jlev23

It's not only bullshit, it's also how most, if not all, of the (digital workflow) movies you ever watched were edited.

Editors work with lower res files, often ugly looking with timecode and sequence/shot info printed on top.

Once they have a picture lock, they replace only the used clips with the high res raw versions, and that's what you use for grading.

Technology might catch up soon, but in the meantime editing raw files is cumbersome and hurts your editing workflow more than it helps.

exactly, maybe OSCAR M. will see your statement and understand now why i was hoping we could still do a prores capture via hdmi, while recording raw, so that we could negate the transcoding process on set for the raw files, and have the editor to be able to start loading material in the morning after the shoot. thank you.

That would be pointless.

 

Encoding to ProRes automatically nulls the benefits of RAW. If you don't understand why, then RAW is probably not for you. In any case, ProRes will probably not happen - it's Apple licensed.

 

The most logical way for ML to go - if they were to go that route - would be to encode to Cinema DNG which is open and is widely supported by many of the most popular NLEs.

um, why would that be pointless, ive been shooting raw since the red one came out and every single file has to be transcoded to prores by the DIT to be ready for the edit load in the next morning, my problem now with 5k is that the DIT, even with redrocket can hardly keep up and it takes the whole next day to transcode, all i was saying is that it would be amazing if both files were handled in camera and the editors could start right away, its a deadline thing, maybe its something you dont understand?

First of all, they are called "Cinema EOS" cameras not "TV EOS." With "Cinema Lock" for log gamma shooting. They are better in every way to DSLRs for shooting films at least before the RAW hack and still in most ways after it.

 

Also, 1000x CF cards have only been available a little over a year. So the speed of memory writing needed to capture 1080p RAW or as I predict 4K or even ~6K MJPEG simply wasn't there "for years." Canon didn't put a speed governor on the CF slot. So ML could come in and open Pandora's box.

 

I'm happy about the RAW hack and will also be happy when they get compressed 4K+ running. I own a 5D3 and have shots that those modes may be best used for. I also think my C100 + Ninja 2 is going to be a better option for filmmaking overall and for very little additional cost compared to kitting out a RAW-shooting 5D3 with dual system audio, NDs, side and top handle, peaking field monitor/EVF, and oh a huge stack of very fast CF cards. The C100 likely shoots better low-light, higher resolution and sharpness, and probably has more dynamic range at ISO 850 than the 5D3 RAW has, even though that will only have 8 bit fidelity in a log gamma as opposed to 14 bit linear on the 5D3 RAW. It also has one of the best built-in IR filters in the business, I almost never have the fan running in typical use, it's gorgeously weighted and balanced for hand-held shooting and is no worse than the 5D3 for mounting on a steadicam. Batteries last for several hours and change without dismounting the camera.

 

It's a lovely design and it's a lovely image. 5d3 RAW is a decent design and a lovely image too. But starting from zero (and I know many of you already have DSLR rigs you've sunk large money into) I really think most of you would prefer the C100 + Ninja 2 for about the same cost. I think many of you will prefer the 5D3 1.2.1 firmware + Ninja 2 over the ML hack, also at about the same cost (vs. all those fast CF cards and drives to offload to). Sacrilegious to suggest that here on the site that celebrates hacks above all else, but I really think that's true. And I have no interest in saying so other than my preference to keep things real.

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 guess il ask again, how do you test your or get an accurate read/write speed for the card once you receive it?

is there an easy way to check without shooting something with the ML hack?

On my 5D Mark III whilst recording raw internally to the card, HDMI is flawless. I've been monitoring with it all day, not a hitch. I have no doubt that you will be recording ProRes on an external recorder via HDMI with 1.2.1 once Magic Lantern get to it, and raw internally at the same time. Handy.

i feel optimistic by your confidence, thank you. with this option i can not only see productions loving this but trusting it.

I know there are a lot of egos involved in the creative world but even by that standard there are some amazingly 'bitchy' comments coming out here. I loved the less financially empowered one :-D

 

I make a living in the creative world (have been for 20 years)...and anything that is an improvement on what you were using before is worth looking at. 5D, C300, BMCC it really doesn't matter because we're all trying to do it better for less (money or time). You wouldn't be even on this blog if that wasn't true.

 

The really smart ones in this industry keep an open mind, look at the developments and explore the options (while still making money doing paid work).

 

This firmware is less than a week old so even the skeptics among us would have to say it's early days with a long way to run. And yes it's a development in beta phase (not pro ready) but to those saying they wouldn't use it for pro work?...I don't think anyone is suggesting they should, though I am sure there will be the pioneers among us that will tempt fate...but of those, it is quite often 'Qui audet adipiscitur' (and no that doesn't mean 'if I don't agree with you I piss on you' but simply 'who dares wins').

i give it a month before a director asks me if i can shoot RAW with my 5D, it all starts there!

You get HDMI out, but not uncompressed clean from the 1.2.1 firmware update.

 

The hack is for the previous firmware, and DOES NOT give CLEAN HDMI out.  You could, however, record your compressed "dirty" HDMI out (I assume with sound) and edit it as a dub... if you had a quick turn around time.

oh, that is terrible then, thanks for your answer!

maybe that will change in the near future, or the ML team will find away to at least put prores onto the SD card simultaneously :)

so what i you already installed the new firmware, can you still load the ML "upgrade"?

Somebody will make a CF to SSD adapter so that we'll get the FULL 167MB/sec throughput from the CF Slot - this is a given.

 

But... will you want to carry that extra stuff around when someone else will produce a CF card fast enough to handle the data too?

 

I think, some a experimental standpoint... the developers need to figure out why people aren't able to convert the larger than 4gb files, and MORE IMPORTANTLY how to pair the workflow down into a single step! 

 

I don't want to shoot raw only then to have to convert it to ProRes 422 to edit it... that is (excuse my french) bullshit.  What is the point if I can't have it in my NLE?

this exactly why i keep asking if: with the ML hack, shooting RAW, do we still have the capability to record to an external drive via the HDMI port, so we can have a prores and raw file of the same material...no one seems to want to answer this, though if you have the hack, as it seems a lot of people on this forum including andrew do, why cant you answer this simple question.

again, what is the best way to check the speed of the card you bought?

can you check without having the hack yet?

how would you be able to use the cf to ssd adapter if when the camera door to the cf slot is open, the camera automatically shuts off?

 

and how exactly (the steps) in checking if your komputerbay card is writing at a decent speed?

is there a way to do it without the hack installed?

 

thank you.

wow, reading through this whole thread is amazing and sometimes ridiculous but highly entertaining. i love how everyone thinks the way they use the 5D is the only way. this is nothing but good news, i remember having to shoot on the MK2 when it has no manual exposure!

we had to AE lock and automatic exposure before each shot! i never bought a MK2, there just more and more was one on every set i was working on, i might use it for one rigged place, or one hard to get to angle and even stills for plate and elements shots on vfx projects. i finally broke down and bought the mk3 when it first came out. im still surprised on how much i use it for my own personal projects now and then there are all the jobs now that it must be used, since its been written into the treatment! "this is a 5D job" has been written straight into treatments, approved by agency and clients and by the time it comes to me shooting it i cant even suggest another camera!

anyway, there has only a few jobs, mostly docu style comedies that i have even had to roll camera for for more than 40 seconds, so the limit is ok with me. my only issue right now is waiting for reliability. commercials is a no risk business, and it took a while for a 5D to be embraced as a no risk camera, even the first year of epics id make sure there was a red one on set.

still, i sit here with my 5D, my 64gb komputerbay card and wait for the ML upgrade to go through all the tests. the question still comes down to reliability for me and we have to check on the card if we got the shot or not before we move on, so most importantly for my particular business is that you are able to do that, which comes down to the question i keep asking:

when shooting raw with ML, do you still get a clean hdmi out that you can record prores to an external recorder, if so, that answers everything to me, then the footage can be checked quickly and you have a backup, but most importantly you have a proxy to edit with, then you go back to the raw files for color grading in the last steps of the project, as you would if you were shooting with an epic, trancoding to prores by the dit, use those to edit, then go back to the raw.

thats really the only question i have, someone using the hack, please let me know!

what would be even more amazing is if you could simultaneously record prores or even h264 to the SD card and raw to the cf card!!!

then you could check and playback the files on the camera, how nice would that be ;)

andrew? someone? please help.

wow, answered so many questions but not a word on mine, quickly, andrew:

can you NOT format the CF card in camera after you have shot and transferred the footage to a drive and are getting ready to shoot on it again? asking because it seems you have to have the ML firmware on the card to boot up, im worried it will be gone if i format in camera.

 

also, do you still get clean hdmi output while you are recording raw? to get some proxies to edit with, and go back to raw in the final?

please let me know.

 

thank you.

thank you so much for this andrew, since this is the first ML hack ill ever try, i have two quick questions i can not find the answers too.

So, i read that you have to use the CF card that the firmware was installed with, is that correct? so the firmware boots up correctly, and if you go back to a regular card the hack will be gone?

if that being the case, can you NOT format the card after you transfer the raw files off of it?

secondly, i wonder, does the uncompressed clean hdmi out still work while you are recording raw to the card?

if so that would be great if you can be getting a prores file to edit with right away and then go back to the raw files for the final grading and out put. please let us know,

thanks again for everything.

Don't use Cinestyle. Use either prolost neutral (which is neutral with contrast and sharpness at minimum and saturation two notches down) or flaat10p. Those two are the best styles.

 

Also if you use IPB please switch to ALL-i. IPB breaks up quite quickly and introduces banding and smoothing. Here is my extremely scientific test (a slight exposure difference as I was not actually testing IPB and ALL-i, but HDMI): 

 

ALL-i (named them accidentally other way around, but this is ALL-i)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...otion_zoom.jpg

IPB:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...otion_zoom.jpg

 

As you can see...IPB is shit. Huge amounts of banding on motion blur, everything smoothed out, pretty much like any AVCHD cam. ALL-i is probably one of the only consumer codecs on consumer cams that doesn't do that. Motion doesn't even have to be that fast, regular handheld does it too.

wow, interesting, the neutral setting that newly popped up in my user def 3 is configured exactly how you said prolost is, do you think they do anything extra in the gamma curve of that profile other than use neutral with sharpness, contrast and saturation turned down?

i dont know, most post people i work with demand cinestyle, it also seems like you gain a full stop using it, im just surprised they dont give us the canon log as a picture style now, since we have the hdmi out, it would only make sense.

 

update: got my answer through google, ill try this setting from now on! its interesting that when i upgraded firmware that these exact settings where put into my user def 3 though!

the one question i have is picture style, seemed that my user 3 profile gave me a second neutral setting, i wonder if this is what canon intended for us to use as a "best" hdmi output picture style? i was hoping for a canon log picture style that lets us view a rec 709, or does it do that anyway without using a picture style?
anyone have any info or discoveries on this? im sick of using cinestyle and dealing with banding skies.
thanks in advance!

the one question i have is picture style, seemed that my user 3 profile gave me a second neutral setting, i wonder if this is what canon intended for us to use as a "best" hdmi output picture style? i was hoping for a canon log picture style that lets us view a rec 709, or does it do that anyway without using a picture style?
anyone have any info or discoveries on this? im sick of using cinestyle and dealing with banding skies.
thanks in advance!

i thought your favorite lens to use with you anamorphic adapter was the helios 44-2, you like the nikon and the olympus better? and why do you think those lenses are the best to use, im only asking because ive tried to use zeiss and some nikons on mine and the result was not good, but i used the helios like you recommended in the past and i got great results. but i didnt try the nikon 1.8, i used my 1.4, the former is so cheap, even feeling that i didnt think it could be good! thanks!

all the ones i see look some what different then the one you have, they have the focus barrel closer to the fstop and the front on yours seems to be without the lip with the brand markings, is yours just older? do you think there is a difference?

thanks!

wow andrew, this really open my eyes to one thing, the cheap glass working better and being sharper. i was having that exact issue with my century anamorphic adapter. which was mind boggling to me that when using my nikkor glass as a base the image would be slightly soft, but when i used my cheap canon pancake 40mm, i had shaper imagery, though that lens focus control has a lot to be desired on that lens.

so maybe this helios lens is just what the doctor ordered for my set up too. i see so many on ebay, all from russia and the far east, its hard to tell which one would be more legitimate, do you have the experience to let us know which supplier would be the best one to go with. a few look a little housed differently too. thank you so much!

can anyone tell what lens that is in that picture???

buy up those old 16mm glass now!

man i wish i kept my old 35mm panchros, i cant believe how much they are going for now :(

agreed, except for iso 1600 comment, for broadcast, ISO 400 is the absolute limit, tests being done by a major post house confirmed that more than once for me, and the 5D held up to 640. unfortunate since my professional cameras are natively 800.
but mainly my point was and i think yours was the same, each camera takes it own lighting technique, so its tough and almost impossible to shoot them together and have good results and a good comparison.

as a professional DP for about 17 years, i do understand and agree with you that the talent of a DP and the work arounds for the lower end consumer cameras really can make much more out of prosumer cameras such as a GH2 or 7D. I have shot many popular music videos and commercials mixing epics and alexas with 5Ds and no one can tell the difference in the footage, of course these are mostly on big productions with every thing lit very well. this brings me to say, environments not lit very well, or too dimly lit, or too brightly lit, all fall apart in quality on the prosumer cameras, especially the GH2 and the 7D. this is built on many many years of experience. not only have i seen this in comparison but i have first hand experience with when the GH2 was first hacked, i had a pl mount, put on the best lenses in the world, and man, in a nicely exposed environment i was shocked how sharp and clear it was. i decided to do a handheld scene with it that moved through different environments, some perfectly lit, but some, still at exposure, were more dramatically lit with more dark corners and shadows...to my surprise, and i was embarrassed, mainly because i sold production on this camera for b roll, that as soon as i entered any more dramatically lit environments the image completely fell apart, banding, grain, the works. i wound up doing the scene with the RED MX camera, epic wasnt out yet... needless to say i wound up selling the camera on ebay. this is not only what i found with this camera but its with all dslr or consumer products. i had an alexa, a 5dMK3 and a 7D on a job this year, and the alexa and 5D cut together beautifully, but the 7D's operator decided to get artsy and shoot from a less front lit area, needless to say, it had artifacts all over it...again this year with my 5DMK3, i have done about 12 jobs with it, 11 in hugely lit sets, green screen, etc, and the vfx and post companies were all extremely happy with the footage. one job however, well, it was a short film, the director wanted it darker and more dramatic then i had it lit, which looked beautiful in our monitor, so we made a few changes and basically just removed the fill, the monitor was still looking ok, but when we went back to the computer to look at the footage, it was grainy as hell, at 320 asa, all i did is put back in the fill light and the footage was grain free. my lesson is that when i am asked to shoot on a pro-sumer camera, i know the job is going to be a little tougher and you have to be a little more precise on every single shot, you cant just light the environment beautifully and go.

sorry, but i feel like that article is a waste of time. his opinions have no backing and goes to show that a little knowledge is dangerous. in all fairness we dont watch his movies for quality, now we know why they look so bad.

[quote author=gene_can_sing link=topic=649.msg4800#msg4800 date=1335557339]
I agree with you jlev23 on the rental thing. The studio I work at does a lot of VFX / compositing type spots. We have a large, production level green screen where we want to have a camera in house for that, amongst other things. We've rented REDs on previous green screen jobs.

I think the 5D3 would have been a good all around camera if it was a bit more enabled, and I would have gladly paid 2x as much for it if it were. My main concern is just that I'm not sure if ML can up the resolution, and it will be doomed to being a "soft" camera for it's entire existence, which would be terrible for the green screen that we have.

The FS700 with it's super slow motion rates, HDMI clean and 4K RAW upgrade will future proof it for a while, unlike the C300 which is going to be obsolete pretty quickly, if not already, IMO.

The only thing better that I can see than the FS700, is if it were in a smaller 5D3 style body.

After feeling the liberation of the DSLR format, it's going to suck to go back to the lunch box camcorder format :( But I guess there no such thing as a perfect camera, yet. And with Canon's track record, we might be waiting forever for something like that.

Believe me, I really, really wanted the 5D3 especially since I have a small fortune in Canon lenses; but as a company, they just keep failing over and over.
[/quote]
i have to say that the black magic design camera might be good for what you are doing too, it will take all your canon glass, its affordable and i think the sensor size is great for green screen since you want a large depth of field for the cleanest keying. what bothers me with the sony is how much you have to add on to get all those capabilities, im afraid of the massive cost involved.
i actually did a green screen test for a big vfx company while shooting the epic, i shot a fuzzy breakdancing teddy bear(haha) with the 5dmk3 and the compositor was impressed.
though even shane hurlbut says its the compression canon has that makes the footage so cinematic and pleasing. this is the softness that people refer too, for shooting lifestyle i love the new look. i mixed it with an alexa last week and the colorist was also impressed with how much better it matches alexa footage now when he used to have the soften 5D footage to make it work and not stick out like a sore thumb... anyway, good luck and lets see what these guys can do with the hack!