for the camera to shoot constant 2k raw video though...

[Policar]

A XF305 is totally different use to a DSLR.

 

Great AF, great zoom.

 

Also no pro with a C300 will dump that and go for a hack running on a DSLR just for raw or a better image.

 

 

Absolutely, what videographer shooting hours of footage a day will process all that non-standard aspect ratio raw footage just for a bit of sharpness the client won't care about anyway for content that's probably web-only? And this is assuming the hack actually works...

 

I don't think most casual hobbyists would go through this trouble, either, which is why I don't think Canon is crippling anything video-wise (intentionally). Their debayering algorithm for stills (and video) is softer at 100% than Adobe's or DXOmark's and the in-camera processing throws away a lot of highlight detail. That soft algorith, alone might account for some of the difference in image quality between these raw video grabs and what the camera offers up as h264. Likewise I think peaking is useful, but it's very slow as ML implements it... None of the hacks are really production/casual hobbyist ready 100%. The C100/C300/C500 line is more a matter of crippling in increments, but dSLRs are still cameras first and foremost and the video is good enough for most.

 

I'm unsurprised that the 550d has the highest resolution of the previous line of dSLRs. Loved that camera!

 

Lastly, nearest neighbor downsampling has little to do with pixel binning as regards image quality. Nearest neighbor downsampling is after debayering is done. So you're downsampling all the interpolated data for each given channel. With pixel binning, every third pixel of a sub-1080p stream is red or blue with to weak an anti-aliasing filter to do anything. So the frequencies that alias are much lower than those that would alias in a downsampled still.

 

Because we lack the tools necessary to make really beautiful images on the cheap consistently (art design, lights, lenses, a big crew, talent) it's easy to get focused on image quality on the cheap and it is a valid pursuit. But it's kind of its own pursuit. I mean you can always rent an Alexa package for a week for about the price of a dSLR package.

[Andrew Reid]

Hi guys,

Don't know if it's plausible but this: http://www.amazon.com/Tanboo-Photofast-quot-Adapter-Silver/dp/B00B8QY2KE/ref=sr_1_31?ie=UTF8&qid=1367508846&sr=8-31&keywords=photofast + extension cable + fast 1.8 inch compatible SSD + glue it to the camera. Anyone? ;)

 

 

So here's a 1.8" SSD http://www.amazon.co.uk/KingSpec-1-8-inch-50-pin-Solid-State/dp/B007PFI5HS

 

But what is the Tanboo exactly? I only see one connector on it - is that 50 pin CF or standard CF?

 

Write speeds seem low. IDE is not as fast as SATA. I'm not sure it will work, but interesting.

[Andrew Reid]

You mentioned some of the reasons in the article yourself... this camera is still in a very general segment, and they would have a lot of tech suppoty to do once people started to shoot 3.5k DNG sequences and tried to open that in their home computers...

 

Yes but I was more referring to video DNG and slow cards, not raw burst modes of 50 frames like what already exists on the Nikon V1.

 

The 7D Mark II is getting a 30fps / 60fps burst mode according to rumours.

 

If 5D mark III can already do at least 30 frames raw burst at 30fps, it should be in there unless it decreases the life of the camera dramatically.

[Bruno]

The 7D Mark II is getting a 30fps / 60fps burst mode according to rumours.

 

But we don't know for how long yet...

[Andrew Reid]

It will be burst length hence the name.

[HurtinMinorKey]

It will be burst length hence the name.

 

With the small buffer you already get a couple of seconds. On the 7D2,  I could see them upping it to 10 seconds, using a decent sized buffer. I doubt Canon would want to rely on CF card write speeds for this feature.

[Xiong]

Looks like Magic Lantern to the rescue again, great to have them working this out.

[Bruno]

It will be burst length hence the name.

 

Is there a precise definition for burst length? Could be a 1 second burst, could be a 10 second burst, that's a huge difference right there, still pretty limited though, for most types of video shoots, pretty cool for stills though.

[Andrew Reid]

With the small buffer you already get a couple of seconds. On the 7D2,  I could see them upping it to 10 seconds, using a decent sized buffer. I doubt Canon would want to rely on CF card write speeds for this feature.

 

10 second burst highly unlikely. How about Apple upgrade every 13" MacBook to 32GB RAM whilst we're at it

[HurtinMinorKey]

10 second burst highly unlikely. How about Apple upgrade every 13" MacBook to 32GB RAM whilst we're at it

 

Not at full resolution of course, maybe 8MB Crops, so:  (8MB per frame)X(24fps)X(10 Sec)=1920 MB. 2 GB of ram in cheap. 

[chauffeurdevan]

Not at full resolution of course, maybe 8MB Crops, so:  (8MB per frame)X(24fps)X(10 Sec)=1920 MB. 2 GB of ram in cheap. 

 

But maybe you'll want something better than 8bit ? So, double that RAM.

[Bruno]

Not at full resolution of course, maybe 8MB Crops, so: (8MB per frame)X(24fps)X(10 Sec)=1920 MB. 2 GB of ram in cheap.

BMD are doing it for way more than 10 seconds at 4k with a camera that costs not much more, so obviously it wouldn't be impossible, would it?

At this day and age I don't see why a 7D2 couldn't shoot 2k raw for constant video if that's what Canon decided to, not just 10 seconds, hell the BMD pocket camera does it for half the price, so why the skepticism?

Asking for a 1 second raw burst, or even a 10 second raw burst, is thinking extremely small, if you're gonna wish, wish big, we don't want canon or anyone else thinking that's all we wish for, do we?

[Andrew Reid]

I am sure they'd rather make $20 per unit more margin than stick in more RAM to please our small niche.

 

They're not Blackmagic unfortunately.

 

It will be their undoing of course... Eventually. Even normal consumers are getting bored of Rebels now. They risk going the same way as the compacts.