2.55:1 viewfinder workflow

[Robinhood]

Obviously, this is a long post but it hits on everything pertaining to in-camera capture of 2.67:1 of video AND stills at HD, 2k, 3k, or 4k to then crop to 2.55 -- OR preferably even better, to simply straight away capture at 2.55 to avoiding cropping afterwards toward the overall creative goal of using my ML Canon 5DIII as a viewfinder on location scouts by taking video AND stills in the true cinemascope aspect ratio of 2.55:1

I'm making a feature with x2 anamorphic lenses on the RED DSCM and will be exhibiting a final aspect ratio of 2.55 seen in La La Land, Rebel without a Cause, and the original cinemascope films of the 1950s. I am going to use spherical lenses on my ML 5Diii to frame for the equivalent horizontal field of view for each anamorphic prime in  rented set. For example) 12mm for the HFOV of the 25mm anamorphic and 18mm for the 35mm anamorphic. Therefore, these location scouts are for the sake of finding and creating shot compositions and not to replicate the anamorphic DOF in the stills or footage. I am using the magiclantern-Nightly.2018Jul03.5D3123

So here we go:

Q1) Does anyone have custom crop marks for 2.55??? -- One with and without the rule of thirds, or even one with a label stating 2.55 in the corner of black letterbox??? For the same purpose of future use-- does anyone have 2.20:1 custom crop marks (seen in large format Super 70mm Panavision films Lawrence of Arabia and 2001 Space Odyssey)?? I'm basically looking for this but for both 2.55 and 2.20

CS_2_67.bmp

Q2) My Canon is set to the resolution of 1920x720 @1.00X (which is grayed out) and the Aspect Ratio is at 2.67:1 -- This is good start point when shooting video footage since it is the exact same image size captured in-camera before resize/cropping in post to 2.55:1 --BUT... is there a way to create a custom image capture crop size when using stills mode with ML??? It is not very user friendly to think that one can even be in movie mode, put on the guide frames for 2.67, have the video resolution and aspect ratio matched to this same size, and yet it cannot take a still frame while in this format during movie mode operation... it's sort of obnoxious.... especially when other functions like picture profiles carry over to shooting stills while shooting in Movie mode or even when swithcing to Stills mode, but simply attemting to take a frame grab in Movie mode it always reverts back to an uncropped 16x9 picture. That's just silly, right??? Bottom line, I don't want to have to go through hundreds of 16x9 photos, pick out the best ones and add a 2.55 matte to each of them in some application before opening them in Photos or Preview.
 

Q3) On that note-- same goes for the video footage: Sure 2.67 is what is captured when shooting in 4:3 mode with anamorphic lenses after being de-squeezed, but I'm shooting with spherical lenses, (as are most DSLR shooters) and in various 16x9 aspect ratio and resolution formats.... So I have to ask.... Why in the world is there a 2.50 option when that has never been a capture or exhibition format in the history of filmmaking? Users are now even creating there own custom 2.50 crop marks, which is absurd, because they dont know any better that 2.50 has never once, and will never be a shooting or exhibitions format! ....Why hasn't anybody ever brought this up so that the folks at ML can correct this to 2.55??? But the real question is: if the ML developers can create new and random capture format like 2.50, then why can't users do the same??? Is there a way to input and use a custom user image dimension size and aspect ratios for both stills and video at a given resolution? In this case, 2.55:1 would be 1920x754 in HD, 4480x1754 in 4K without 4:3 de-squeeze using ML, or 4096x1604 at 4K like on the Sony Venice Cinealta, or even at 10480x4096 for stills like when using Sony's iSweep Panoramic function in High Resolution (can we please please PLEASE figure out how to attain this epicness on a DSLR with prime lenses using ML?!?!? ) 

The resolution or crop factor ultimately doesn't matter to me-- I just want to capture the image deminsion of 2.55 in both stills and video without having the need to crop. The the same goes for 2.67 (this is an exceptable trade off) and then even at 2.20 for down the road

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As an aside or possible solution:
This all brings me to my last headache but which might provide the user modifications I seek. I just attempted to use the latest experimental 4k crop rec build magiclantern-crop_rec_4k.2018Jul22.5D3123-1 but an error was created when restarting the camera to initialize the MLV rec, sound and play modules.

4). Is there a more stable version? Has anyone else gotten this problem? Perhaps I simply downloaded it incorrectly? -> I reformatted my sd card, copy/pasted the files of this build onto the card, did the firmware update, all good, but then it error's when initializing the modules upon the restart. -- From what I understand, this experimental build allows for the use of various additional aspect ratios and higher resolutions can now actually be selectable (none of mine above 1920 have always been listed yet never been selectable thus far), and crop factors options are now added (the crop rec module isn't available to to be initialized in the normal build).... So let me know if I'm tracking properly with what additionally can and cannot be done with this new 4k build-- will it even provide the custom user modifactions I seek or provide these preset options out of the gate??



5)--- And finally: does this 4k crop build also include the reduced 10 and 12-bit options as well or is this hack option only available as a 'one or the other' type build option for users to install and use?? In other words is it like hey, you can use only one build at a time... the stable nightly build, the 4k crop, or the reduced raw bit depth build....I really hope this is not the case...  if I can use whatever combination of crop, resolution, and bit depth, all at once, then this would be like using a real functional cinema style camera but in the form of a portable DSLR viewfinder~in otherwords, Perfection!

[Hans Punk]

To use 5DIII as an accurate viewfinder, you’d first have to consider the sensor size difference between full frame and whatever RED camera (and shoot setting) you are using. Even RED Weapon 8k is not the same as Regular full frame - it is slightly wider but not quite as tall.

once you’ve worked out that equivalent ‘crop’ or resize to match base sensor size/aspect...then you can work out the accurate frame line for 2.55:1 composition.

The most efficient way IMO would be to mark the LCD or monitor on your 5D with thin tape lines that give you a guide for composing shoots and stills, but otherwise shoot regular 19x9 1:1 ML raw. Then in post, set up a template in AE or NLE that will resize or place your footage into a composition that has been pre-set to the settings needed. Batch render footage from these settings to efficiently produce rushes.

for stills you’d need to set the camera settings to 16:9 stills and produce a similar template/action in PS to export stills with the desired crop and resizing you want.

As for the other technical details, you’d be better posting in the ML forum, but generally it is going to be easier to work out accurate framing to the RED by shooting regular 16x9 footage and crop/resize from that after mathematically working out the crop compensation amount.

[Robinhood]

Thanks Hans

I've done alot more research and do agree

 

The simple recourse:

I'm going to shoot stills and video in both 16x9 mode and simply frame with custom crop marks in camera.

For the life of me I cannot figure out a way to properly edit my present custom crop mark BMP files myself, and have them turn out in a working order... Whenever I edit an existing one to my ideal crop margins-- I save the file, add it into the ML SD card folder, it successfull is loaded and becomes selectable in the camera options but the edited file shows up simply now blank ~no black letterbox bars at all.... a normal untouched liveview... effectively adding no crop marks at all. 

Can someone be a quick help by creating/making a 2.55:1 and 2.20:1 custom crop mark file available for download?? I've looked everywhere and simply can't find a single option for either aspect ratio.

 

Adding a letterbox mask in Avid is easy and will be no problem at all for the location scout videos

For stills, however, I've created a BMP and PNG to the exact pixel resolution size of the Canon 5Diii's uncropped 16x9 size still.

So I want to overlay this 2.55 letterbox I've created on top of the stills. I do not want to crop the original 1.78 photos into 2.55  -- I want to but a permanent 2.55  mask over the 1.78 uncropped photos... I can't find a tutorial online how to do this... Wwhich app should I use to overlay a BMP file with a transparent middle for the image area and solid black bars on top and bottom for the mask. Any tutorial videos or directions will be a great help. I presume PS or lightroom?

With that-- I'll be good to go...