Messages

1

Other experimental builds / Re: 12-bit (and 10-bit) RAW video development discussion

« on: August 13, 2017, 12:09:02 PM »

Any reason why to use MLVmystic instead of the latest and greatest coming from those who have constantly been hard at work (for obvious reasons) by keeping things up to date with all the bells and whistles in their apps/converters especially when it comes to using experimental stuff?

Also do you run on Mac or Win?

I run Win7 64bit.
Some time ago, MLVmystic was the most stable and easy to use, so I just stuck with that. Always keeping up with the latest and greatest development is fun, but sometimes "working well enough" is all I need. If you could point me in the right direction for a current converter with a decent interface, I'd be happy to try something else, though. Maybe the corrupted frames at lower bitrates came from using an outdated converter, not from the recording itself.

2

Other experimental builds / Re: 12-bit (and 10-bit) RAW video development discussion

« on: August 06, 2017, 01:24:46 PM »

Thank you, tonij. I'm happy to test the bleeding edge builds, but have a hard time getting into making them myself.

I recorded a few seconds of 14, 12 and 10bit each at 1280x544px and converted to DNGs with MLVmystic. Seems to work except for a few corrupted frames (top part hyper-saturated and magenta) with 10bit recording.

So it seems to almost-work on 50D. I'll do a few more tests next week... Anything special I should do?

3

General Development / Re: Needing RAW images from all/most cameras.

« on: December 22, 2016, 03:35:09 PM »

Good old 50D, even though it's not on the list... hope it's useful anyway.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0lhb0scf7qyomuc/CanonEOS50D.CR2?dl=0

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General Help Q&A / Re: Aperture can not be changed

« on: September 30, 2015, 11:50:40 AM »

I don't know about the menu, but if the aperture says 0, the camera doesn't recognize the lens. Most probably, ML has nothing to do with it. It happens with manual lenses on chip-less adapters or if there is a problem with the lens contacts. Try cleaning the electric contacts on the lens and camera.

5

Modules Development / Re: Dual ISO - massive dynamic range improvement (dual_iso.mo)

« on: August 12, 2015, 05:56:48 PM »

Hello,
I have a little problem with dual ISO... with long exposures (1sec or more, though it seems to increase gradually), there are very strange artifacts in my images, as you can see from the image. This is a 1:1 crop from a 20sec exposure at ISO 100/800 with a 50D. These artifacts do not occur with the same exposure at a single ISO. Long exposure noise reduction has no influence at all.

Is this a known problem and is there any solution?

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff252/mogul-/temp/IMG_8820-dualiso_zpslwk63idq.jpg

6

General Help Q&A / Re: FPS Override for timelapse - Desired FPS vs. Actual FPS

« on: August 06, 2015, 11:40:01 PM »

Each camera has a sligthly different FPS override limit for video. For example, my 50D goes from 0.214 to 30.422 FPS.

I think, you can solve your problem by activating "Sync w. Shutter" in the advanced FPS override settings (at the very bottom of the standard FPS override menu). This makes each frame last as long as the current shutter speed, so you can theoretically reach 0,0333 FPS for 1 frame per 30sec. This does not work in video mode, though, so you'd have to use the intervalometer and silent picture to record your images. I haven't tried actually recording anything like this, but it should work.

7

General Help Q&A / Re: Silent mode issue

« on: August 04, 2015, 08:31:06 PM »

In short: The main issue with full-res silent pictures is that it simply doesn't do fast shutter speeds. If you set your shutter to faster than 1/10s (may vary a bit with different cameras), you still get about 1/10s with a darker gradient at the top of the image - somewhat like a graduated ND filter, but not as useful. You just need to, lower your ISO, close your aperture some more or use a ND filter for FRSP to work in broad daylight.
I don't think that your problem has anything to do with ETTR. Please check your shutter speed again and report back if the problem persists.

About that warning message: My 50D also displays an orange message about "FRSP only works in Manual (M) photo mode" when video recording is enabled in the ML menu, but it seems to be more of a friendly reminder than anything else. Silent pictures do work, no matter if video mode is active or not. Don't know if something similar happens with your 5D2. Please always report the exact error or warning message when there's a problem... things go a lot faster without the need to guess what you mean.

8

General Help Q&A / Re: 7D vs 600D (or 650D) vs 50D

« on: August 01, 2015, 01:47:44 PM »

50D has no dual ISO video, no sound, serious problems with moiré, pretty bad noise above ISO 1600 and a maximum RAW video resolution of 1568x1058. The fast CF interface is a big plus (if you can afford the rather expensive cards), but otherwise I wouldn't recommend it for video. Without ML, it's a completely outdated still cam and with ML it can barely keep up with current amateur models. I'm not unhappy with mine, because it's still working great after more than 5 years and I've gotten used to it, but if you're going to buy something new, it's probably not the best you can get right now.

The 7D is probably similar, but with better AF and less noise. I can't speak from experience with this one. If you're going to do a lot of raw video, you should probably choose a camera that supports dual ISO and HDR video. You may not need these functions every day, but sometimes they can turn a shot from completely unusable to quite ok, if you know what you're doing.

9

General Help Q&A / Re: Canon 5d mk3 - difference between 1.2.3 and ML in Photography ( only )

« on: July 29, 2015, 08:03:18 PM »

The RAW quality or AF speed don't change with ML, but there are a few features that might be useful for a photojournalist:

- The auto exposure module is useful if you want a bit more control than just using AV or TV mode (assuming manual mode is not an option in all situations). It's basically a vastly improved P mode, where you can set a min and max AV, TV, ISO and exposure compensation for every EV.

- Dual ISO could be useful for high dynamic range situations. Bracketing your exposure is not always an option, but this can give you ~3 more stops of DR in exchange for slightly reduced vertical resolution.

- Automatic mirror lockup could sometimes be useful to reduce camera shake. It really depends on the situation.

- Trap focus is quite useful for sports, if that's one of your subjects.

These are the ones I can think of right now... There are probably a few more minor tweaks that make life as a photographer easier. Video may be the main focus of ML, but that doesn't mean that it's useless for still images.

10

Duplicate Questions / Re: No automatic ISO in 50D

« on: July 22, 2015, 05:44:08 PM »

I can't help you with RAW-video, since I haven't used it that much yet. It's supposed to be pretty good with the 50D, though.
Fixing the exposure settings for video is done by activating Expo. Override and ExpSim  in the Expo tab of the settings while using manual mode. When Expo. Override is deactivated, video will have auto exposure, no matter what other settings you use.

The 50D is not a bad camera for video, unless you need sound and even then, synching with an external recorder isn't that hard. High ISO can be a bit of a problem, but even 1600 ISO isn't completely unusable in my opinion. For very dark scenes, I sometimes use FPS override set to 20 and "low light", which gives almost 1/20s exposure, as opposed to the usual 1/60s when using 30FPS and 180° shutter. Sure, it looses the "cinematic" look, but it's better than nothing.

11

General Help Q&A / Re: My PC/Macbook cant see the raw files i recorded

« on: July 13, 2015, 10:31:27 PM »

Are you actually viewing the card's contents with a card reader or are you connecting the camera via USB? The raw and mlv files are only visible when using a card reader. Sorry if this seems dumb, but it's one of the most common mistakes.

12

Feature Requests / Re: Exposure measurement above 30 seconds and beyond

« on: June 13, 2015, 03:16:27 PM »

That's how I do it as well,  if the exposure for low ISOs shows "more than 30sec". I usually use ISO 3200, which gives me good reading up to 15min at ISO 100. Since such long exposures need to be prepared carefully anyway, a few more seconds spent calculating the correct time don't hurt at all.

It would be nice to have that step automated in some way, though.
There could be a setting in the bulb timer options, like "use high ISO metering" that would use a high ISO (say, 6400, to not exclude the older/cheaper cameras) when pressing the metering button, automatically calculate the TV for the currently set ISO from the measured value and set that for the bulb timer, which could then be triggered the normal way - no need to go into any menus after activating the initial setting.
Sadly, I have no idea, if it's that easy to program, but temporarilly raising the ISO when a button is pressed seems doable and the rest is basically like the "exposure lock" function and stuff that happens in ML anyway... just my little idea, in case any of the devs feel like adding another feature right now.

13

Modules Development / Re: Full-resolution silent pictures

« on: April 09, 2015, 10:16:47 AM »

Thank you, a1ex! That did it. The image takes about 3 seconds to save, but it does work and the results look great. Now I only need a bunch of memory and a completely new editing maching that doesn't melt at the thought of 4K timelapse

14

Modules Development / Re: Full-resolution silent pictures

« on: April 08, 2015, 02:55:01 PM »

@a1ex: No, it never worked. This is the first version I'm trying, since I'm not very good with coding and compiling. I'm just assuming it's my mistake, because someone else reported success with a 50D earlier in the thread.
Here's a video of what happens when I try to take a full-res silent picture:

The first 2 half-shutter presses are regular silent pics (always worked and still do), then one with FRSP/DNG and one with FRSP/MLV. Both are repeatable and the screen stays black for more than 10 minutes every time, unless I press some other button than half-shutter.
Little correction from my last post: There is a message "Hold on..." on the screen for a moment before it turns black. Didn't notice that before, because it's really fast.

The camera also crashed (frozen inside ML menu, had to remove battery) once while turning video off when FRSP was already on. I couldn't reproduce this after a few tries, though.

15

Modules Development / Re: Full-resolution silent pictures

« on: April 07, 2015, 10:57:45 PM »

First let me thank everybody involved in the FRSP development. This sounds awesome for timelapse

Sadly, today's nightly build doesn't seem to work on my 50D. Regular photo, lo-res silent pictures and video mode work as usual, but FRSP just flashes the screen (no message, just light gray) and the blue LED and then turns both off. The camera is still running at this point and everything goes back to normal after turning liveview off and on again or just going to Canon menu and then pressing half shutter again. The top display even shows "busy" for the set exposure time, but nothing gets written to the memory card, even after waiting 5 minutes without touching the camera. I did check the card with the card reader, not in camera.

Any guesses what I could have done wrong?
I can supply more information or a video of this behaviour, if it helps.

Settings: M mode, ISO 100, f/4, different shutter speeds from 10s to 1/50s, daylight WB, video inactive, expsim and exp-override active. Fresh installation from Nightly.2015Apr06.50D109 onto formatted card with no modules except silent.mo and mlv_rec.mo.

16

General Help Q&A / Re: 50d - confused by control wheels behavior

« on: January 21, 2015, 02:08:40 PM »

Well, that's what exposure override does - keeping alle exposure parameters the same, even in video mode. I guess, you want a fixed shutter/aperture while the ISO changes automatically during the recording, but currently there's either full auto or full manual mode. On my 50D, I couldn't find a way to enable auto-ISO when expo. override is active, neither with v2.3 nor the nightly builds.

The auto iso module could probably do what you want, as far as I understand, but it's far from being implemented into the ML trunk and currently there's only a version for the 5D3, as far as I know.

17

General Help Q&A / Re: 50d - confused by control wheels behavior

« on: January 17, 2015, 11:25:26 AM »

Try turning on exposure override in the ML options (expo menu). You probably had it set in the past but forgot about it.
Video mode does auto-exposure by default, but manual exposure is possible with this setting. Note that you can't set longer shutter speeds than 1/30s when filming with 30fps. That's basic math and can't be changed, because more than 30 exposures of 1/30s each just don't fit in one second. You can use FPS override  (movie menu) if you need lower framerates and corresponding slower shutter speeds.

18

Feature Requests / Re: Custom frame rate sync for telecine use

« on: December 21, 2014, 02:32:45 PM »

What about capturing in the highest possible framerate (720p should be enough for 8mm footage anyway) and deflickering it in post? I have no idea if this is practical, but it's the way I'd try to do it. A friend of mine did something similar with a few rolls of 16mm by slowing the projector to  around 5fps, recording at 30fps with a DSLR and setting the right speed in post. It took a long time, but looked quite decent... sadly I don't know any mechanical or electrical details of how he did it.

19

Share Your Videos / please do panic. (timelapse)

« on: October 20, 2014, 10:11:58 AM »

Thanks to ML, recording timelapse video got easier than ever. The sequences in this video were recorded with FPS override and exposure override on a 50D.

I got a bit bored with the many timelapse videos with meditation-like sequences, smooth movements, and ethereal soundtracks, so I made this one about the more hectic times in life. I used  randomly recorded footage from the last 2 years (mostly in and around Wismar, Germany), listening to the soundtrack again and again until I found the right images for each part. I guess that makes it some kind of improvised music video.

Please watch with caution if you are prone to epileptic seizures or panic attacks. Probably not dangerous, but it's got a few hectic moments.

20

Feature Requests / Re: Possible? work-around pseudo-MFA on Rebels?

« on: February 20, 2014, 08:25:34 PM »

I don't know if some higher quality lenses are better at this, but all the (non-L) lenses I've got only report "coarse" values or even worse. 1cm steps are the best, but even those could be off by a bit. 70cm could mean anything between 65cm and 80cm... focus adjustments maybe, micro not so much. The data is just not precise enough

21

Modules Development / Re: Dual ISO - massive dynamic range improvement (dual_iso.mo)

« on: February 20, 2014, 05:51:32 PM »

Thanks, Audionut. I think, I do understand a little more now. Not only did I misunderstand shot noise but also almost everything about how a digital camera works...

This also explains, why 100/3200 is just not useful with my 50D. No matter at which base ISO, a recovery ISO above 1600 doesn't give any increase in dynamic range anymore. The "best" useful setting  for me is 100/800 with +2EV of DR and 8EV of overlapping midtones.
I guess that would give me about 13 stops of useable range at best, so stop nitpicking, you 5D3 owners

22

Modules Development / Re: Dual ISO - massive dynamic range improvement (dual_iso.mo)

« on: February 20, 2014, 01:19:32 PM »

If shadow priority > highlight priority, increase ISO separation.

You may be surprised at the gains with lower recovery ISOs.  Also, ISO doesn't effect shot noise.

I'm probably not understanding how the interpolation actually works. Why should the recovery ISO not affect the noise at all? Sure, the low ISO lines will always give less noise in the lights and mid-tones, but why should the high ISO lines have no influence on noise at all? Of course, that would be mostly in the shadows, but in the end, noise doesn't just disappear.
I did another test just now and I'm surprised that there seems to be no significant difference in noise between 100/400 and 100/3200 (still a huge difference to straight 100). I can see that the separation is basically a trade-off between more dynamic range (high separation) and resolution/sharpness (low separation)... I just don't understand how the noise plays into it all or rather, why it doesn't.

23

Modules Development / Re: Dual ISO - massive dynamic range improvement (dual_iso.mo)

« on: February 19, 2014, 07:36:24 PM »

I tried this for the first time and just want to say thank you

It does need some getting used to and a lot of finetuning, but once I got the hang of it, the results were stunning. My trusty old 50D isn't everything but state of the art when it comes to high ISO, so I'm very surprised how clean 100/1600 and even 100/3200 look compared to single ISO shots.
There is some noise in the shadows when pushing the recovery to the extreme, but it's far less annoying because it's very regular. The loss of resolution is pretty bad, but sometimes 4M well-exposed pixels are better than 15MP of crushed shadows.

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Feature Requests / Re: [1 ALREADY DONE / 2 LOL] NIGHT VISION/IR

« on: October 21, 2013, 03:22:52 PM »

IR-video is possible with FPS override and/or display gain. So far, I've only used it for timelapse (f/5,6 320 ISO and 1FPS in normal daylight with a 50D and 720nm filter), but the same exposure translates to roughly f/2, 1000 ISO and 30FPS, so regular speed IR-video is possible. Pushing the ISO above 25600 may be necessary for indoor-situations, even with relatively good lighting. A compact camera or camcorder with a built-in night mode will probably give you less noise.
For filming in darkness (to the human eye, anyway), you'll still need a strong IR light source, though. I've seen something like it with several strong video lights, each with an IR filter in front of it.

A true "IR-mode" is not possible without physically replacing the IR-cut filter with a piece of clear glass. The best way to do it with an out-of-the-box DSLR is to get a 60Da which has slightly better IR-sensitivity (around 690nm maximum, I think)

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General Help Q&A / Re: High Temps

« on: October 04, 2013, 03:21:50 PM »

No need for fear... my 50D (and I assume all other cameras, too) has a warning when it gets too hot and will probably shut itself down before anything really bad can happen. I only saw the warning once during a very long timelapse recording in direct sunlight during summer. By then, the camera's back was not just warm to touch but almost painfully hot. If Canon thinks that everything below that is safe, who am I to argue? They probably tested this stuff for months to avoid potential lawsuits

Internal temperatures can indeed be a lot higher than the recommended ambient temperature from the manual. Even my computer says "not safe over 50°C" (ambient temperature), but for the GPU that's the idle temperature. Both CPU and GPU regularly go well over 60°C with a warning popping up around 75°C, I believe.