Messages

Hello.

Willing volunteer here to test the Rev.B Firmware on personal 70D. Keep me informed if thats a possibility! 

I think true has a point but it would make far more sense to get a stable version on known working revisions and take that stable firmware over to the mysteriously different devices at a later date, either way canon's shoddy version control has made life unmitigatedly more difficult than it ought to be! 

For the price its phenomenal, you do have to do some considerable adjustments to make them work with the 14-Bit RAW as its perceived dynamic range and the Log to Linear Cineon converter do not play well together, and you often get unusual diamond shaped checkered patterns, easily solved by adjusting the white and black levels in the preset's cineon convertor

You have to use the file menu, Import, then navigate to the folder where your CinemaDNG's are located and select the first frame, all this information is on the first link, it describes the entire process in one place or an other. Theres a small bug where the "footage" imported is interpreted at 1fps, however all you need to do is re-interpret the footage as the frame rate you recorded in, and this can be done en-mass so its not a massive problem

I've been testing Adobe's CinemaDNG Importer for Premier Pro, (Which I explain how to acquire in this post: http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=6769.0)

Although I go over in detail some of the advantages and disadvantages of the plugin in the post, my personal view is that for projects that are last minute and need to be done at speed it is excellent coupled with RAWMagic, I experienced no pixels and only a few magenta frames using an hourly build from yesterday (unsure of which) and despite being only 8-Bit (see the post for more on this) I was able to get some really nice grades using Neumann Film's Blockbuster Looks package!

[Main Website:]

So I was trying to work out how to import my CinemaDNG's (from the fantastic RAWMagic app) to Premier Pro with out the lengthy existing workflow of either after effects and other such work arounds, I came across this plugin Adobe developed to do just that, apparently it was discontinued just under a year ago, however using the fantastic WayBack Machine you can in fact still access and download the plugin.

Sadly the pitfalls are still there, it only imports the RAW Data as 8-Bit (it somewhat defats the purpose of having 14-Bit RAW) However I think for REALLY fast turn around projects that don't require incredibly heavy grades this coupled with RAWMagic yields a very fast workflow that still affords you the benefits of improved resolution, and for Mac users allows the entire process to be handled on one computer, with out having to use RAWanizer on a PC! (It claims to be CS5.5 Only, I've tested in CS6, 5.5 and CS 4 and it works perfectly & Its Free  )

Main Website:
http://web.archive.org/web/20120918202214/http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/cinemadng.html

Link To Plugin (Macintosh)
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/cinemadng/cinemadng_p4_cs5-5importer_060211.dmg

Link To Plugin (Windows)
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/cinemadng/cinemadng_p4_cs5-5importer_060211.zip

(My sincere apologies for this post being "Bracket-geddon")

So I wanted to test how much freedom RAW gave us in post, it was all very well hearing how fantastic it is I really wanted to try it out, so I wen't out and shot the following, and graded each clip differently, some were relatively light grades and some were rather dramatic, certainly miles higher than anything I'd even think of doing in the stock codecs shall we say limited colour space, it really is staggering how far we can push our images, to be clear I used only the tools available in Premier Pro, I've been having issues with Resolve and RAW recently (My venerable 2011 iMac might not be up to the task), I think it may be obvious which clips have been pushed further, certainly believe it or not banding became a small issue with the highlights in the clouds at one point, but honestly, theres banding in the highlight skies with h.264 before you even touch the footage, So I'm over the moon really, I'd love to tell you specific  settings but Auto ETTR obviously has its drawbacks on that side, and my memory lacks dexterity... Anyway general settings at the end of the video and also my workflow!

(side note, I've noticed a total disappearance of the cumbersome vertical semi-transparent "lines" in the latest build)

I was talking about optimising buffer size's a little while back on a separate topic, and at the time it was deemed impossible, but now just weeks later it is! But still its really great how we've come up so many amazing solutions and work arounds for the limitations of RAW, SD Cards and Buffers, its honestly phenomenal how this website has made more dramatic changes to the operation of Canon DSLR's then canon have in dozens of firmware iterations!

I'm going to hopefully be using the 60D to shoot a few paid jobs in the next few weeks, I'm honestly that confident, its really a feat and I bow down to everyone on this forum and their seemingly infinite technical knowledge!!

We have so much buffer at our disposal, I think this 550D buffer optimisation coupled with a1ex's idea about unlocking some of that unavailable buffer he mentioned we could indeed be looking at some form of "long enough" recording time, it might not be practical for interviews or event's but with every project comes the appropriate gear, and by that I mean RAW or H.264.

If donations would help, I mean specifically for the development of making the 60D viable, you show me where to send my checks and to who!

[EDIT:]

I've been messing around with this amazing new feature of Magic Lantern, the upscales from 1280x720 are just stunning, take H.264 and bin it! Not literally obviously it still has its uses...

Obviously the detailing in the comparison shot's are out of this world, a quick word on my setup:
Canon 60D (Purchased in 2012)
SanDisk 16GB Extreme 45mb/s
Pentax Super-Takumar 50 mm F/1.4
1280x720 RAW_REC
RAW2DNG to After Effects, Graded & Sharpened by a factor of 50

I used FilmConvert Pro, and selected the gamma profile "Canon Generic Technicolor" although I know the picture profile has no impact on the RAW_REC output it seemed to yield a much nicer grade in FilmConvert!

(EDIT:My critical focus point on the comparison was the brown leaf in centre frame and I was stopped down on the Pentax to f/2.

Thanks for clearing up up guys!

[lowering]

So I'm no expert in any of this, my knowledge of hardware and firmware is worryingly limited but here's what I'm seeing:

When the lv_rec and eventually raw_rec modules were created they offloaded chunks of this RAW data to the CF card in chunks of 32mb, which for the faster data rates of CF was, and is entirely fine, however on SD cards with older models like the 60D, 550D etc the maximum speed of the controller is 20mb/s or there about's, so from my purely layman-esqe and uneducated perspective, could we theoretically get a higher record time and possibly even higher resolutions by lowering the chunk sizes for the slower SD cameras and thus allow the buffer to offload these smaller chunks quicker freeing space for indefinite or extended recording?

So for example (not at all tested or correct) if it takes a 60D 5 seconds to offload one of these chunks of 32mb to the SD, surely it would take it considerably less time to offload a 16mb chunk? obviously we would still use the entire buffer's storage but rather than say 6 chunks of 32mb's we use 12 chunks of 16mb's and try to attain a quicker offload speed?

Anyway just my thoughts on the matter as a longtime lurker and long time magic lantern user with my 60D of truth!

- Olly