peederj

What's going on is the 5D3 RAW converter being applied is boosting the saturation. In Aperture it's boosted all the way up by default, which is too much for most tastes. The sensor itself isn't so saturated, it's linear, but Adobe or Apple or whoever made your RAW converter thinks you want to be a mini Ken Rockwell and saturate the hell out of everything you shoot. This is just something you need to learn about RAW converters...they do a LOT of subjective manipulation of the image, and these 5D3 implementations are all intended for stills shooters right now.

 

I don't know how the Kineraw was converted...the tester hasn't provided enough information to reproduce the test (e.g. lens, focal length and aperture for absolute starters). Much better I think to desaturate excess color information than to try to boost out color information that just isn't present. I know very little about Kineraw in general, can someone please test the rolling shutter? Is bad news embargoed until more bugs are worked out?

 

The BMC displays its candy stripe moire on the edges of the lens to the left of the dog, and rainbow noise all over the image. I'm not sure why that's given a pass and the 5D3 vertical lines aren't (though I hope that's an ML hack bug or some oddity in the debayering being used). The 5D3 has vastly shallower depth of field, which we can surmise the lens choice and setting did not account for the much larger sensor, throwing the dog out of focus. The 5D3 will give usable picture all the way up to ISO 12,800 (NR gets very useful there) but I recommend shooting the RAW at 3200 max and boosting in post as needed. I don't think the sensor has gain applied above 3200.

Oh lovely, a forum boxing match...again.

I don't mind as it isn't personal/ad hominem...forcing everyone to defend their opinions is the most efficient education you can get. I know this is a forum for low-budget hackers and my urging people to upgrade out of that miasma will run into a lot of resistance. But it's good for you...do you think if you become a successful filmmaker you will still be using DSLRs?

For me there is no defending the C500's external recording requirements, and the pros I know who have shot with it say the same. External recorders are a PITA. It's a complete scandal that the C500 doesn't do raw internally like a $3000 DSLR or a $1000 Pocket Cinema Camera. Dumping uncompressed DNG raw to a SSD is trivial stuff. Canon chose to go for maximum margin, minimal design changes to the camera, maximum profit for their partners making the external recorders. One of them (I forget who) was even charging something like $4000 for the firmware required to make it accept the C500's raw output!! How do any of them think this kind of thing is going to wash in today's ultra competitive camera market?

Again it is a shame Canon took the beancounter route for the C500 as it could have been superb. For me there's no reason why they couldn't have added compressed DNG and a SSD slot, sold it for the same price as the C300 and then they would have had a worthy competitor to Sony. As it is the C500 is not competing.

As a truly great filmmaker once wrote, "That's a consumer mentality, not a filmmaking one." ;)

The Atomos and Odyssey recorders double as field monitors, so not that much of a PITA. Plus having the recorder be external lets a thousand flowers bloom in that sector...you can get any recorder you want, at any price, with whatever features and media you want. And it's quite standard at the C500 tier to have external recorders, even though some of them clip directly onto the camera (e.g. for the F55 and Epic) rather than hook up somewhere else via cable, which can be better ergonomically (as counterbalance, as a monitor, etc.). Generally higher budget productions want redundancy in digital recording which this enables at full quality. If the recorder maker is charging a lot for firmware and media, that's an opportunity for a competitor. When the camera maker fashions themselves a monopoly in RAW recording and media for their camera, as most have, that forces the customer to pay. And you're criticizing Canon for this? You have never bought a professional camera is all.

I hope for your sake peederj you realise that your C100 + Ninja has a shelf life of about 1 year and huge potential for deprecation in price. It is already comfortably outgunned on image quality by raw on the 5D Mark III. I know you will confront this argument by saying the ergonomics are great, but I'm not talking about ergonomics I'm talking about the image.

Your own chart tests just showed the C300 easily handing the 5D3 RAW its head on moire and resolution...and that was just with the convenience internal codec. The C-series image is superior to the 5D3 ML RAW hack in all but bit depth...but with Canon Log and one-touch custom white balance you have to be a flatly incompetent shooter to get banding on the C series image. The 12 stops of DR at base ISO (the more useful 850 on the C-series rather than the 5D3's 100) is the same.

But anyway, that's a Canon product! :D

So your honest advice to people on this forum is to upgrade their 550D to the C100 and everything in-between is nonsense... Seriously are you a Canon plant? Just look at your own logic. Is the following nonsense? -


You have to be practically blind, deaf and dumb to dismiss all that as 'nonsense'.

Let's take each contestant in turn:


Blackmagic Production Camera - 4K and global shutter, free copy of RESOLVE 10

You're complaining bitterly about external recorders, which add value, but are quite happy needing external batteries, which add little. The design of this body is intended to look "Apple cool" rather than be professionally functional...there is no EVF, no XLRs, no ND's or IR filter even with a huge unused flange area, a miserable glare-filled touchscreen that doesn't articulate, we don't know whether the firmware will have absolute basics like reformatting the drive so you aren't stuck if you forgot and don't have a computer, no custom white balance for ProRes, unknown low light, no HFR/overcrank, inconsistent EF lens support, hand-held shooting at least arguably impractical, potential fan noise, SSDs required even for ProRes. We don't know all the catches with this camera, although it is the most promising on your list, because...it isn't here yet and they haven't even posted sample images. So it's not really a contestant until we can buy one in the shop and evaluate it...who knows when that will be?

5D Mark III raw recording from full frame sensor internally to CF card - show me a competitor to that!

Have to rely on hacked firmware, try explaining the loss of a $5000 shooting day based on such a cunning plan. Cumbersome workflow, poor downsampling leads to some moire and loss of resolution, have to constantly offload expensive CF cards to laptop storage, have only one CF slot whose pins can easily break rendering camera unusable, and there is no redundancy in the RAW recording, just the one CF slot. Requires all the DSLR rigging contraptions to make it work for video, no NDs, poor audio on 1/8th" jack, audio will require manual alignment with each and every video clip, limited record time depending on CF card, no HFR/overcrank, ~2MP max resolution in RAW, not all of those distinguishable. Still, it's arguably the best of your list, with great low-light, full frame look, excellent lens support, and stills. But hey it's a Canon product and they are evil money-grubbers and it was only the heroic hackers that are to thank.

FS100 and Speed Booster - incredible low light performance and flexibility with the lens mount plus 1080/60p

Poor resolution as per your charts, and the low light performance is nowhere near as good as the C100...the color all washes away. Needs ND and IR filters, poor plastic build and ergonomics (why the EVF on the top of the camera rather than the side as everyone else does?), onboard codec only AVCHD 8 bit 420 and no better than C100 internal. At least this is a camera that was designed for video, but it has been superseded by the FS700 which is a worthy candidate and if you need overcrank rather than low-light I would recommend the FS700 instead. Although...shock and horror...the FS700 will require an external recorder...No!!!...to record its full 4K resolution. Sony must be at least as evil as Canon.

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera - ProRes internally for $999! Form factor a GF1. What's not to like?

Miserable little sensor with plenty of moire and false color artifacting because there is no OLPF and no oversampling. Just a hobbyist toy with dinky toy lenses, something fun for people to carry around. And still vaporware again. I would much rather have the Sony RX100, with its larger higher resolution sensor, 60fps, and far lower price and pocketability, and in fact I do have one.

GH3 - 1080/60p at 50Mbit, 24p at 72Mbit ALL-I - does your C100 do that for $6000? No

I like to say that color science/skin tone arguments are the last refuge of a fanboy, but in Panasonic's case, I have to say that their color science is dismal. Maybe fixable to some extent in post. At least in contrast to the Blackmagic MFT offerings all the MFT lenses will work well on these bodies, but those widdle wenses have no future, an electronically working EF adapter is expensive, and there is no hack for the GH3 yet to get a better picture out of it...you need an external recorder just like on the 5D3. But I would rather have one of these than one of the small-sensor BMD cams. The GH2 is still a great value camera for the beginner, just don't go crazy on lenses.

Not to mention STILLS on 5D3 and GH3

Yes get a 5D3 for stills! Or a D800 for better res/DR. I am not a Canon partisan, but I have settled on EF mount as my personal standard and don't regret it.

Blackmagic MFT 2.5K camera - beautifully cinematic and Speed Booster compatible

All of the problems I listed for the upcoming BMD 4K and Pocket cams rolled into one...a worthless doorstop that has been breathlessly hyped by a few online camera pimps (some of whom never disclosed that BMD had compensated them for their reviews, which is an FTC rule violation in the USA). The term "RAW" made people delirious, but this is a tiny-sensor camera streaked with rainbows of moire and miserable ergonomics, it never shipped (even to you Andrew!) and the few who got an EF version (smarting now a 4K version is supposedly about to appear) generally didn't shoot RAW with it anyway. It was good for its shaking up the industry more than its being a useful tool...I doubt the C100 + Ninja 2 would be as cheap as it is if the BMCC hadn't ever appeared. But if given one I would hand it to the intern to shoot BTS with as I think most unbiased people with a better option would. I might rather shoot with a GoPro Hero3 Black than one of these, at least that sensor is high-res and oversampled.

KineRaw mini (2K raw for $3k)

A lab experiment, apparently suffers from awful jello, but somehow got Dan Chung to champion it. Not available in the West probably for good reasons.

I am comfortable with the C100 and Ninja 2 as absolutely superior to all cheaper options currently available, on price, image quality, and overall ergonomics and workflow. The main improvements to be made on it are higher frame rates, 4K resolution, and a better built-in EVF, but I think it will remain a terrific 1080p camera for several years to come. I suggest people rent one and get comfortable with it and decide if it's worth struggling with hacks, kludges, and Rube Goldberg contraptions...or if it would be better to just focus on the composition and story and how to get the most out of each shot, knowing that the image is going to be fine at the end of the day. And as I said, price the total cost of ownership of a complete ready-to-shoot system out and you will discover Canon is really making stepping up into pro cinema accessible just like they did with the 5D2 and XL1 in the eras before this.

Thanks for hearing me out, I know it's not a popular opinion here, but it's a damn accurate one. :)

Obviously I am referring to the external recording on the C-series...the C500's internal format is just a convenience/proxy feature and it's intellectually dishonest to build an argument ignoring something so obvious.

 

If you would kindly pay for the R&D expenses on the C-series we will all be very grateful that we only have to pay a standard markup on parts. Otherwise I suggest adding up the total cost of ownership for the high end camera systems from ARRI, RED, Sony, Panasonic, Vision Research, Aaton, etc. and seeing how the C500 compares to its peers when ready-to-shoot. You might still prefer the other cameras fair enough, but it won't be on price.

 

Anyway, I understand Canon's philosophy after taking the plunge and getting the C100 + Ninja 2. Basically, Canon wants to force anyone who's ambitious enough to be filming for more than web delivery and who cares about fine details of image quality up to the C series. And with the C100's price that's not so much of a leap. Once you get used to working with pro gear that you're not fighting all day and night to make work both in capture and post you will understand how pointless an exercise the DSLR thing is in 2013.

 

I am 100% for universal empowerment but I think the 550D/GH2 is that camera and if you need more than that skip all the nonsense in-between. You will agree, and it won't even cost more than a hilariously pimped out DSLR or BMD kludge.

The problem is that Canon wants to make too much money.  The accountants and marketing people want to maximize profits by targeting the masses.  By doing this, you stiffle the creativity of the engineers. 

 

One must wonder if the Canon engineers purposely left breadcrumbs in the firmware code in hopes of having the full fruits of their labor discovered.

 

It was those engineers who thought sending 1080p 14 bit RGGB in the buffer was a good idea, enabling the ML hack.

 

But I think Canon is a bit unfairly treated, only because they are the leader in the lower budget segment. They gave us the XL1 removable lens camera, then the 5D2 cheap 1080p full frame camera, and now the C-series including the 4K DSLR camera, the jack-of-all-trades C100, and the HFR RAW C500. All price and quality leaders in addition to revolutionary, and they all work, and work well.

 

And unlike other companies Canon's actually more open than most. With RED, you have Jannard threatening to sue everybody for using compressed RAW, and wildly overpricing proprietary recording media to hide the true cost. Sony and Panasonic also play the proprietary media game. Canon is happy to let Atomos and Convergent and Aja etc. handle the recording duties with no royalty or proprietary media for Canon's benefit. That's awesomely generous. And they have allowed the EF format to be cracked and speedboosted and strapped in front of the Blackmagic cameras and I don't think they are getting a royalty for that. And now ML has its crack and the only thing they have said is stay away from cracking the 1 series.

 

Any other mfr that generous and tolerant? Can we really demonize Canon?

 

I know it sounds like I work for them or something but I am just a very happy customer of their products and I like to keep online discussions real.

Peederj, the money you will save by buying BMPC instead of C100 you can just spend on a new Mac Pro workstation. :D

 

Total the costs of complete systems and I'm not sure the C100 + Ninja 2 + a couple rotational drives and spare batteries ($6500) isn't in fact WAY cheaper than the BMD 4K Cam + 2 SSD's + V-mount battery system + ND filters + hot mirror IR filter + Matte Box + XLR adapters (better mic pre's also needed?) + Side and Top handles + Field Monitor for Focus Puller + EVF (OK you might want an upgraded one for the C100 too) + additional storage drives + rigging capable of pulling all that together instead of a more compact package + .... ($10,000+?)

 

We enthusiasts like Blackmagic because they're "giving us all they've got" as opposed to Canon which is conservatively dribbling out functionality that works well in the here-and-now. But it's called the bleeding edge for a reason. And some of the hemorrhaging comes in the form of needlessly spent cash...

Thnx so much Andrew for your continued work to make this all digestible and keeping my busy eyes from having to scan the ML forums every day!

 

I'm glad you mentioned the Blackmagic 4k.  As a mark ii user budgeting for a big upgrade in August, my biggest conundrum now is deciding between the 4k cam and the 5D iii.  After seeing the test footage I wanted to sell and buy a mark iii right away, but after a lot of consideration it still seems to me that $4,000 for 4k (+ different compression options & audio jacks) is the better choice.  Of course this is all speculative.  Who knows, the production cam footage could be garbage (highly doubt it, but who knows).  

 

Anyone else in the same boat?  haven't heard a lot of 4k production cam vs. 5D iii consideration....

 

I think the BMD 4K cam is their only camera product worth considering, but as mentioned above, it is still vaporware and BMD haven't earned particular faith in the timeliness dept now have they. I have the C100 + Ninja 2 which fully kitted is about the same price as the other options, and I also have the 5D3 as B-cam/stills. If I were to add a camera right now it would be the FS700 + Speedbooster so I could get overcrank with my EF glass.

 

The BMD 4K cam will one hopes give the best resolution of any of these choices but frankly the C100 + Ninja 2 resolution is essentially perfect at 1080p and the thing sees in the dark. One of the benefits of 4K is the ability to stabilize in post, but the BMD camera is so heavy and clunky that flying it on a steadicam is going to require a high-budget rig be aware. But the global shutter is nice. The sensor in the BMD 4K cam has been reported to have unimpressive dynamic range even though BMD is claiming 12 stops on their website (the C100 is also 12 stops at base ISO 850 into Canon Log). So I don't know how much RAW capability will buy you with the BMD 4K in practice, I imagine due to file size that cam will almost always be run in ProRes HQ just like my Ninja 2 is.

 

In the end I think the decision comes down to a few factors:

 

1) Are you really, actually, truly serious about working in 4K resolution right now? Who will be the consumer/outlet of this product?

2) Do stills matter to you?

3) Are you willing to wait an indeterminate number of months (years?) for the BMD 4K to actually get into your hands?

4) And wait for the bugs to be worked out (e.g. dropped frames, electronic lens support, etc.)

5) Is run-n-gun and rapid post turnaround important to you or are you willing to sacrifice efficiency and flexibility for the last bit of image quality?

6) Have you really sat down and totaled the cost of ownership of each of your options, in terms of CPU/GPU power, storage/memory, rigging, filters, audio, batteries, lighting (low-light capable cameras save you money there), accessories, etc.? Make a wish list/shopping cart for each option and ogle the damage.

 

My conclusion remains C100 + Ninja 2 is the best overall option for the money right now unless you need the overcrank (FS700) or stills (5D3, 1DX/1DC, D800). I don't see 4K as a practical reality currently for this budget range (cue howls from those with far more ambition than budget). But the BMD 4K is the first camera from them that might be desirable overall when it appears. A baby Scarlet I think, and I might rather have one than a Scarlet if it works well.

Hype is just what this is as it doesn't work in practice because of the necessity of a fixed shutter speed when shooting video. The shutter speed for 25fps is 1/50 which means that while you can with luck pull some nice images from a camera like the C300 the vast majority of the images will be spoiled by motion blur. Shoot at higher shutter speeds & the motion in video gets wacky. Shooting 1/100 at 50fps or 1/120 at 60fps might work but there are many cameras that have high frame rate, a large enough image & high resolution

 

There is no such necessity. Shutter angle is a creative choice as e.g. Saving Private Ryan displayed, there's nothing but convention and a familiar texture that says 180 degrees is ideal. And the entire point of my post was what 25fps would do to stills photography...this was a point made in fairly high-budget promo's by Canon themselves, and I would think they had thought it through.

 

Because...if your objective is stills, who cares if the video would strobe like mad?

A lot of bullshit spoken about Blackmagic there.

Internal battery was an extra feature. It works as a UPS / backup power. BMCC uses an external battery as the main power source, like the Epic. Nobody complains the Epic has no internal battery like an iPhone. This is a consumer mindset. Try a filmmaking one.

 

If you think the dynamic range is 'disappointing in practice' on the BMCC, I can only assume you've never used one, and have picked up some quote from somewhere about usable DR being less than 13 stops. The BMCC excels at dynamic range. Vincent Laforet compared it to a 1D X raw still.

 

So their earlier attempts were crude? Dropped frames and moire all they had to offer? Really?

 

You are annoying.

 

...And if that's not pot-meet-kettle what would be?  :wub:

Although I have general antipathy toward Blackmagic because of the way they overhyped and underdelivered the original BMCC, I have to admit their new 4K camera does look somewhat promising. The pocket camera and the small sensor originals are worthless doorstops. I would rather have even the hacked GH2 and much rather have the hacked 5D3.

 

The main problems with the 4K offering are the ergonomics still are ridiculous (how many cameras other than the iPhone don't have replaceable batteries ffs?) and I understand the dynamic range of that sensor is disappointing in practice. 12 stops may be a stretch to claim (we need independent tests). But the resolution should be good (if not true 4K...it should have more distinguishable pixels than 1080p at least...again we need tests) and it's better to be able to record ProRes onto commodity SSD than RAW onto CF. And maybe they will finally have more EF lenses working properly and firmware that lets you do absolute basics like review and erase and reformat the drives. And not suffer dropped frames, moire, etc. etc. that their earlier crude attempts at making a camera suffered from.

 

But Super35 global shutter 4K direct to ProRes on commodity media is a nice set of checkmarks for $4000, with a full version of Resolve in the tin. It's a competitor to the 5D3 RAW if it works well in practice and actually ships in quantity sometime this decade. The lack of jello and onboard ProRes makes it a worthy competitor to the KineRAW for those on the bleeding edge. But for those who can only afford one body the hacked 5D3 offers terrific stills, timelapse, SLR ergonomics, Canon professional build and service, mature ecosystem, etc. And it's here now.

DXOMark also measured the 1D C (1D X sensor) at 11.8 stops total so something is wrong with that Canon LOG 12.5 stop test. You said yourself you can't get more dynamic range than the sensor provides in the raw data!

 

There's also a fundamental error of logic in the way you're comparing raw to MJPEG. You are suggesting that from the 11.7/11.8 stop raw 14bit sensor data, the 14bit raw video contains less dynamic range than compressed 8bit JPEG with LOG curve. Sorry but that makes absolutely no sense at all. By definition the raw data has the optimal dynamic range, and no matter what curve you apply to the JPEG, you lose quality when you compress it to 8bit.

 

The gamma can map any dynamic range to any bit space. You can have 20 stops mapped to 4 bits. However in that case when applying the S-curve to de-log it you will have awful banding, because there is reduced color fidelity with such a severe gamma. The 14 bits deep linear space the 5D3 is using gives it no more or less dynamic range than the sensor has and all of the color fidelity of the sensor. Using the log gamma does not change the dynamic range represented. 8 bits holds about 11 stops in a standard sRGB gamma, in a log gamma it can easily hold the full 12-13 stops of the sensor. However the color fidelity will be reduced a bit because information on fine gradations of level are being thrown out.

 

So yes 14-bit linear RAW will be more accurate and less susceptible to banding than 8-bit Canon Log, but they are both likely to offer the full dynamic range of the sensor once mapped to a standard sRGB gamma for viewing. You will have slightly better color accuracy with the RAW. Nothing that Vimeo compression is likely to preserve for a natural grade, but something a severe stylized grade might reveal. Neat Video tends to smooth out the 8 bit banding in those cases very well btw.

You're right... thanks for the advice!

 

Whilst we're on the topic, are you able to advise me on a camera that would cut fairly nicely with the C100, for under £1000. It's for events videography... sorry to hijack!

 

There is none. That camera is an anomaly...should be twice its current price, even though Internet denizens continue to insist it's somehow overpriced. The only thing cheap about it is the codec, which the $700 Ninja 2 solves. (OK and the EVF, which e.g. the Zacuto solves, but I can manage with the onboard one OK in a pinch.)

 

Just stick with your 7D and use Cinestyle or another flat gamma of your choice and wait until you can afford a second C100. For events shooting even the most hostile critics agree the C100 is the best camera in the world.

It's really because the 7D just doesn't cut well with the C100 and Ninja. The image stinks when compared.

 

Everything else under $10K is going to. The 5D3 HDMI or RAW won't be as clean and high-res as we see but at least it can be wrenched into place to crosscut with it, especially when using Canon glass of the same marque (i.e. L's or non-L's). The RAW leaves lots of latitude to align with. The Panasonic color science is dismal, I mean, gross greenish yuck, you won't want that. I mean, look how lovely that C300 frame is, that's pro gear and the rest are hobby toys, including the clunky BMCC.

 

Consider avoiding 2000+ quid of disappointing "bargains" a 2000+ quid discount on something that's actually going to work.

 

This chart should help with knowing what ISO's to use to reduce the presence of the fixed vertical noise patterns. Looks like 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 and 3200 are the cleanest. Curious to try shooting a daylight wide landscape with ISO 100 and 800 to compare the vertical patterns. Seems like once you get above 800 it's less apparent as all the noise kinda blends together. I was shooting at 160 for my first raw test video and I'm pretty sure that ISO made the vertical banding worse.  

 

Interesting results though I always want to know how they were made precisely. It's not at all clear to me that the noise floor is the source of the vertical lines problem on an even gray field. Though NR will likely clear that artifact away if the NR is trained to it.

 

One thing that does display, if accurate, is the standard ISO's 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 and 3200 are the only ones you should be using on the 5D3 RAW. Above 3200 is just a digital push I understand and that looks like it there...it's like Digital Zoom, you would be better off doing it in post than burning it into the capture. The standard ISOs up to 3200 are gain applied to the sensor itself and so they do have benefit. In fact I understand there is quite a bit of read noise on the 5D3 that limits low-ISO DR more than it should and much more than the D800 does.

 

The one hassle would be not being able to see what you're shooting very well in Live View...it might be a nice feature request to ask for from ML if the camera can't do it already (brighten the Live View picture without raising the recorded ISO past 3200).

 

I'm glad we're getting more reproducible data to discuss, though the reproducibility part remains elusive. Keep it coming, and in exhaustive detail por favor.

Have to agree, this is what I shoot with and it's more than enough for me for most of my work! I am incredibly excited about this hack coming to the 7D though! I wouldn't be using raw for 90% of what I'm paid to shoot, but for music videos and personal projects, raw would be great.

 

If raw doesn't come to the 7D within the next few months, I'd be tempted to sell it for a GH2...

 

Again I can't imagine any appeal to having to work with a completely different mount and camera system. If you have two Canons already just stick with Canon. They are the leader for a good reason, and glass is a major Canon strength.

 

BTW, the internal ND's on the C100 just beat out Formatt and Schneider 4x5.65's in a shootout:

http://www.ryanewalters.com/Blog/blog.php?id=6201317295579746489

 

Saves you even more dough (not to mention the also world-class built-in IR filter that also seals the sensor area from dust), and no flattening polarization effect or color bias from a Vari-ND.

 

Really given we have two excellent indie-affordable options in the C100/Ninja2 (best lowlight) and FS700/Speedbooster (overcrank) it's heroic but puzzling of you guys to stick with DSLRs. The RAW hack is definitely interesting to make use of the 5D3 as a super-B cam instead of just stills. But even so kitting it out is more expensive than the C100 option if you are only interested in motion, and not as great an image as charts reveal.

Of all the articles where you absolutely needed downloadable uncropped straight-from-camera files, this was the one.

 

We are given no even vague idea what those thumbnails were created from.

 

BTW the $5,500 C100 along with a $700 Ninja 2 uses the same sensor and a better codec than the C300.

is there anything new known of this vertical lines phenomenon. i have seen them in a lot of videos when the focus is at infinity and the sky is grey. for example in this video at min 2:17. i wonder if this is reproduce able. because i have seen also videos which have no vertical lines in the same conditions.

 

https://vimeo.com/66480704

 

That's certainly interesting, and it's still there in the original downloadable version. It may be an artifact of the screen you're viewing on, the waves in the ocean may set up a striping that you can see in that gray by virtue of the way LCD screens work. Or it may be some other artifact. But it does look real from here.

 

(I'm more bothered by the audio clipping personally...leave gain at unity, or if you want to press it, use a limiter...)

 

BTW your opinion that a vintage look sucks is completely valid in a subjective world. Expressing it I think is fair play as well; certainly our host criticizes other site hosts and their work unashamedly. If people are bored and want to pick a fight with you I suggest ignoring them entirely.

Because it isn't simple maths. It's hard maths.

 

What was that about Negative Nellies?  :P

That would be amazing indeed, however that might mean overheating since the camera has to convert from raw to jpeg in camera, and at a HFR. Just a guess though, not an expert on the camera's electronics...

 

One thing to keep in mind is that the Digic 5 is probably going to be Canon's main processor for many years as the Digic 4 was. And so its performance spec is probably well overbuilt for the current generation of cameras. We know now that the 5D3 was capable of a lot more than spec. I think we're only scratching the surface in fact...if it does 120fps 6K MJPEG I will be impressed but I won't think laws of physics will have been broken nor will I think the thing is going to melt down.

 

One thing we might discover is that some Digic 5 units (photogs call them "copies" for some reason, but that sounds like a knockoff to me) are higher spec than others just as we do with overclocked CPUs. But ML won't be overclocking the chip, just asking it to do more than normal. I think Canon is artificially scheduling the rollout of capability across a core technology cycle...and ML can skip us ahead a few years on Canon's roadmap. It isn't entirely Canon's fault...fast enough CF cards as we see aren't readily available yet and Canon wants to ensure everyone has a good experience.

 

Computer performance is an empirical thing. ML won't know what the system can do until it asks it to, and then as we see a lot of optimization can be done to do even more. The 1DC shows we can do 4K (8MP) MJPEG at 24fps with a couple Digic 5's. I have doubts that both Digic 5's are needed in fact...they might have chucked two in there just to make people think it was a more powerful body, and the heatsink in the 1DC is most likely just window dressing (there is no active cooling system or other improvement in heat dissipation out of the body, so what does it do exactly?). We know Canon indulges in kabuki theatre...it's established now. We can't defer to everything they do as being technically necessary. Let's see what ML can do with the 5D3. I think there are bigger surprises ahead.

Cinema 5D reports it's faster to not use AE but instead just use ACR in Photoshop.

 

http://***URL not allowed***/?p=18065

 

 

If the FS700 gets 10-bit 422 H.264 (XAVC)

 

 

...I'll probably buy one. Especially if it can do 240fps at that quality. I need a slomo cam, and while I would normally rent the FS700 and wait for Sony to make a baby F5, the XAVC codec might put things over the top.

 

The C100 has far better low-light than the FS700 does be aware. The 5D3 RAW is probably better low-light too. But no HFR and HFR is an essential for me.

 

Better low-light would be a big practical improvement for HFR though, because of the fast shutter speeds. Canon needs a fast cam cheaper than the C500. I'm holding out hope ML does HFR on the 5D3 in MJPEG.

 

Hi Andrew, I was wondering if it is possible to simultaneously record a sequence of images on both cards in the Mark III? I think this could be a solution to reach larger image resolutions.

 

You could spend 12 images to SD and 12 images to the CF from every second of shots.

 

For the audio I do not see any problem. In a professional recording this recording with condenser microphones and external recorders and can be synchronized with a blackboard.

 

Thanks.

 

 

SD runs less than 1/5th the speed of UDMA7 CF. So you could maybe get a 10-15% speedup including the SD card in the writes.

 

But better would be writing an IPB proxy to the SD card simultaneously. If that wouldn't tie up the CPU too much.

 

And it's a clapboard or slate not a blackboard. Blackboards are written on with chalk in schools.

The problem with MJPEG is the CPU power to debayer and convert raw to JPEG inside the camera. That takes a hell of a lot of processing power. The easiest thing for the camera to do is raw! Not H.264. Not MJPEG. Not ProRes. Not anything. Just raw.

 

Saying the camera could do 2k 60fps in MJPEG makes no sense at all. The CPU would not do it. Also the sensor mode only goes to 60fps with a vertical resolution of around 670.

 

With the newest builds we are seeing a 16MB/s improvement in buffer write performance to the card and that makes 1440x540 possible at 60fps. Pretty nice. If you want to add a massive overhead to this lovely raw performance, the quickest way to do that is to convert o MJPEG in camera... It ain't gonna happen!

 

Onto a fast CF card, the 5D3 can do 6fps uncropped 22.3MP JPEGs in continuous drive without ever overflowing the buffer and having to slow down. At least this is my understanding. 

 

Simple math therefore suggests that it could also do 60fps 2.23 MP JPEGs. And 1080p is a bit less than 2MP.

 

Why wouldn't simple math apply?

One more thing. When they get MJPEGs going out to the CF efficiently I would think they should be able to do 2K at least 60fps if not much higher. A RAW file is what, 5x the size of a good JPEG pixel for pixel? So perhaps 120fps 1080p is in reach on a hacked 5D3 with 1000x cards.

 

It will depend if frames are provided to the buffer that quickly. The rolling shutter performance we saw doesn't seem promising for HFR, but the output side shouldn't be limiting.

But it shoots raw!

 

Perspective.

 

I wasn't totaling the score, the scorer's table just awarded one point to the ML hack vs. the Ninja due to the additional 250ms delay in showing the 5D3 image on the Ninja screen. For comparison, the C100 is something like 70ms out to the Ninja it looks, and half that onto its own LCD.

 

The total score RAW vs. HDMI->Ninja is what we're tabulating in all this debate. I'm actually neutral in the debate; getting a second Ninja is about the cost of a stack of Komputerbays. What will put the ML hack way over the top is 4K or 6K MJPEG. If they do that (and again, it should be a slam dunk, the only possible speed bump would be how fast the JPEG compression can work with only one Digic 5, but even that has got to be fast enough given the Digic 4 was already able to do something like 10fps and the Digic 5 is supposedly 10x as fast a chip) I will definitely not buy a second Ninja but will instead use the ML hack on the 5D3.

 

I think regardless the C100 + Ninja 2 will be a better filmmaking system than the ML RAW for nearly everyone. The 5D3 will be an awesome alternate brush to paint with. Glad I only bought Canon mount glass, it was rough for a while there but like a happy movie it all worked out in the end.

 

Also please consider what 25fps 6K is going to do to the stills photography world. The 1DC was hyped to stills people for its 8MP JPEGs imagine 22.3MP JPEGs at 25fps anywhere you might use continuous drive (sports, wildlife, fashion...). It's gonna happen! The 2MP RAW was just the appetizer!

"Point to the ML hack"

 

Oh you are generous. Raw over laggy shitty looking HDMI is worth one point?

 

You're not easily pleased are you?

 

And you are? =p

 

BTW the built-in LCD on 1.2.1 is about a quarter of a second late. So there is lag, lag, everywhere lag! C100 is fast.

with the new firmware and clean hdmi out, my assistants are complaining about a lag in the video now which makes pulling focus a little harder, any word if that is really a consequence of the new firmware upgrade, or has it really been there all the ime, ive never noticed it until the last shoot.

 

I just confirmed there is a lag in the new 1.2.1 firmware clean HDMI for the 5D3. About half a second late on the Ninja 2 screen, which is annoying but not awful. A lot of 1080p HDMI implementations have it. The C100's implementation doesn't have it.

 

Point to the ML hack.