Magic Lantern unlocks Canon 5D to shoot 14 bit raw via liveview

[Ted Ramasola]

Its not an April fools ;). I'm careful in stating "raw in liveview" and not "raw video" as its still in the early stages.
However, the developers say it passed the biggest hurdle. They currently can do 10fps of compressed raw. They say "raw video" meaning at at least 24fps is potentially possible.

Read more here and see sample files:

14bit RAW “Video” on Canon DSLR’s with Magic Lantern

Yep, we have 14-bit RAW data in LiveView. DNG silent pics for 5D2/5D3.

RAW "Video" on Canon DSLRs with Magic Lantern - YouTube

[Ryan Jones]

Preview video is incredibly impressive, but it's interesting that they keep making comparisons to the Blackmagic Cinema Camera. BMCC and 5D3 bodies are similar pricing, and lenses are interchangeable. Cool feature for existing 5D3 owners but no one would make a purchase decision based on this. Excited to see where this might go though. Hopefully my 7D can be upgraded too.

[Lawrence Bansbach]

Originally Posted by Ryan Jones

Hopefully my 7D can be upgraded too.

And the T2i/3i/4i/5i. I agree, there's no point in buying a Mk III for a hacked feature. If you're making even a small amount of money doing video and you need raw, buy the BMCC.

[Warren Kawamoto]

I wonder about heat from the camera when doing this?

[Chris Hurd]

Thanks for reporting this, Ted! Just a heads-up, though: I replaced your third-party link with direct-to-the-source links. On DV Info Net we greatly prefer links that point straight to the original source, as opposed to some other site's report on that source. Thanks in advance for understanding,

[Murray Christian]

Currently it looks like a bunch of raw photos taken quickly, which isn't all that surprising (I would have thought if they found the data stream straight off the sensor, or after it is line skipped and before it gets compressed, the frame rate would be the frame rate. Then it's just a matter of writing it to the card somehow. Then again I know nothing at all about any of this).

If they get it working I wonder if the same stunt will work on the crop sensor models (7D, 60D etc). That'd be cool. Give them a new lease on life. I wouldn't be surprised if the systems, SD card based particularly, turn out to be a bit slow for the job though. (7D twin processors might help there, where they initially hindered. Who knows).

[Ted Ramasola]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Thanks for reporting this, Ted! Just a heads-up, though: I replaced your third-party link with direct-to-the-source links. On DV Info Net we greatly prefer links that point straight to the original source, as opposed to some other site's report on that source. Thanks in advance for understanding,

No worries Chris. I'm even glad you changed the links.

[Ted Ramasola]

Originally Posted by Lawrence Bansbach

And the T2i/3i/4i/5i. I agree, there's no point in buying a Mk III for a hacked feature. If you're making even a small amount of money doing video and you need raw, buy the BMCC.

I agree. But for those with the good old 5d mkII, ML gave it a new lease on life.
I was about to replace it a couple of years ago when ML became unified and became stable.
With addition of a mosaic filter its still a useful workhorse.
Personally these are the features I find most useful;
1. The ability to automatically restart recording when 4gig limit reached.
2. HDR video for tricky lighting conditions. (ideal on dslrs with 60P)
3. Headphone out monitoring with gain control
4. split channel recording with independent gain control ( int + ext mics on the 2 channels)
5. extreme low light capability and creative options using variable frame rates from 1FPS to 30FPS
6. built in intervalometer for timelapse.
7. peaking and magic zooms for focus assist.
There are much more, like auto rack focus but I don't use them.
With the BMCC coming out I was again about to jump ship from dslrs, but now its worth to wait a bit, after all, the 4K bmcc isn't out yet.
But if after several months and the ML team can't figure it out and provide a workable raw video feature then other options will be considered.
Magic Lantern team is also testing making the video record YUV 422.
Link to MLthread by developer:
uncompressed YUV422 video recording

Crazy stuff indeed.

[Tim Polster]

Lets hope this can work eventually but at this stage it is just a series if still shots, which is what the camera is known for already. The 1Dx can shoot 12 frames a second in RAW right now for still work.

It would seem a big leap to be able to record 24fps RAW from this camera for any useable length of time. Canon has already demonstrated that there is a pecking order in their product offerings and RAW video from the 5D MKIII is not in that order!

[Donald McPherson]

I read that it will work for the 600d. Although unlikely to get 25fps.

[Alister Chapman]

Can't see how this will be possible. The media isn't fast enough to support continuous raw recording. You need around 1Gb/s for uncompressed 2k raw and a 64GB card would be full in just 3 mins.

[Robert Benda]

Originally Posted by Ted Ramasola

creative options using variable frame rates from 1FPS to 30FPS
6. built in intervalometer for timelapse.

Those might be the two coolest things I've heard. Had no idea. I suppose shooting 1fps would accomplish a very similar effect as the intervalometer.

[Ted Ramasola]

Shooting at 1fps would visually produce something similar when using an intervalometer.
The advantage is it would be a little faster to include the footage in post since its just 1 mov file as opposed to hundreds of frames when using stills.
The advantage of the later would be resolution and dynamic range if you used raw.

Heres a test I did awhile back when the version was only at 3fps. Now it goes to as low as 0.5 fps !

5D Magic Lantern LOW FPS Test # 2 on Vimeo

[Jon Fairhurst]

Very exciting. This could be especially great for timelapse in that the mechanical shutter can stay open.

Can they get to 24 fps? That could be very tough. If it does 10 today, they need to more than double the speed, and they can't get there by just cropping the extra stuff on the edge. And it only does burst mode today - at 10 fps. My gut tells me that there are physical limits that will get in the way. Maybe a 1DX can get there from here.

And maybe we can get a 720p crop at 24fps. That would still be useful - especially if it delivers higher relative resolution than the current 1080p compressed video provides.

[Ted Ramasola]

I am following the nightly builds and testing them as well. They are making progress. The first build I tried dated
April 28, I could only record around 8-9frames with corrupted bottom of frame and black bar on side, also exposure seem to vary per frame.
April 29, I could already record 11-12 frames and the frames are now clean, exposures stable throughout.
Now, just uploaded,
April 30 build. I was now able to record 51 frames, DNG.

Note that I'm only using 5D mkii with a transcend 133x 8gig card, I use this small card for tests since my 32gig cards are loaded with the stable 2.3 release.

I bet those using the newer mkIII with fast cf cards are getter longer results especially using 720P which the mkII cannot do.