5K RAW 24p video for $150 - Magic Lantern making great strides on Canon EOS M

[Andrew Reid]

If you enjoyed my Super 16mm c-mount adventure on the new EOS M50, you might want to take a look at the latest Magic Lantern endeavours on the original EOS M. Pictured above is mine with the Kern-Switar 26mm F1.1.

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[mercer]

The EOS-M is the camera that just keeps on giving. It was my first foray into ML Raw and I failed miserably with it. Soon after I tried my hand with the 50D and thought hmm. With the 5D3, I am a full convert and won’t even think of buying another camera until I see what happens with the 5D4 developments.

However, somewhere in the back of my closet, I still have my EOS-M, a few batteries and a slew of SD cards just waiting to be used. This could be a fun way to cure some Mid-Winter Blues. I look forward to your update, Andrew.

On another note, I almost bought your 5D Mark III 3.5K Raw guide a couple of hours ago, but I don’t know if I can go without a clean LiveView. Has there been any updates on that front?

[tweak]

5 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

How much of a pain in the ass is the magic lantern workflow?

Not bad really.

Use the program in that post (MLVapp) or MLVFS if you don't want to transcode (you still need to transcode with an EOSm though because of the focus pixels I think).

Honestly I still transcode everything with a GH5 anyway, so I don't see much difference. I like MLraw image better than anything I've used, but all these high res modes lack proper monitoring solutions (also they are all cinema ratios already pretty much which isn't ideal for me shooting anamorphic lenses). I'm really excited to see what they can do with the EOSR, 5Dmk4 and the EOSm50.

I still have a few EOSm1s around (was also my first MLRaw camera), I might have a poke around and check these developments.

[mercer]

48 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

How much of a pain in the ass is the magic lantern workflow?

As @tweak said, it’s fairly simple. I also always have transcoded everything, so even turning the MLV files to CDNG was faster than turning h.265 files to ProResLT when I owned the NX500. There is also a filing system someone developed that installs on your Mac (don’t know if there’s a Windows version) that will instantly open the MLV files as if they were CDNGs in Resolve... from that point it works like any other codec except you have full Raw control. Honestly, there is probably more online support for ML than any other camera. There’s a bunch of apps that can work with the files directly and they can even output ProRes with a LogC curve. If you’re a low budget/no budget filmmaker and are looking for a way to have FF 14bit Raw in 1080p, there is no other option and if you are patient, you can get near Alexa quality results with it. IMO. 

To add, there’s also a level of craft and choice involved that got lost somewhere with consumer 4K. I feel, others’ mileage may vary, that I can get distinctly different looks with ML Raw just by using different lenses.

With consumer 4K cameras, I always felt that most lenses looked very similar... it was either modern lenses or vintage lenses unless you were using something really particular like a Helios or an Anamorphic on the GH series, otherwise there wasn’t much of a difference.

But I will add that the workflow and storage requirements aren’t for everyone... even though with MLVFS you could literally work off the card, color correct in Resolve, and export the footage as ProRes to a hard drive to save storage space but as I said, it isn’t for everybody. If you find you really love the Sharpness and resolution of a 4K image, you will probably be disappointed but if you really like a traditional film look, it could be an option for you. 

[kye]

+1 for what @mercer said.

I played with ML on my 700D and found the workflow with MLVApp to be quite straight-forward.

But.. ML isn't for everyone.  Some things to consider are:

• ML isn't one thing.  It's a modular software system with different versions across different camera models.  Each of those versions can contain features that are fully-tested and bullet-proof, but may also have features that are cutting-edge with limited testing or even bleeding-edge with zero testing.  Depending on what features you use, there may be risks of errors or bugs, or in the bleeding-edge stuff, potentially crashes and loss of footage.  There has been some buzz around ML killing SD cards or other hardware, but the reality is that this has happened in very few instances and isn't really something you should be concerned about.
• The higher-resolution RAW functionality is still quite new, although lower resolutions are pretty well developed now, so there's the risk of bugs.
• There is no manual, and it's pretty technical.  In most companies you have product development teams who work out what customers want, and designers who will tell the developers how to make things easy to use, and support teams who deal with customer enquiries and write manuals.  ML only has developers, and forums.  On the forums there are users who help each-other and developers who answer questions when they get time, but if you're in the threads about the cutting-edge or bleeding edge stuff, you'll find that a large percentage of the conversation is developers speaking in machine code to each other.  You can ask questions and sometimes you'll get answers, but sometimes you won't and maybe searching will help but maybe it won't.
• It moves pretty fast.  Certainly faster than the third-party resources such as YT videos or blog posts can keep up with.  Often if you're looking for help with something you will find a how-to and you'll follow it through but get to a point where it no longer works because they changed something and the tutorial uses a menu option that doesn't exist anymore or whatever.  You have to kind of work things out for yourself sometimes.

I love ML, I think it's great and I wish them every success.  But it is a very different experience to the standard firmware that comes in any consumer camera.

[jbCinC_12]

6 hours ago, mercer said:

The EOS-M is the camera that just keeps on giving. It was my first foray into ML Raw and I failed miserably with it. Soon after I tried my hand with the 50D and thought hmm. With the 5D3, I am a full convert and won’t even think of buying another camera until I see what happens with the 5D4 developments.

However, somewhere in the back of my closet, I still have my EOS-M, a few batteries and a slew of SD cards just waiting to be used. This could be a fun way to cure some Mid-Winter Blues. I look forward to your update, Andrew.

On another note, I almost bought your 5D Mark III 3.5K Raw guide a couple of hours ago, but I don’t know if I can go without a clean LiveView. Has there been any updates on that front?

Intriguing, @Andrew Reid.. quite intriguing.  I too, am interested.

@mercer, I felt the same way.  I haven't play/test it in a while - the camera was quite limiting until I snagged the Panny G7.  I'm revving the batteries and checking this one out.

[zerocool22]

10 hours ago, mercer said:

The EOS-M is the camera that just keeps on giving. It was my first foray into ML Raw and I failed miserably with it. Soon after I tried my hand with the 50D and thought hmm. With the 5D3, I am a full convert and won’t even think of buying another camera until I see what happens with the 5D4 developments.

However, somewhere in the back of my closet, I still have my EOS-M, a few batteries and a slew of SD cards just waiting to be used. This could be a fun way to cure some Mid-Winter Blues. I look forward to your update, Andrew.

On another note, I almost bought your 5D Mark III 3.5K Raw guide a couple of hours ago, but I don’t know if I can go without a clean LiveView. Has there been any updates on that front?

Yes I hope that the 5D IV magic lantern gets here fast before I buy even more camera's: D I just bought the pocket 4K as well. But would replace it with the 5D IV instantly when magic lantern is working. Too bad the following of magic lantern has slimmed down greatly, and there are not many testers out there now. Buying a 5D IV without knowing for sure magic lantern is going to run on it is too much of a gamble for me. (already own ump, 6D, and pocket 4K atm, and I can probably replace them all by a 5D IV if magic lantern works)

[mercer]

@zerocool22 well I think I’ve told you that your wolf Japan video is one of the videos that sold me on ML Raw. And although I’d love some 4K Raw, I’m more interested in Raw with DPAF and 1080p at 60p. How do you like the P4K?

For now I’m fine with the 5D3, I may try the experimental build and see if I can get 2.5K out of her. Between that and the eos-m, my boredom should be cured while I get some writing done for my projects.

I was considering looking for a used 5D4 to help with the testing but I know very little about coding and running scripts, so I’m afraid I’d efff something up and cause more problems than good.

9 hours ago, jbCinC_12 said:

Intriguing, @Andrew Reid.. quite intriguing.  I too, am interested.

@mercer, I felt the same way.  I haven't play/test it in a while - the camera was quite limiting until I snagged the Panny G7.  I'm revving the batteries and checking this one out.

Let us know how it goes. My first attempts with ML on the eos-m, a few years ago, were maddening. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get rid of the pink dots but I hear that isn’t an issue anymore.

[kye]

1 hour ago, mercer said:

Let us know how it goes. My first attempts with ML on the eos-m, a few years ago, were maddening. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get rid of the pink dots but I hear that isn’t an issue anymore.

I think those are the Focus Pixels?  If so, MLVApp removes them when you process the footage - it's a tick-box.

Andrew wasn't kidding about MLVApp being a pretty cool piece of software - it is super easy to use and has so many features it's starting to look like using Adobe Lightroom!

[zerocool22]

8 hours ago, mercer said:

@zerocool22 well I think I’ve told you that your wolf Japan video is one of the videos that sold me on ML Raw. And although I’d love some 4K Raw, I’m more interested in Raw with DPAF and 1080p at 60p. How do you like the P4K?

For now I’m fine with the 5D3, I may try the experimental build and see if I can get 2.5K out of her. Between that and the eos-m, my boredom should be cured while I get some writing done for my projects.

I was considering looking for a used 5D4 to help with the testing but I know very little about coding and running scripts, so I’m afraid I’d efff something up and cause more problems than good.

Let us know how it goes. My first attempts with ML on the eos-m, a few years ago, were maddening. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get rid of the pink dots but I hear that isn’t an issue anymore.

DPAF might be handy for gimbal work. Not sure, never used any autofocus so I am not missing it. Pocket is pretty good, now I ended up with 2 pocket 4K's, so I am selling one off. (Battery life and battery meter is kinda shitty though). But boy I do like that 5D image and colors. So def hoping on the 5D IV ml. As I got 3 different camera's right now. One for photography, one for serious video work, one for some gimbal/travel/fast work. 

[heart0less]

This video looks quite nice.

 

 

[mercer]

34 minutes ago, heart0less said:

This video looks quite nice.

 

 

That does look pretty good... crazy thing is that this wasn’t shot in the experimental 4K modes... it was just the regular 14bit ML Raw and he uprezzed it to 4K for YouTube. It fooled me while I watched it. 

[kaylee]

so purdy!

[webrunner5]

Been nice if he said what original resolution he was shooting it in though. Could be 2K for all we know to start with?

[Brian Williams]

I've been playing with these new ML settings the past few days, pretty cool. Not sure its really fair to call it 4k or 5k, since its really shooting 1/3 of the Horizontal lines and then desqueezing at the end, basically anamorphic without the anamorphic lens. And lots of rolling shutter. But still a very nice image, and for $160 (what I paid for my camera recently) insane deal.

[kye]

The biggest challenge for me was the edges of the frame being kind of out-of-focus in a way my eyes didn't like, so I'm not sure I like that lens wide open.

Of course, if that's the biggest criticism then it's doing well, considering that on YT we watch content from multi-thousand dollar cameras shot in 10-bit (or more), shot in RAW, shot in 4K, etc...  then it's punching well above it's weight!!

[zerocool22]

15 hours ago, mercer said:

That does look pretty good... crazy thing is that this wasn’t shot in the experimental 4K modes... it was just the regular 14bit ML Raw and he uprezzed it to 4K for YouTube. It fooled me while I watched it. 

 

16 hours ago, heart0less said:

This video looks quite nice.

 

 

Yeah that does look great. Honestly it looks better then most 3K mirrorless camera's. That takumar lens does have a great look, Gonna get one. 

[Nikkor]

The crappy corners in that Video are produced by the cheapo speed booster he is using, the takumar is a good lens.

[zerocool22]

2 minutes ago, Nikkor said:

The crappy corners in that Video are produced by the cheapo speed booster he is using, the takumar is a good lens.

I dont see anything crappy, im digging the swirl effect.
Is the nakumar a radioactive lens?

[Nikkor]

Just now, zerocool22 said:

I dont see anything crappy, im digging the swirl effect.
Is the nakumar a radioactive lens?

There are some radioaktive takumars, but I don't know if the one in the Video is one of them.I have that chinese  speedbooster and it makes those blurry corners, specially if infinity is not set correctly.