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

It has to come sometime. When you shoot a RAW still with the 5D you can see the detail the sensor can make. Greater than most will ever need at this point in time for video. Since HD video is mostly progressive in this space it is logical that it is just down to transferring the bits quick enough. And having the marketing will to break new ground.

Not to say Canon is evil here because they have to represent a professional working product, not a few seconds here and there with a special uber CF card. Make me think of the famous Steve Jobs quote about needing to innovate or your competitors will do it for you.

It will happen, but is it time now? We will see over the next few weeks.

About RAW. Image quality or more precisely dynamic range is a matter of the RAW processing software as much as the captured data. This update is in the early stages but to make it work one needs a way to process the video like Adobe Lightroom or Red's free program. The image quality improvements outside of detail will come from the ability to process the footage.

When I shoot landscape photos I have learned over the years to completely expose for the highlights. This results in a very dark terrain at times. But from experience I know I can lift the mids & shadows to equal the highlight exposure without much penalty because the image started in RAW format. Only after this lift does the image come to life and appear to have great dynamic range. The sensor captured the information, it just needs to accessed. This two stage process is not the usual video processing approach but will be adapted with the right software. I can see Adobe adding a module to Lightroom for this very purpose.

This is clearly early days but I think we only go up from here.

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

And this is where the confusion is. What this hack gives you is *NOT* the same as RAW stills at video rate. With a RAW still you have about 20 million 14 bit words (one for each photosite). It's impossible to read that many 30 times every second, let alone 50 or 60. Read Alisters description earlier, and you see that what we're talking about is omitting most of the 20 million.
Don't underestimate the task of "just" transferring the bits fast enough. If you really were to be reading the full sensor at 60fps, at 14 bit depth, we're talking for 16:9 of 5616x3160x60x14 bits per second. That's about 15BILLIONbits every second. Hence the need to only read a fraction of the total each frame. It's vital to draw the difference between "true" RAW and "liveview RAW", and that's not coming through clearly.
Well, it would have to be a very special "uber CF card" to record the datarate above, if your assumption about the entire sensor being read every frame was correct! It's nothing to do with "Canon being evil", full sensor read out at video rate would likely melt the chip very quickly, let alone the bit rate being unrealistic.

Although Canon do provide the facility to read out continuous frames at full resolution - but just at 3.9fps! And expect that to be a technology limit. Either read full sensor resolution at up to 3.9fps - or a pixel skipped or cropped mode at video rate. Either about 20 MP at 3.9fps - or 2MP at 30fps. Same data in each case, yes?
If you're referring to recording true full resolution RAW images from a DSLR, at normal video frame rates, then don't hold your breath. That's misunderstanding what this is about. "RAW liveview" is a different matter. It may well be an improvement over basic DSLR video, it won't rival a true digital cinema camera, even something at the lower end like a C100

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

Thanks for the numbers David. I did not know the facts behind the data. This is important info to get out there as the term RAW is such a buzzword right now. Looks like "RAW" will turn into a term just like "HD" which changes based upon how the person or entity wants it to be.

It sounds like the 5D will be using way less information than true RAW output, but if it improves the images compared to the H.264 images then it is a step forward. If anything, the detail improvement is most welcomed as it is such a shame to take sharp stills but have soft video from the same camera.

I am sure this will be a hot topic for quite some time into the future.

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

Very true! :-)
And again, very true. There's a certain inevitability there, as a highend, low noise camera will benefit far more from a greater bitdepth than a noisier one. But I'm sure we'll see the marketing people wanting "16 bit RAW!!!" as a sales point, even if it makes no advantage in the case of a cheaper camera. Or is that too cynical?

To be fair, the title here is "shoot 14 bit raw via liveview". Unfortunately, people are seeing "RAW" and not realising the significance of the liveview part.
Yeeess.... but the question starts to become "is it worth it.....?" You can end up spending so much on a DSLR that maybe the same money would just be better spent on something like a C100. And as I understand it, the impetus behind using DSLRs was driven by dof and a large sensor. The best results here seem to be using the technique in crop mode (not pixel skipping the whole sensor area) - so you're effectively losing the whole point.

To put some numbers behind that, then in ff mode, it's 36mmx24mm and 5616 x 3744 photosites. Going into 1920x1080 crop mode, that means the used area becomes about 12.3x6.9mm - so smaller than super16 film, let alone the Black Magic and 4/3" cameras. Heck, it's only about a quarter the area of a s35 sensor!

And even in 1920x1080 crop mode, that won't be true 1080 resolution. The deBayering will knock it down to something like 80%, about 850 lines for luminance. Better than a native DSLR - but dof etc no longer anything like a ff chip!

Go to ff mode and the inevitable pixel skipping will mean it will fundamentally be unlikely to be any sharper than native DSLR. (Though the RAW nature will give far greater control over things like detail enhancement. There will be an improvement - but it won't be anything like as much as a lot of people are hoping.)

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

Shooting 2880 x 1320 in crop mode looks like it would have few downsides. Yes, it's not full frame, but it will lack aliasing and be well oversampled and sharp. The Tokina 11-16 gives you a 22-36 mm equivalent view, using the strong part of the glass.

And for full frame shooting, there is the Mosaic Engineering anti-aliasing filter.

It wouldn't make sense for a lot of projects, but when shooting green screen effects work (which doesn't only need clean keys but also requires subtle grading) and for anything with smooth gradients and the need for strong grading, this gives the DSLR shooter new powers.

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

Has anybody been able to shoot a resolution chart with thie new Magic Lantern release?

I'm dying to see what is happening with the resolution this thing produces and how it's scaled for 1080 video. Has any of the Magic Lantern folks discussed what tecnique they are using? (simple line skipping or some other pattern?)

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

did you watch my video I posted?

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

Didn't see it earlier, was browsing forum on my phone. Thank you for that post, very interesting!

It's going to be fascinating to see how ML develops this further. I'm particularly interested in how the entire industry reacts to this a year from now.

Thanks!

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

To quote Stu Maschwitz in his article;

IT’S NO LONGER OK FOR CAMERAS NOT TO GIVE US EVERYTHING THEY’VE GOT.

An interesting read.
Prolost - Blog - Space Monkeys, Raw Video, and Giving Us All You'veGot


..

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

To those wondering about work flow, with Ted's help in getting mounted up with the software, and running in on my trusty 5D Mark II, I have been able to shoot in short bursts that I subsequently processed to DNGs using the converter provided by Magic Lantern. From there, I tried proceesing the file through Resolve 9 (came with my Black Magic Cinema Camera), and at least initially I was unable to get a clean process. Essentially, I think Resolve was not reading the pixel aspect ratio properly

However, when I processed throught Cineform's Studio, Premium version, I was able to produce a clean editable Cineform .avi that I believe would be acceptable.

I am just in early minutes of trying this out. It is clear that with my 5D Mark II, that I will still need a faster card. Using my old 133 x Kingston Elite Pro chips that I have used successfully for years to capture footage on the 5D II, I could only get about 4 seconds of footage before Magic Lantern started skipping frames. I definitely will need a faster card to test this further.

Second thing I am unclear about is if we can vary frame rate. It appears that the individual frames are being captured at 29.97 fps. Can anyone confirm that ?

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

Chris,
Use the FPS override to get 23.976. You will know its now at that framerate when you change the hieght or width in ML menu the small note below will indicate, the framerate and data rate needed for the card.

Also, upon import of the DNGs to your NLE or AE, conform your DNG sequence to 23.976

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

I'm absolutely floored by some of these test video. Holy moly!

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

Thanks again Ted. That should give me a longer run on that slow card too, I would think.

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

Could someone shoot a chart, please?

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

Go to my videos at post # 20
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-...ml#post1793351

and post #30
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-...ml#post1795578

near the end.

:)

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

Whatever Magic Lantern are doing it is close to magic & totally different to that Emperors New Clothes nonsense of removing the OLPF that was promulgated last year. The resolution & detail with the 'raw' images is vastly better than the compressed H.264 images normally recorded to card or the uncompressed stream via HDMI.

It is categorically not just cropping the sensor although that option is also a feature. Here is a link to a video of some birds shot with a Canon 600mm f/4 IS II lens with a 1.4x TC in 'raw' then the same birds using the 5X crop option (equivalent to a 4000mm lens on a full frame sensor!)
Here is a comparison between C100 & 5D3 'raw' where the footage looks all but identical in terms of resolution. Magic Lantern enables 14-bit RAW CinemaDNG on 5D - Page 23

Aside from the limitations of 40-50 second takes with no audio & 6GB/minute storage requirement there are some really amazing images being delivered. Even if this isn't practical for most people to use it does demonstrate what is possible even with current cameras. If Canon won't produce a full frame 'raw' camera based on the 5D3 then perhaps some enterprising hot rodders can bolt on an SSD interface and a few other goodies to produce a cheap baby Epic?

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

Update on 5d mk2 build using newer build.

Getting better, with raw record now triggered by LV button instead of from menu.

Audio recording with Raw now works in 5d2 with separate wav file. on NLE i noticed 4 frame delay in 30p. (move wav file back 4 frames to sync.)

in 24p there is 2 frame delay for the wav file. ( move it 2 frames to sync)

Its still quirky but getting better. :)

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

For those with a 5DmkII and a VAF filter, I tested that the filter is essential at 1x resolution.

However, its mushed up soft when used at 5X crop mode.

Crop mode is sharp and detailed without the VAF.

Here is a new chart test at 1880 x 1080 & 1920 x 1078 comparing the DNGs with a still CR2 sraw2 frame and also with a chart at h264.


And for some updates over at ML site;

Cinema DNG is being worked on or at least to make the DNGs compatible with resolve.

Developers are attempting to do 12bit or 10bit raw thereby having the potential to lower the datarate making it possible to go higher resolution on older cameras.
Also they are looking at possible option to choose, 14bit, 12bit or 10bit.

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

The folks over at EOSHD.com have posted some more test results. Look at the resolution that the new Magic Lantern software is getting on the 5D III. (they compare it to the C300 and FS100)

Canon 1D C vs 5D Mark III Raw (and C300 / GH2 resolution comparison) | EOSHD.com

Looks like the news is getting worse for Canon's C100/300/500 product lines. (I'd bet that BlackMagic is not happy about it either)

Wow.....I think this will be the spark that creates a BIG fire across the entire industry. It's time for Canon, Sony and Panny to rethik and possibly re-plan their future product forcasting, marketing and R&D.

Is it possible that the "big 3" will all have $1,000 -$3,000 RAW recording cameras in 2 or 3 years? (as an option along with the usual CODEC stuff)

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

Cliff-
No, the Cinema EOS line is not in trouble...the 5D is still a DSLR, a still camera that one has to add a fair amount of accessories to make it a functioning video camera that you can shoot with. The C100/300/500 are functioning video cameras that are, for the most part, ready to go. As for the 5D's unlocked chip being better than the C series chip, while it's mega pixel count is bigger, tests and real world usage will determine where it lands.....

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

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

Cliff, Jim - I think you're both right.

Reality is that Canon has already likely peaked in terms of C300 sales. And nary a Canon fan boy (which I counted myself among) was pleased with the pricing of these cinema cameras.

What these hacks prove - if it needed proving at this point - is that Canon could make a much cheaper cinema camera if they desired. It also shows that the BMC camera pricing isn't a fluke.

Immediately, the impact will be small - few if any pros would risk a hack of any kind on a paying job, and even fewer with a hack this new. Few full length narrative movies would want to use A) a DSLR or B) one with a hack. But some will. And those few brave souls will produce some stunning footage (heck, they already have), footage that other shooters will ultimately have to match at some point.

All of which means companies who have been very active in the market in the past two years - Canon, Sony, and BMC - will have to make some sort of adjustments, even if it's just in pricing. For other companies who have been relatively quiet - like Panasonic and Nikon - they will have to decide if they will even try to get share of the market all all.

Rolling shutter test on the 5D2 in raw video mode vs native h264
 

For those curious to know about the rolling shutter "bendy thingy" in raw dng mode, I made this test with 2 cameras camparing raw video vs h264.

Since I only have one 5D2 and a 7D, I shot them first both at H264 to create a baseline behavior.
If both have similar behavior in h264, then I can use the 7D to do a side by side with the 5D recording raw while the 7D at h264.

The result I was after is not to see which camera was better but rather to have a basis to see if RS was any worse for just one camera (the 5D) between two formats, Raw DNG and H264.
The result I got for the first test, which was H264 on both, was what I used as basis to see in the second, which is raw and H264 if there is a difference between raw and h264 for the 5D alone.
That was my objective. Not as weather one cam had better RS effect than the other.

You can draw your own conclusions.

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

I think that the C100/300/500 are better cameras than the 5D III for video. However, the 5D II/III have created a niche market that is still pretty large. There have always been 101 reasons "not" to record on a DSLR, but that hasn't seemed to slow down the DSLR video growth.

I think this new Magic Lantern development will re-start a new desire for the low end buyers to keep using their 5D's. Yes, the workflow for this thing is a PITA but has not stopped people in the past. These shooters have always seemed to be happy using work around after work around to get the job done.

These new Magic Lantern tests are a bit startling and a bit disturbing. If this software continues to mature and if they develop a more streamlined workflow?...than I don't see thing being a simple "flash in the pan". I think the rest of the industry is going to be forced to acknowledge this capability.

I have never shot RAW sensor video before. I'm and EX1r and FS100 guy. But you better believe I'm jumping on that little BlackMagic Pocket Camera for 1,000 bucks. It will my first "toe in the water" in the RAW recording swimming pool.

I dunno,...only time will tell but I bet that "cheap" RAW recording will not go away and will only grow in a couple of years.

Maybe I'm wrong?

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

Cliff,

I came from DIY 35mm adapter era, making work arounds to get things done is part of what I call fun. :)

Cross your fingers, I think the ML hackers just smashed the 4gig limit on the 5D mkII. I'll be testing it later.
:) Every couple of so hours something new comes up.

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

I don't know if anybody has said this before but I thought I'd go ahead and mention it anyway;

The Magic Lantern team is amazing and they have been able to reverse engineer Canon cameras to an amazing degree. I'm not really a "conspiracy" guy but Magic Lantern seems to have gotten very deep into these camera's firmware and and their circuits.

Question: Is Magic Lantern just "that" good? Or, are they receiving "assistance" from inside Canon? (some form of insider knowledge?)

I can't think of any other cameras that have been hacked this deep or this thoroughly.

My guess is that ML is just "that" good?

CT

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

Magic Lantern has built on CHDK which has been around for over five years and doing similar things to enhance the functionality of Canon's point & shoot cameras.

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

It is quite amazing. The images coming out only after a few weeks of the RAW discovery are really nice. Nice enough to have an impact on the industry going forward imho. While I think exisiting cameras will not be impacted too much, the next round of camera development will need to be that much better and more affordable to get consumer interest. In short, the cat is out of the bag, the bar has been raised, or any other saying you can add.

Basically, the 5DMKIV needs to have RAW video as an option to be a successful camera in the video marketplace. In their way, ML is forcing the hand of the camera makers going forward.

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

Or Canon could do what manufacturers frequently do and remove or limit the ability to hack the camera, either by encrypting the firmware or hardwiring limitations into the hardware (like the 22-MBps data rate in the SD controller). It's apparent by the pricing of the C series that Canon wishes to overcharge and underfeature its cameras, to perpetuate the the excessive price premium for "professional" video equipment.

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

The day will come when the cash flow of these companies in the video market will be generated by lenses only, not by cameras.

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

Yeah, we are now seeing lower end cameras that looking more and more like their upper tier counterparts. More and more people are making great productions on far cheaper gear. (I don't see this trend reversing)

Just wondering here,...Let's say Canon, Sony and Panny were to each build a $3,000 -$4,000 camera with 12bit RAW recording, Super 35 sensor and proper XLR audio input. How would that affect each company's $10,000+ models? If Sony made this fantasy camera for that low price, would you still save up for an F55 at five times the cost? (an F55 would be allot less attractive)

Great looking and super CHEAP RAW cameras can literally destroy the industries "normal" business model. There could come a day in the near future where a $4,000 camera could literally have virtually all the features, functions and image quality that a Sony F55 or C500 has.

I tip my hat to Magic Lantern and especially BlackMagic for creating this kind of pressure on the big 3. If Sony, Canon and Panny's future business plan is to just ignore what is happening on the "grass roots" level?...they will only make their competition stronger and certainly make BlackMagic very very happy.

Wow...does anybody think that cheap, high quality, RAW recording is an obscure "fad" and will just "go away" soon? Anybody?

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

Yep, I agree -- especially the "literally have virtually" part. But isn't this pretty much what has happened all along -- remember when the 5D2 initially was released, etc, etc...?

-- peer

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

Another nice feature of recording in Raw mode with the 5D mkII is that on my SWIT HD monitor, the resolution won't drop down to SD anymore when recording!
In fact there is now no delay or glitch.

The bug is, it hangs the camera if you try to view the footage with HDMI cable attached ( ERR 70 ) so if if want to view footy, remove the hdmi cable.


I'm still using may 29th build. A reminder that this is all subject to improvements every day.

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

Ted
Thanks for your reportage! (on both mk2&3)
Double Happiness
J

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

I now have a 1000x card ( Komputer Bay) which was recommended by someone testing these versions of ML. I get video to the 4 gig limit in the 1880 x 840 size. I think that is the best I can do with my 5D Mark II. So my next step is to test the version that steps past the 4gig limit.

Ted, how is that working out for you. Can PM me the latest update ?

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

Chris,

Tested with 2 spanned files totalling 5.25 gig so far so good. Will test for more than 9 gig.

Caution, do not use the drag over the raw2dng method for join and extract.

Join the spanned files first via the command prompt method then extract the joined file by draging over the raw2dng.

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

Thanks Ted for information. Back to command prompts ? Arggg.... I thought I wouldn't see that again. I will have to take a look at the process .

I send an email to enquiring party about my latest adventures with the latest builds. I am appending that below. I got pink screen with both 30 th and 31st versions. Not sure what that means, but I got clean video using the 29th build thanks again for pointing me to the location.

My further notes:

The Magic Lantern Raw for 5D II and all other cams is still in development phase. I am currently working with nightly upgrades that create their own little quirks and issues. Eventually, they will get it working right.

I am using a "Komputerbay" 1000x 64 gb card I ordered from New Egg, as I recall. It ran around $ 100 USD. It was one that I had seen others indicate was working so I took a chance.

The widest I get with current set up is 1880 pix and a pix height of 840. Makes a nice 235:1 aspect ratio. They are adjusting more in the various versions, so I am sure there will be more changes. So yes, they are taking out of the center of the imaging chip, though there is not much left on the sides to get to 1920. There is a message that shows camera configuration cannot reach 1920 wide, which is the full frame.

The latest version I have worked with had capability of recording sound in a wave file form. It does eat up band width that makes it harder for the camera to record at the higher resolutions.

Most recent version also has continuous recording, through the 4 gigabyte range limitation. Hurray for that.

2 big sur videos 2 raw capable cameras
 

Remember that beautiful Big Sur video shot with the BMCC?
Well here is another, this time shot by a 5DmkIII.

Bmcc

5DmkIII+ML Raw (pre alpha build may 22)

I'll avoid making my personal comments and opinions as I have my own needs. I just wanted to share this as they have some sort of the same treatment for the same subject.

Lets not judge who did a better video since those are creative and thus subjective choices, I'm just amazed how both are capable tools. One is a new camera the other is running on hacked firmware and doing what its not supposed to be doing. ;)

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

The biggest difference I see with the 5d (with raw or without raw) is with the dr but mainly with the sharpness, there is much more very fine detail visible but I have not seen a 5d raw video yet that wows me like some bmc footage has done, like the one Andrew made.

The example video you showed looks much more plain compared to the bmc one. I see people comparing it to the bmc but I think, based on what I have seen so far, the bmc is still one step above, is it up to lack of knowledge, not knowing how to lift the footage to a higher level? I don't know, but even with the bmc I have seen a lot of crap looking footage as well so that might be the case.

But just the fact that you have the option to improve on the 5d's image quality to such extent is making the 5d a much more versatile camera. I was planning on getting a bmc pocket camera mainly for it's size and wide dr but since I have to invest in new glass as well I might as well cough up a bit more and get a 5dIII body as I do have a set of lenses for that, it will also fit right into my current paid projects workflow where the pocket camera would mainly be used for personal projects.

I only wonder if Canon will do something to prevent the ML firmware to be loaded by updating their own firmware or even make a change to their hardware? In the past the ML firmware was not much of a threat to their camera line up as it only did improve on functionality but the raw hack, when it will get stable, would be a threat to their much more expensive c line of camera's.

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

This was my first thought when I read about the RAW efforts. Canon will probably sell more 5D's but this was clearly not in their gameplan. Once the cameras are in the wild, there is nothing they can do other than sue ML and get them to stop making their firmware addons.

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

Canon won't be suing Magic Lantern developers as reverse engineering is perfectly legitimate even when done commercially. I don't believe that Tamron & Sigma licence anything from Canon they just figured out how to get their lenses to talk to Canon bodies. ML has not infringed any Canon patent or copyright.