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

[Oliver Daniel]

For me, this will only be exciting if its a proper feature built into the camera by the camera company. Then again I have absolutely no time in my schedule for RAW video until it becomes more seamless. At least I can practice being a better filmmaker with my current tools until the time and technology is right. 

 

ML have done something cool, and I hope this will push camera brands to give us better features to utilise our creativity. 

[Andrew Reid]

For god's sake, why can't people just be positive.

 

If your free raw on a DSLR is so much of a hassle or too soft don't shoot with it. Spend $15,000 on a C300 instead, but first ask yourself how many 128GB CF cards you can buy for $15,000.

 

When you are shooting a live event you will be swapping cards every 20 minutes and breaking the flow, not practical. Don't shoot with it.

 

For when you are working on the performances, the lighting, the set, or shooting in fits and bursts documentary style the small 128GB card is not an issue. By the time you have shot 20 mins of footage, you will probably have spent an hour doing off camera stuff or shot selection or composition and the million other things that happen to get a good shot sequence together. Changing the card every 2 hours doesn't seem like a chore to me. Then after that the raw is whatever you want it to be. ProRes transcode... Done. Nobody should be archiving uncompressed raw, it doesn't make sense not to compress it in some form.

 

Raw is only big on the CF card, it doesn't have to be as big on your drive. You're shooting raw - that means you choose your codec.

 

In my view of it, the 5D Mark 3 IS shooting ProRes. It's raw! You capture the data and send it to ProRes land. View it like that and tell me why drive space is still such a big issue.

 

Best of all, raw gives you the ability to leave picture profiles and other camera settings like ISO alone and SHOOT. Wrong WB on H.264 and you are screwed. Wrong WB on raw - well there's no such thing as wrong WB with raw unless you blindly fuck it up in post and even then you have a much larger ability to fix a dodgy exposure or other problems which would have been baked into H.264.

 

H.264, be it on the FS100, GH3, GH2, whatever - is not going anywhere near my serious projects from now on. Raw all the way.

[mtheory]

If you have a crew and you're shooting in 40sec or 49sec or even 1min bursts I feel really sorry for your crew and your talent and everyone else associated with being in that goat rodeo.  It's a waste and you should be ashamed of yourself for wasting all of those people's time and effort.  

 

And that's the last thing I'll say about such foolishness.  

 

Leave the Bible-thumping for Sunday. If you or your actors can't use your creativity to adapt to technical barriers, - you're in the wrong industry. 

[Oscar M.]

For god's sake, why can't people just be positive.

 

If your free raw on a DSLR is so much of a hassle or too soft don't shoot with it. Spend $15,000 on a C300 instead, but first ask yourself how many 128GB CF cards you can buy for $15,000.

 

When you are shooting a live event you will be swapping cards every 20 minutes and breaking the flow, not practical. Don't shoot with it.

 

For when you are working on the performances, the lighting, the set, or shooting in fits and bursts documentary style the small 128GB card is not an issue. By the time you have shot 20 mins of footage, you will probably have spent an hour doing off camera stuff or shot selection or composition and the million other things that happen to get a good shot sequence together. Changing the card every 2 hours doesn't seem like a chore to me. Then after that the raw is whatever you want it to be. ProRes transcode... Done. Nobody should be archiving uncompressed raw, it doesn't make sense not to compress it in some form.

 

Raw is only big on the CF card, it doesn't have to be as big on your drive. You're shooting raw - that means you choose your codec.

 

In my view of it, the 5D Mark 3 IS shooting ProRes. It's raw! You capture the data and send it to ProRes land. View it like that and tell me why drive space is still such a big issue.

 

Best of all, raw gives you the ability to leave picture profiles and other camera settings like ISO alone and SHOOT. Wrong WB on H.264 and you are screwed. Wrong WB on raw - well there's no such thing as wrong WB with raw unless you blindly fuck it up in post and even then you have a much larger ability to fix a dodgy exposure or other problems which would have been baked into H.264.

 

H.264, be it on the FS100, GH3, GH2, whatever - is not going anywhere near my serious projects from now on. Raw all the way.

 

Fully agreed.

 

As I said on a different post:  Expect RAW to be an industry standard by this time next year.

[JohnBarlow]

Andrew,

 

I would like to see 1080x1280 with a 2x Scope if you get the time

[AaronChicago]

Fully agreed.

 

As I said on a different post:  Expect RAW to be an industry standard by this time next year.

 

Not sure what you mean by this. It already is an industry standard for semi to big budget. As far as pro-sumer/hobbyist I think the goal will be to have options and efficiency. No way that compressed video is going away for that market anytime soon.

[ScreensPro]

I just don't get why people who are working in full time studio setups, where alpha hacks wont be considered, are even checking this out and telling us how useless it currently is.

 

This is 99% a forum of indies, low budget guys, people who will jump through hoops for image quality. Hell, people were excited about 2 seconds of raw only last month.... surely that was a pretty strong clue as to the thought process of alot of folk on here?

 

If it is not the way some of you work, that's fine.... But don't tell us how wrong or unprofessional we are to think about using it.

 

Some of us are risk takers, some of us can afford to be, for one reason or another (doing work for friends, experimenting, open minded clients etc etc).

 

I remember dropping a plastic fish tank and some weights onto the first step of our swimming pool and placing my hvx in there to get stock underwater footage... Is that the way studio guys would do it? Of course not.... Was it stupid? In hindsight, probably..... Did it looks great, hell yea... did it make me money? double hell yea.

[Andrew Reid]

Raw is already a standard.

 

And I'm not against compressed formats per see, they are convenient. The problem is not so much the codec, it is the sheer amount of image quality that is bulldozed in the implementation of it. That sensor outputs all the goodness, by the time it sees H.264 there's not much left.

 

My advice is for manufacturers to get serious about how they process that raw data and compress in camera. Panasonic could use their lovely AVC Ultra on a professional GH camera for instance, and do a full pixel readout of the sensor, store as much of the colour info and dynamic range and resolution as possible in a compressed format. The compression is the least of the problem, why do they have to throw so much out? There's no reason why 10bit 422 ProRes cannot be in a DSLR. It is in the Pocket Cinema Camera.

[HurtinMinorKey]

Fully agreed.

 

As I said on a different post:  Expect RAW to be an industry standard by this time next year.

 

I'm still stunned that it's taken so long for people to understand the benefits of raw for video. Especially people who were calling for 4K, before raw.

 

But you are probably right, I think that raw will be standard on the >$3K prosumer models that come out in the years to come.

 

I pretty sure this whole 5d raw hack was green-lighted by Canon.  Japanese companies love is survey data, and I'm sure it's been telling them that Black Magic was about to eat their lunch.

[Andrew Reid]

I just don't get why people who are working in full time studio setups, where alpha hacks wont be considered, are even checking this out and telling us how useless it currently is.

 

This is 99% a forum of indies, low budget guys, people who will jump through hoops for image quality. Hell, people were excited about 2 seconds of raw only last month.... surely that was a pretty strong clue as to the thought process of alot of folk on here?

 

I fully appreciate your point. Raw isn't practical for some people. It is a tired argument though, oft repeated and it only considers one kind of shooter.

 

Here's an analogy - consider in Tokyo that there's a guy playing some weird instrument for arts sake, the instrument is a pain to transport, a pain to set up, even trickier to play but the results are amazingly artistic. He is not considering anything else but the sound.

 

Anyway I think the 'difficulties' of raw and most of the impracticalities stem from people who are unable to get a decent workflow going, or can't bear to spend hours transcoding to ProRes, or can't bear to hack their camera, like Philip Bloom for instance. He's overstated how impractical it is time and again. Just because it doesn't fit one person's way of working doesn't mean that it won't fit someone else's. Just make it work. It's worth it.

[HurtinMinorKey]

Raw is already a standard.

 

And I'm not against compressed formats per see, they are convenient. The problem is not so much the codec, it is the sheer amount of image quality that is bulldozed in the implementation of it. That sensor outputs all the goodness, by the time it sees H.264 there's not much left.

 

My advice is for manufacturers to get serious about how they process that raw data and compress in camera. Panasonic could use their lovely AVC Ultra on a professional GH camera for instance, and do a full pixel readout of the sensor, store as much of the colour info and dynamic range and resolution as possible in a compressed format. The compression is the least of the problem, why do they have to throw so much out? There's no reason why 10bit 422 ProRes cannot be in a DSLR. It is in the Pocket Cinema Camera.

 

But unlike ProRes, raw is license free.

[Andrew Reid]

Depends on the raw codec. Some are licensed.

 

Uncompressed bayer RGGB raw is simply data, there's no codec.

[ScreensPro]

btw - i wasn't knocking the people experimenting with the 2 second 4K.... quite the opposite. I've made a fair chunk of change selling 6mpx 60p from a crappy casio EX-F1

[HurtinMinorKey]

Depends on the raw codec. Some are licensed.

 

 

You mean the fake raws like REDcode? :lol: When i think raw, i think of "just the data" or at the very least, mathematically lossless.

[Neksus]

Is there any chance to see 30fps footage test? At any res...

[jgharding]

I like RedCode! Smaller files, great looking footage,  really wish Black Magic had an equivalent.

[mtheory]

This is 99% a forum of indies, low budget guys, people who will jump through hoops for image quality. 

 

Jumping through the hoops to achieve great shots is what you do regardless of budget. Danny Boyle's crew ran around slums of Mumbai with cams tethered to macbooks running Windows XPs wrapped in actual ice packs that had to be constantly changed because they were...melting.

 

Whiners would say that's a retarded and unprofessional workflow. Winners are too busy gunning for their next Oscar. :D

[jasonmillard81]

Would a hobbyist/enthusiast be able to access this type of technology. I don't bpmean literally. I've been considering the gh3 but if I could us my MacBook Pro and get raw files easily converted to prores without blowing up my cf card or MacBook I'd go 5d3.. Thoughts?

[Sean Cunningham]

Jumping through the hoops to achieve great shots is what you do regardless of budget. Danny Boyle's crew ran around slums of Mumbai with cams tethered to macbooks running Windows XPs wrapped in actual ice packs that had to be constantly changed because they were...melting.

 

Whiners would say that's a retarded and unprofessional workflow. Winners are too busy gunning for their next Oscar. :D

 

And JAFOs equate that to this.

[wrongdoeroakland]

I have the GH2 and I have a 5d (classic) for stills, which I have been carrying around and swapping between daily. I've been wanting to jump over to one system for both, rather than carrying both with me/swapping around. This development has me seriously considering the MIII. There were times where I felt I'd miss the IQ coming from the GH2, but at this point the convenience of one system and potential of RAW is too attractive, even if the functionality is limited to short shots (as it currently is - though i'm hopeful).

 

Possibly dumb/n00b question > I assume this is(/will be when released) a feature that will be easy to turn off/on right? If this is limited to ~50 seconds of shooting time, I'd like the option of going back to the old crippled MIII video (which I'm finally fine with if I have the option of 4k for select shots).

 

I have no experience with ML and just want to make sure loading this is 'reversible' or can be 'turned off' if as developments come out it turns out this is bad for the camera or something. Thanks :)