New 5D Raw developments - plus my low light comparison with Blackmagic Cinema Camera

[Ian Anderson]

It's quite incredible how the goalposts have shifted again because of this news. After NAB I was fairly certain that I'd be waiting in line to pick up a BM Pocket Camera as a B-Cam to an FS-700, but this gives me real pause. I can use the EF-glass that I currently use on the Sony camera so there's no need to buy m/43 lenses, it's shooting full frame which is desirable for me, and I can repurpose the shooting gear and grip from when I would shoot with a 550D.

 

There's heaps going for it, but a determining factor could simply be cost. For the price of a 5DIII body alone you could pick up a Pocket Camera along with the very lovely looking Panasonic 12-35mm. The pocket camera shoots easy-to-edit ProRes as well so there's hardly any ingest time, which is both a cost saving for your client and a time saving for you which means you can shoot more stuff.

 

Am very excited to hear of this though, the ML team deserve profound recognition for what they've been able to achieve here as well as in the past.

[amanieux]

sorry removed a stupid question

[odie]

How do you work around the moire and aliasing with the bmc footage..?  Is this something you can spot while shooting on the monitor or you have to wait till you download the footage to your computer??   Could you you make adjustments on the set or only in post production?  How difficult is it to fix in post?

[Neil Hartop]

I heard on another site that this hack has improved the moire and aliasing coming out of the camera? Anyone confirm this? 

[pat1]

It's made more noticeable on the 5D2 because of the lack of aa filter. Wouldn't have thought there'd be any difference on the 5d3.

[Leon Yiu]

Has anyone had any luck with finding a compact flash to sata adapter for recording to an ssd? Its disappointing to hear the usb slot is only usb 2. If somehow ssd recording were to be made possible would 3840x2160/23.97 be made possible?

[DPC]

This is all great but... I've just finished a job partly done on the 1DC with 4k (not even raw). Yes, the files were great but it really is a nightmare to shoot with: all the disadvantages of a DSLR plus massive amounts of data to deal with. And then there's the problem of editing the stuff. I love a good image but really don't see how to reconcile this raw development with budgets or turn-around times. On the 4k job data management really got in the way of capturing good content and content is really what my clients are interested in. I worked with the 1DC, a 5D MK III and a "conventional" camcorder. Although the image quality decreased in that order, the quality of the content improved, simply because the camera was less of an obstacle. I would be much more excited if I could just record 4:2:2 in camera.

[JohnBarlow]

Andrew 

 

What is performance like for 1280x1080 ? (2x scope in mind)

[Andrew Reid]

hi andrew,

 

if you want to compare the noise on these 2 sensors, why don't you use the same lens at the same aperture on both camera ?

 

Because all that matters is that the aperture and shutter angle are the same on both shots. We're not testing the optical performance of the lens in this test, but attempting to get the same shot field of view and exposure on two differently sized sensors. Are you upset Blackmagic lost? Don't be. It is still a great camera in good light.

[Andrew Reid]

Andrew 

 

What is performance like for 1280x1080 ? (2x scope in mind)

 

Not tried that resolution yet - gunning for higher with my 2x anamorphic and 1.5x Iscoramas. 1720 x 1280 seems sweet. No card speed issues until quite late in the recording. 1920 x 1280 good for only 5-10 seconds. They are working on optimising speeds. Higher resolutions than 1080p vertical are tougher on the card.

 

Wouldn't 1440x1080 be better for 2x scope? That is 4:3. 2x anamorphic would turn that into 2.39:1

[Andrew Reid]

This is all great but... I've just finished a job partly done on the 1DC with 4k (not even raw). Yes, the files were great but it really is a nightmare to shoot with: all the disadvantages of a DSLR plus massive amounts of data to deal with. And then there's the problem of editing the stuff. I love a good image but really don't see how to reconcile this raw development with budgets or turn-around times.

 

The 5D Mark III actually has better ergonomics than the $12,000 1D C for video.

 

You can make your life much easier by buying the right accessories and using the right raw workflows. It isn't a nightmare, just not dead easy like the C300 that's all.

[jgharding]

All I keep thinking is "it's still easier than film" and "at least I don't have to use a Z1 anymore". That way I'm constantly happy! Just good news on good at the moment...

[HurtinMinorKey]

You're kinda off with the focus on these two. look at your 1600 iso shots. The 5D has better focus in the foreground, the BMCC has better background focus. You can read the writing off the box in the background with the BMCC, on the 5D it looks like mush. The reverse is true, to a lesser extent, about the foreground. Nothing conclusive about that shot.

 

All that being said, i'd be shocked if the BMCC could hold it's own with the 5D3 in extreme low light. I'd expect that the 5D raw is the low light king.

[Andrew Reid]

It isn't that the focus is off. The background is more in focus on the BMCC because of the smaller sensor and less shallow DOF. That ain't hard to understand surely.

 

I used 24mm F1.4 on the BMCC, and 50mm F1.4 on the 5D Mark III to match field of view more closely.

[JohnBarlow]

Thats 8/3 = 2.66

 

1280x1080 with 2x scope =2560x1080,  then scale by 0.75 for a 810x1920

 

The vertical rez would go through the roof :)

Not tried that resolution yet - gunning for higher with my 2x anamorphic and 1.5x Iscoramas. 1720 x 1280 seems sweet. No card speed issues until quite late in the recording. 1920 x 1280 good for only 5-10 seconds. They are working on optimising speeds. Higher resolutions than 1080p vertical are tougher on the card.

 

Wouldn't 1440x1080 be better for 2x scope? That is 4:3. 2x anamorphic would turn that into 2.39:1

[HurtinMinorKey]

It isn't that the focus is off. The background is more in focus on the BMCC because of the smaller sensor and less shallow DOF. That ain't hard to understand surely.

 

I used 24mm F1.4 on the BMCC, and 50mm F1.4 on the 5D Mark III to match field of view more closely.

 

If that was true, then the focus in the foreground would be as sharp/sharper on the BMCC too, but it's clearly out of focus compared to the background. I'm not saying it was easy. It would be really hard to get the focus identical, or even close, at 1.4 on a full frame.

 

But i'm splitting hairs here. As I said before, I'd be shocked if the BMCC could hang with the 5D in low-light.

[leo]

Things are changing very fast, one day you are content with the gear you have and next day Black Magic gives 2.5k or 4k resolution for very little money, now Canon can do even more, I bet in 2014 we will see a working 4k camera/setup for run and gun.

I hate it :), please stop, I can't afford to waste money on more resolution/dynamic range.

[jlev23]

wow, answered so many questions but not a word on mine, quickly, andrew:

can you NOT format the CF card in camera after you have shot and transferred the footage to a drive and are getting ready to shoot on it again? asking because it seems you have to have the ML firmware on the card to boot up, im worried it will be gone if i format in camera.

 

also, do you still get clean hdmi output while you are recording raw? to get some proxies to edit with, and go back to raw in the final?

please let me know.

 

thank you.

[Bruno]

Things are changing very fast...

 

Yeah, just a few days ago Andrew was saying it would be highly unlikely that Canon's upcoming DSLR cameras would be capable of a 10 second raw burst, and now on the "old cameras" we have a 40 second limit when shooting continuous raw, and that's because of the file system, not the camera! :)

 

I've said this before, I'd rather pay for firmware upgrades that give us more functionality to an existing camera than buying new camera bodies every year. Mostly for environmental reasons, but this would also give Canon more time to work on the software side of things, instead of constantly developing new hardware, with small technological improvements, they could work on bringing the firmware to the next level.

 

This proves that could totally work, there's a lot to be milked out of a 3 or 4 years old camera if you have proper access to it, something that ML doesn't have. A lot of technology surrounding the camera evolves every year, such as card speeds, and features that weren't possible 2 or 3 years ago could now be implemented on that same hardware.

[Bruno]

can you NOT format the CF card in camera after you have shot and transferred the footage to a drive and are getting ready to shoot on it again?

 

5D3 has two card slots, you can have ML on an SD card and shoot on CF cards.