Dynamic Range of ML RAW vs h.264 / h.265 Cameras?

[Mark Romero 2]

I saw some beautiful looking 4K ML RAW footage from a 5D MK III and it looked like it had great dynamic range and great highlight rolloff (compared to my Sony a6500).

Are there any SLR cameras that compare with that as of Feb 2018 shooting h.264 or other similar (non-RAW) codecs? Preferably something that ISN'T SLOG.

I like the detail of the a6500, but the DR and  Highlight Rolloff are still disappointing (even with EOSHD Pro Color and when shooting in the various Cine gammas). And to be honest, I can't get a decent image when using SLOG to save my life, so I avoid SLOG.

Bonus Question: Is ML RAW going to give the most flexibility in terms of color correction (and grading, I suppose) when compared to non-RAW codecs? Because I shoot architecture / interiors without being able to light it, the two most difficult issues for me are dynamic range, multiple white balance, and high ISO. Would moving to RAW be the best to tackle those issues?

[cantsin]

RAW gives you the most flexibility, but actually, the RAW from many Blackmagic cameras (Pocket, Cinema 2.5K and Ursa 4.6K) offers more dynamic range/better highlight roll-off than 5D MK III raw (because BM uses dual-gain sensors with bigger sensels). On the other hand, BM cameras do not have optical low-pass filters and therefore produce significantly more moiré than the 5D MK III.

For good DR and highlight roll-off in standard picture profiles, I'd take a Canon XC10/15, C100 and above or a Fuji XT2 - basically any camera that has near-perfect color rendering out of the box.

[seku]

i hope i am not too harsh, but there is no 4k ML raw. closest you can get is 3.5k wide, but that's considerably more squeezed than 21:9. Also, you'll get a few seconds at that resolution at best. Also, consider that ML RAW has no highlight rolloff. it clips quite harshly. because it's raw the highlight rolloff you saw in the videos was probably handed quite handsomly by a gifted colorist who recorded ML RAW with enough leeway to let it roll off nicely in post.

Flexibility in grading? oh yes. ML RAW is awesome for that. but you need to learn to shoot with grading in mind.

For your bonus question: the 5Dmk3 is meh for DR. chroma noise creeps up quickly. you don't need any white balance, as this is RAW. i personally would not go above ISO 3200 with the 5dmk3.

[Mark Romero 2]

4 hours ago, cantsin said:

RAW gives you the most flexibility, but actually, the RAW from many Blackmagic cameras (Pocket, Cinema 2.5K and Ursa 4.6K) offers more dynamic range/better highlight roll-off than 5D MK III raw (because BM uses dual-gain sensors with bigger sensels). On the other hand, BM cameras do not have optical low-pass filters and therefore produce significantly more moiré than the 5D MK III.

For good DR and highlight roll-off in standard picture profiles, I'd take a Canon XC10/15, C100 and above or a Fuji XT2 - basically any camera that has near-perfect color rendering out of the box.

Thanks for the input. Mattias did a comparison between the d750 shooting in flat profile and some blackmagic cameras and he concluded that the DR was pretty similar, so I guess that means the DR of my D750 would be pretty close to the DR from Canon RAW.

1 hour ago, seku said:

i hope i am not too harsh, but there is no 4k ML raw. closest you can get is 3.5k wide, but that's considerably more squeezed than 21:9. Also, you'll get a few seconds at that resolution at best. Also, consider that ML RAW has no highlight rolloff. it clips quite harshly. because it's raw the highlight rolloff you saw in the videos was probably handed quite handsomly by a gifted colorist who recorded ML RAW with enough leeway to let it roll off nicely in post.

Flexibility in grading? oh yes. ML RAW is awesome for that. but you need to learn to shoot with grading in mind.

For your bonus question: the 5Dmk3 is meh for DR. chroma noise creeps up quickly. you don't need any white balance, as this is RAW. i personally would not go above ISO 3200 with the 5dmk3.

Thank you for the input. I much appreciate it.

[mercer]

Yeah, I honestly think for the kind of work you do, you would be better off with a D850. You’ll get great DR and color with clean shadows. I love my 5D3 and ML Raw but it’s not really the right tool for lowlight interiors.

Cantsin also made an excellent suggestion with the XC10. Great color and clean 4K in an all in one solution. 

[IronFilm]

10 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

.....of my D750...

As you own a D750, and if you're shooting non-professionally (as if you're doing it professionally then the maths is different), then I'd stick with the D750 for at least another year or two? You've got a good camera there!

17 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

Because I shoot architecture / interiors

But seems perhaps you do shoot professionally it seems?

What kind of interiors / architecture, high end stuff? Or high volume real estate? 
As if it is the latter, then I'd avoid any form of ML raw like the plague!

[Mark Romero 2]

15 hours ago, mercer said:

Yeah, I honestly think for the kind of work you do, you would be better off with a D850. You’ll get great DR and color with clean shadows. I love my 5D3 and ML Raw but it’s not really the right tool for lowlight interiors.

Cantsin also made an excellent suggestion with the XC10. Great color and clean 4K in an all in one solution. 

Thanks for the input. I always appreciate your thoughts when it comes to Canon and RAW, so I am happy you chimed in here.

I was thinking of the D850 and the a7R III (still am).

The other appeal of RAW is the ability to fix color casts, because often I have to deal with daylight, tungsten, and three different kinds of fluorescent light in the same shot. I figure it would be able to deal with color correction better than 8-bit 4:2:0

5 hours ago, IronFilm said:

As you own a D750, and if you're shooting non-professionally (as if you're doing it professionally then the maths is different), then I'd stick with the D750 for at least another year or two? You've got a good camera there!

But seems perhaps you do shoot professionally it seems?

What kind of interiors / architecture, high end stuff? Or high volume real estate? 
As if it is the latter, then I'd avoid any form of ML raw like the plague!

Thank you for your thoughts.

Shooting professionally, but it is mostly run and gun real estate. However, I will be doing real estate agent commercials (where the agent talks about what a great real estate agent they are and why you should hire them), and also going to do some small business commercials as well. The pay is not great though ($200 to $300 for a video up to about 1:30 in length).

Also, I want to do MORE high end real estate, and dynamic range is pretty much key here because we have some stunning views here in the SF Bay Area. But that is down the road a bit I think.

So right now high-volume real estate work, but with an eye toward higher end stuff.

I like the D750 for a LOT of reasons but the image is so soft... I know that sharpness isn't everything, but sometimes when editing D750 footage I sit there and say, "Was I shooting out of focus???"

[kidzrevil]

the sony a6500 has 13.7 stops of DR vs. the Canon 5d 11 stops at 100 iso. You are not going to gain any more DR than the sensor is capable of with ML raw. Please keep in mind though rec709 if im not mistaken doesn't exceed 7 stops so you are fine. I underexpose by up to a stop with the a6500 and -0.5 with the 5d to maximize my DR. 11+ stops is plenty. I think Kodak Vision film was rated at 11 usable stops if im not mistaken

[mercer]

@kidzrevil are you using Neat Video for noise reduction with ML Raw?

[HockeyFan12]

1 hour ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

The other appeal of RAW is the ability to fix color casts, because often I have to deal with daylight, tungsten, and three different kinds of fluorescent light in the same shot. I figure it would be able to deal with color correction better than 8-bit 4:2:0

Unless you have chroma clipping or are inept at setting white balance or dealing with a camera with poor white balance inherently (looking at Sonys, here) mixed lighting is difficult to work with in general. The Alexa handles it best, even in ProRes, so it's not necessarily about RAW. (Fwiw I agree about dynamic range, the 5D Mark III has less than the Sonys, but better tonality.)

The high end $100k stills camera guys I know use strobes and heavily light their real estate work. For video it's not so easy but I think (I could be totally off base here) the ultimate solution to get great quality is to bring color correct fixtures and gels with you to swap out with what's there. Lots of LEDs or kinoflo bulbs to swap, maybe. Really really cheap to buy, but not always possible of course. 

[kidzrevil]

@mercer yeah and it works waaayyy better than in raw than any camera I shot compressed h.264 or h.265 with. It does such a better job of creating a pleasing noise profile and you don’t have to worry about compression artifacts. In adobe premiere I edit the source dng file exposure and color temperature then I apply neat video and start my grade from there. Works wonders for that chroma noise

@Mark Romero 2 I forgot to mention to you better than dynamic range you get better tonality like @HockeyFan12 mentioned AND you can create your own highlight rolloff with a curve. Unlike compressed footage where your adding a curve to a baked in curve raw you have better control over that. I underexpose by -1 to -0.5 of a stop and in the highlight curve I model it so it smoothly rises and rolls off from black to the clipping point. I think if you expose the front of a house in raw at 100iso you have so much room to adjust how dark the darker tones get + you have all your highlight information. idk that’s how I would do it ! 

[Deadcode]

On 2018. 02. 11. at 7:08 PM, Mark Romero 2 said:

I saw some beautiful looking 4K ML RAW footage from a 5D MK III and it looked like it had great dynamic range and great highlight rolloff (compared to my Sony a6500).

highlight rolloff is only depending on how good you are in davinci resolve if you exposed correctly

Are there any SLR cameras that compare with that as of Feb 2018 shooting h.264 or other similar (non-RAW) codecs? Preferably something that ISN'T SLOG.

Nowdays even GH5 in VLOG have better dynamic range, and SLOG2 is far better on the Sony's.

I like the detail of the a6500, but the DR and  Highlight Rolloff are still disappointing (even with EOSHD Pro Color and when shooting in the various Cine gammas). And to be honest, I can't get a decent image when using SLOG to save my life, so I avoid SLOG.

Cinegammas meant to be underexposed and corrected in post...  but slog2 gives around 14 stops dynamic range, check kidzrevil's work with SLOG3's in the a6300/6500 topic

Bonus Question: Is ML RAW going to give the most flexibility in terms of color correction (and grading, I suppose) when compared to non-RAW codecs? Because I shoot architecture / interiors without being able to light it, the two most difficult issues for me are dynamic range, multiple white balance, and high ISO. Would moving to RAW be the best to tackle those issues?

Mixed light recording is better with raw

The cheapest way is to learn how to use your very capable a6500.

 

 

[EthanAlexander]

@Mark Romero 2 5D3 raw is best used for passion projects with long turn-arounds. The workflow is time consuming and the storage requirements are super high. You also won't get much more dynamic range over h.264. On a sensor level we're talking 11.7 stops max vs 14.5 on your D750.

If you're shooting at ISO 1600 or more though they're all similar in dynamic range:

[Mark Romero 2]

7 hours ago, kidzrevil said:

the sony a6500 has 13.7 stops of DR vs. the Canon 5d 11 stops at 100 iso. You are not going to gain any more DR than the sensor is capable of with ML raw. Please keep in mind though rec709 if im not mistaken doesn't exceed 7 stops so you are fine. I underexpose by up to a stop with the a6500 and -0.5 with the 5d to maximize my DR. 11+ stops is plenty. I think Kodak Vision film was rated at 11 usable stops if im not mistaken

Thanks so much for the info. Yes, I try to underexpose to preserve the highlights and avoid the ghastly rolloff, but it is kind of walking a tightrope to avoid the noise penalty.

Since I find SLOG to be a bear to shoot in, I have a picture profile set up based on Cine 1 (by Dom Blond???) to handle scenes with lots of highlights, and based on Cine 4 for scenes with lots of detail in the shadows. Still not there yet.

6 hours ago, HockeyFan12 said:

Unless you have chroma clipping or are inept at setting white balance or dealing with a camera with poor white balance inherently (looking at Sonys, here) mixed lighting is difficult to work with in general. The Alexa handles it best, even in ProRes, so it's not necessarily about RAW. (Fwiw I agree about dynamic range, the 5D Mark III has less than the Sonys, but better tonality.)

The high end $100k stills camera guys I know use strobes and heavily light their real estate work. For video it's not so easy but I think (I could be totally off base here) the ultimate solution to get great quality is to bring color correct fixtures and gels with you to swap out with what's there. Lots of LEDs or kinoflo bulbs to swap, maybe. Really really cheap to buy, but not always possible of course. 

Thanks for the info. I noticed that the Alexa footage on  youtube does seem to do well with mixed lighting. Good to know that ProRes is good with mixed lighting as well (as when shooting RAW).

True, the ultimate solution would be lighting, whether it is changing interior lamps or bringing LEDs, but the problem for us real estate shooters is (mostly) time. Even though I am in an affluent area (the CHEAPEST house I photographed this last week was a 3 bed, 2 bath home selling for $975K), agent's are willing to spend a lot of money and they want things done QUICKLY.

6 hours ago, kidzrevil said:

@mercer yeah and it works waaayyy better than in raw than any camera I shot compressed h.264 or h.265 with. It does such a better job of creating a pleasing noise profile and you don’t have to worry about compression artifacts. In adobe premiere I edit the source dng file exposure and color temperature then I apply neat video and start my grade from there. Works wonders for that chroma noise

@Mark Romero 2 I forgot to mention to you better than dynamic range you get better tonality like @HockeyFan12 mentioned AND you can create your own highlight rolloff with a curve. Unlike compressed footage where your adding a curve to a baked in curve raw you have better control over that. I underexpose by -1 to -0.5 of a stop and in the highlight curve I model it so it smoothly rises and rolls off from black to the clipping point. I think if you expose the front of a house in raw at 100iso you have so much room to adjust how dark the darker tones get + you have all your highlight information. idk that’s how I would do it ! 

Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by better tonality? I am used to using the term "tonality" as it relates to, say, the subtlety in skin tones, but not sure if you are using it like that in this instance.

5 hours ago, Deadcode said:

 

I don't know why this isn't quoting you Deadcode, but I thank you for your response above and will try as you suggested. Thanks again.

1 hour ago, EthanAlexander said:

@Mark Romero 2 5D3 raw is best used for passion projects with long turn-arounds. The workflow is time consuming and the storage requirements are super high. You also won't get much more dynamic range over h.264. On a sensor level we're talking 11.7 stops max vs 14.5 on your D750.

If you're shooting at ISO 1600 or more though they're all similar in dynamic range:

Thank you for the chart. Interesting, hadn't seen that exact chart before. I am often shooting in the 1600 to 3200 range when shooting interiors.

[Deadcode]

37 minutes ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

 

Since I find SLOG to be a bear to shoot in, I have a picture profile set up based on Cine 1 (by Dom Blond???) to handle scenes with lots of highlights, and based on Cine 4 for scenes with lots of detail in the shadows. Still not there yet.

 

You should read the sony guide very carefully.

And if you are shooting Cine1/Cine4 dont forget to recover super whites from the 109 IRE area, otherwise you get very hars clipping... instead of smooth rolloff with the cine4

[Mark Romero 2]

7 minutes ago, Deadcode said:

And if you are shooting Cine1/Cine4 dont forget to recover super whites from the 109 IRE area, otherwise you get very hars clipping... instead of smooth rolloff with the cine4

Thanks for the suggestion. The best way to do that is just turning down the gain during post processing, right? (Using resolve.) Or are you saying while actually shooting?

[IronFilm]

10 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

Shooting professionally, but it is mostly run and gun real estate. However, I will be doing real estate agent commercials (where the agent talks about what a great real estate agent they are and why you should hire them), and also going to do some small business commercials as well. The pay is not great though ($200 to $300 for a video up to about 1:30 in length).

Have a friend who shoots a lot (and I mean *A LOT*) of real estate videos, like yourself. And he is absolutely 110% obsessed with workflow from start to finish to maximize efficiencies every day. 

Initially starting out with a Canon 60D, then for the last year or so shooting with a Sony a7Smk2, but I'm fairly sure he doesn't even use s-log. He is in and out super fast, and pumps out the videos edited that same evening very fast too. 

Probably even the mere idea of ML raw he'd laugh at! 

And I'd agree, I reckon if you're getting less than a grand per video you shouldn't even be thinking about it. 
Focus on effeciencies and speed of turn around instead. 

Maybe once every fifty houses you might come across a house which makes you go "wow, this would look really good showcased on my website!" Then sure, slow down a little, think about it more, take a bit more time to really give it the royal treatment. But no need to buy completely different gear for that. (as tempting as it might be to get sucked down the G.A.S. hole....)

[IronFilm]

8 hours ago, HockeyFan12 said:

The high end $100k stills camera guys I know use strobes and heavily light their real estate work.

$100K? What are you referring, houses that are $100K? I assume not....  $100K per job? Ha, we wish! A $100K of gear? Nope, you don't need that much:
 

 

 

 

 

[Deadcode]

3 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

Thanks for the suggestion. The best way to do that is just turning down the gain during post processing, right? (Using resolve.) Or are you saying while actually shooting?

No, you have to select the clips in the edit tab, right click, clip attributes, and switch range from "auto" to "full". After this you are able to pull back those highlights with curves or with gain

[HockeyFan12]

2 hours ago, IronFilm said:

$100K? What are you referring, houses that are $100K? I assume not....  $100K per job? Ha, we wish! A $100K of gear? Nope, you don't need that much:
 

 

 

 

 

$100k of gear.

Just my opinion, but I find the images in those videos not so great as super high end stuff goes (though they're clearly from a very talented photographer and are still certainly way better than I could do). 

But I still agree. You can get by with a dSLR and tilt/shift lenses. An Arca Tech camera and MFDB is overkill for most. Just saying that at the very high end, lighting (strobes mostly, some dedos) matters as much as the camera. Although the videos you posted show that extensive post work helps as well... though I'd argue it's harder to get that level of control with video.