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

[Juan �lvarez Lara]

This is just a thought...

 

I haven't noticed feedback about the DPI resolution in each frame. Each RAW frame have 240dpi :o, and RGB resolution consist of 72dpi. Which means you can EASLY upscale resolution up to 4K with little to none IQ loss.

 

Here's a upscaled (1920 x 1280) PNG still sample from a 4K RED sequence: http://we.tl/2JT9is7EfI

 

IQ looks similar (i'll say a lot better) to h.264 but @ 4K resolution. This is just amazing.  :D

[Oscar M.]

I actually think that Canon's profit margins would be better with the dslrs - the user base is larger, the upgrade cycle is faster. They still do very well by having both but the DSLR is their bread and butter.

[Mirrorkisser]

Lol each week a new cow is chased through the village. just like people were all freakin out when the bmcc was announced, just to find out it wont be available for ages, jello etc. and then everybody jumps on the next bandwaggon.

 

the mkiii doing raw sounds superb, but lets wait till a big crowd uses this in real life conditions and checks this for flaws intensively. if it passes that, then i will get all excited. 

[namor]

does anybody think, a similar hack might be developed for the c100? and how likely is it that somebody invests time and money in it?

 

it would be a very nice to combination of handy tools and a good picture quality (raw output or at least with 10bit 422). 

[HurtinMinorKey]

Lol each week a new cow is chased through the village. just like people were all freakin out when the bmcc was announced, just to find out it wont be available for ages, jello etc. and then everybody jumps on the next bandwaggon.

 

the mkiii doing raw sounds superb, but lets wait till a big crowd uses this in real life conditions and checks this for flaws intensively. if it passes that, then i will get all excited. 

How dare you try and be reasonable on this forum!? :D

[Omega Broadcast]

For some reason I am thinking this is going to take some steam out of the 5Dmk3 with Pix 240 test we were planning...

[Caleb Genheimer]

Here is my comparison test of "image detail quality" on the 5D Mk III with and without ML then against the GH3:

 

Please notice that this was a fast test and if you find something wrong or unfair do let me know to fix it asap. :)

 

That rolling shutter looked pretty minimal to my eyes . . . that's some pretty harsh whip panning  before it really gets bad. It's probably pretty unnoticeable in most shots, certainly correctable.

[MarvinPontiac]

This looks amazing! Does anyone know how audio is handled when shooting in this format? (if at all)

[MattH]

That rolling shutter looked pretty minimal to my eyes . . . that's some pretty harsh whip panning  before it really gets bad. It's probably pretty unnoticeable in most shots, certainly correctable.

The screen tearing looked more of a problem though.  I cant see how that was happening in daylight either.

[Saad]

And here is my night (dark) test of the new 14-bit raw ML firmware vs. factory default:

 

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/66083408" width="800" height="303" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>

 

Let me know what you guys think. :)

[markm]

I actually think that Canon's profit margins would be better with the dslrs - the user base is larger, the upgrade cycle is faster. They still do very well by having both but the DSLR is their bread and butter.

 

A good business strategy would be to develop high end technology Cripple it for the high end then cripple it even more and sell to the low end. When the high end are finished buying decripple the lower end so it sells by the bucket load then come out with a new range for the higher end that is even better and cripple it for the low end. When your technology runs out of steam You keep your pro and consumer market ticking over with incremental improvements.

 

Maybe five years ago they could make a £500 camera that could shoot raw on cards they could already build but crippled them.

 

Maybe the camera market has maximised profit and we have been led like sheep.

 

Maybe Magic Lantern and Vitaliy are proving this with their work.

[hmcindie]

 

Maybe five years ago they could make a £500 camera that could shoot raw on cards they could already build but crippled them.

 

 

Oh come on. Lucas had to go to the camera manufacturers straight to even get 24p 1/2 inch HD cameras for films when they did Episode II. That doesn't mean the technology was there. When Sony made those cams they didn't know anything about how films were made, they were mostly doing broadcast. Times change, doesn't mean a conspiracy is everywhere.

[ScreensPro]

DSLRs pretty much have to rely on CF or SD tech, for size reasons. So they can only move as fast as the media tech companies can.

 

RED have been using very expensive, proprietry media for years and opted to move to SSD, as CF tech was just not enough. This simpy isn't possible in a 5DIII body.

[ScreensPro]

Without being too greedy.... has there been any further talk on variable framerates (both faster and slower)?

[terozzz]

It seems that the RAW is working on 600D too, but for now only @720 X 480 using a Transcend 16gb class 10 card.. With faster card ..Who knows..

[Rcorrell]

I apologize for my lack of knowledge, but for the life of me i cant figure out how to get this current raw recording version of ML working on my 5d3..  Alpha 3 works like a charm, but i can't figure out how to incorporate the nightly build into this working format? what am I doing wrong???  Thanks for any help, can't wait to test!

[Germy1979]

Lmao. I wonder what the might of their legal team thinks of this one.

"Alright assholes. We'll leave your 1DX alone."

[MattH]

You are correct, the full frame video files are debayered and downscaled to 14bit YUV422. Usually this format is not called raw, it's an uncompressed intermediate format.

 

How does 14bit YUV422 compare to 14bit Bayer RAW? They are both designed to take less space than pure RGB (which takes at least 24bit per pixel) but they do this by imitating the sensibility of the human eye.

 

Bayer RAW

It is the closest to what the sensor records. All commonly used sensors are essentially black and white. Every "pixel" gets a color filter that makes it sensible to only one color. A color sensor usually has a repeating pattern of 2 green, 1 blue and 1 red "pixel": the Bayer pattern. The final RGB pixel you get on your screen is actually an R, G or B pixel, with the rest of the color calculated from neighboring pixels: this is called a debayered image.

 

YUV422

It's an intermediate format because it's always the output of some kind of transformation. No sensor will capture directly in YUV422 format.
In YUV422 every pixel has a brightness value, but color information is combined for every 2 pixels. 

Full frame mode reads the sensor in such a way as to do a lower resolution scan of the full 22MP chip. It is 14bit linear RGGB bayer raw.

 

It does not read every pixel and downscale it on the image processor.

 

It is a raw scan of the sensor, direct to the card.

 

Fine detail looks very clean, as good as GH2 was. But raw! Dynamic range is incredible and low light looks very promising too.

 

Ok, so there are different explanations as to what is happening from the sensor to what is recorded.

I will use my limited understanding to try and suppose what might be happening.

 

The 5d mk3 is interesting in that its native horizontal photosite resolution is 5760 which happens to be 3 times 1920.

which means that 9 photosites are being used (or should be being used) to get the values for one output pixel.

 

The image bellow shows how this would apply to a small section of the sensor.

 

5d mk3 bayer pattern to 1920.bmp

 

As you can see there are 4 possible pixel types.

 

Thomas could be right in saying that the output is YUV.

However RGB to YUV conversion could happen regardless of how the RGB values are obtained from the sensor in the first place.

 

There are 3 rough methods I can think of for obtaining the RGB values:

 

Method 1.

The most information would be obtained by reading all photosites of a particular colour and averaging them to obtain a colour value for that output pixel.  All photosites would be used.  So for example in the top left group of 9 photosites, 5 green samples would be averaged to for the green value, and 2 blue and 2 red samples would be averaged for their respective values.

 

Method 2.

If however Andrew is correct that no calculation is done on camera,

then this would mean only 1 photosite from each group of 9 would be used for each output colour value.  Meaning you are throwing away 2 thirds of the sensor information and therefore 2 thirds of light gathering ability / noise performance.

 

Method 3.

Or if it turns out the final image still needs debayering then this means only one colour is being recorded for each group of 9 photosites.  Which means only 1 photosite out of 9 is used:      8/9ths of the information thrown away!

 

If Method 3 is the case then I would say this is quite poor.

A 4K raw frame from the 4kBMPC from would offer 4 times the resolution (even after downscaling the BMPC) and 3.1 times the light gathering ability (taking into account sensor area difference of 2.9* but not photosite size)

 

If method 2 is true then the 5D MK3 and 4K BMPC will be fairly evenly matched in terms of resolution and light gathering ability.

 

If the Method 1 true, which is probably unlikely, then the 5D would be simply beastly.

 

It will be interesting to see what the case is.

[chenedwa]

Any chance whether this might be offered for the 6D?

[PeterF]

Here are a couple of sample DNGs and videos from 5D Mark 3 - http://fil.io/FL5s6/Canon%205D%20Mark%20III%20RAW%20videos