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Received a new Komputerbay 128 GB 1000X today and I can't get the card to do a firmware update on my 50D. Wondering if anyone has found a way to make the card work...

Long story short... I had bought a 128 GB 1000X back in July and it work with my camera. However, the write speeds were about 2 - 5 mb/s too slow. Started thinking that with the latest builds that that same card might be applicable...

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The 64 GB cards are the best for speed.  And as has been said numerous times you need something like a 32 GB or below card for flashing firmware.  I just bought a sandisk 4 GB card for firmware flashing purposes.

Buy a 64 GB card and benchmark and use it.  See if it hits your speed targets.  If not return it.  Keep in mind you have to "warm up" your card to get maximum speed.

[you get there by allowing frame skipping. What happens if you disallow frame skipping?]

GlobalDraw off, 1920x1080. 82.9 MB/s continuous on bottom.

Okay.  But you get there by allowing frame skipping.  What happens if you disallow frame skipping?  I can't make it when I disallow frame skipping.  20 second clips are fine for most of what I do.  Just trying to get a realistic sense of what the equipment and code can do.

While I'm here, what's the highest resolution you guys have managed to record at if you had to record for 1min-1.5 min?  I'm using this camera for narrative film and I'd like to have semi-long takes as an option. And could I possible change the aspect ratio from 16:9 to something like 2:39:1 so I could record longer, while still having it look like a film? Apologize if these are stupid questions, still making my way through the scattered documentation!

If I were you I would try and get a 50D in hand for cheap and try it out.  How much is your time worth?  The idea of shooting a narrative film with plenty of actors and dialog on a 50D is a bit scary.  If you get it for $350 and decide you don't like it you should be able to unload it for $350 and maybe take a $40-$50 hit on shipping/packaging/ebay/paypal fees.  I have a 600D and I shoot a heck of a lot more with that than my 50D.  I don't know what you currently own but if I were to shoot a movie I would use both.  If you use shallow depth of field, nice lighting and close up shots of things like faces you can do a lot with a 600D.  You can even intercut it with raw footage and no one will notice as long as you choose your shots carefully.

The 50D was never meant to shoot movies of any kind let alone 1920x1080 raw.  To me it feels like you are fighting the camera.  There is a very specific procedure to get 1920x1080 video out of the thing.  When you are shooting 1920x1080 and you want maximum record time you have to turn off global draw and you basically have no way to monitor what video is being recorded.  I use it on a tripod and set up the shot.  Then I hit record and count off the seconds.  I don't even look at the camera.  Well sometimes I do to make sure the card is "warmed up."  I'm not sure what all is involved in the warming up process but for some reason the camera can write to the card faster after it has been recording for awhile.  So even with everything set the exact same you won't get the same write speeds to the card between two takes.  That's not a problem for me but if you are going for 90 seconds sometimes in the middle of the take the buffer will fill up and the camera will stop recording.  Get the camera and see what I mean.  It is not as simple as making a couple of basic settings in the morning and then just hitting record whenever you need to do a take and looking at a gorgeous LCD while you film.  Like I said... compromises.

[If your concern is grading then don't worry about it. If you are concerned about moire/aliasing at full frame then yes you should be concerned. If you are worried about rolling shutter then yes you should be concerned.]

I know it's a great value.  I just wanted to compare it to raw on the BMPC, mII, etc.  Helps to know what you're getting before you spend 500 dollars!

Well for one thing $500 is too much.  I got mine in the US for $350.  If you are getting a bare bones body only with one old battery camera then $350.  With some accessories maybe $400.  Check the sold Canon 50Ds on ebay.  With a little bit of patience you will see people picking them up for $350... or less.  If you pick the camera up for $350 and you don't like it you can sell it for not much of a loss.  Not a bad way to try out raw.  You can't compare it to the BMPCC.  BMPCC currently doesn't shoot raw.  You get a flat Prores file out of the camera which is definitely more difficult to grade than the Canon 50D raw.  Any raw workflow is tedious because of all the extra conversion steps.  But when you get your DNG files into Camera Raw it is stupidly easy to adjust exposure and color.  If you can edit a photograph you can grade your movie and if you want to get funky with things like Magic Bullets you can output your file from Camera Raw and import it into whatever program for more grading.

If your concern is grading then don't worry about it.  If you are concerned about moire/aliasing at full frame then yes you should be concerned.  If you are worried about rolling shutter then yes you should be concerned.  What I will say though is the crop mode 1920x1080p is beautiful.  You are going to have to spend a lot more to beat it.

To be honest with you though if you are okay with the smaller sensor on the BMPCC and the issues with IS lenses, etc working with prores files could be nice once you got the grading down.  raw workflow is painful.  I don't know.  I just think all the cameras you mentioned have so many pros and cons.  To me grading raw files is the easy and fun part.  Ingesting the raw from the camera and the absolutely ridiculous storage requirements are what give me pause.  Also you can only shoot 1920x1080p in crop mode.  And you can only do that for a finite amount of time.  I'm okay with making 30 second clips.  Most of mine are a lot shorter so that is not a constraint.  The BMPCC has no such constraints but it has other issues.

This might not be the place to post this, but is there anywhere that I can download the dng files from the 50d so I can color grade them myself? It's hard to judge the quality by looking at other people's work.

What is it you want to know?  It's raw from a sensor from a very reputable company.  There is nothing like it for even three times the price.  Either you want it or you don't.  The image is like nothing you've ever seen out of 8 bit h264 DSLRs.  It still has issues with moire/aliasing in full frame mode but when you go to cropped mode that all disappears or is greatly diminished.  It still has rolling shutter and jello.  But as far as grading is concerned it's the same as editing a photograph in camera raw.  In fact that's what I do.  I open the raw file which has a weird purple hue to it and either use the eye dropper or auto to set the white balance in Photoshop CS6 and then go from there moving sliders around to get the exposure I want.  A properly trained chimp can grade it.  At least grade it to look realistic.  If you want to do any type of weird teal and orange stuff you will probably have to export your results to another program.  But even then you will be starting off with a much better file.

Really the results are there and there is no competition.  Cropped mode 1920x1080 is pretty much unrivaled anywhere near that price point.

I'm excited, but a little uncertain / lost, as I've never shot RAW before, and really only ever used a t3i for video / photo.  I did use ML a good bit, just not the RAW module.

Well first things first learning ML on the T3i took some getting used to.  Unlearning some of what I learned and figuring out the 50D was a lot more painful.  I was actually going to write a guide and put it in this thread to address some of the early pitfalls.

The first thing for raw is get a Komputerbay 64 gb x1000 card.  They are relatively cheap and they hit the speed targets you need for raw.  Second thing is to make sure you get a 32gb or smaller CF card.  You can't install ML the first time with a 64 GB card.  I just got a 4gb Sandisk card for that purpose.

Next if you want to do 1920x1080p 23.976 fps that only works in cropped mode.  Okay, how do you get to cropped mode?  When you are in live view press the button in the far right upper corner.  It has a little blue magnified glass with a plus in it as a label.  It took me awhile to figure out how to get into this crop mode everyone was talking about.

On the T3i I use the zebras to expose till the highlights are barely clipping or about to clip.  On the 50D I use the histogram and EV value.  I try to get the historgram as far to the right as possible and make the EV value 0 or as close to zero as I can without clipping highlights.

In the raw menu there is a place to turn on ML Grayscale preview.  Use this to line up your shot for 1920x1080.  None of the other modes accurately show the scene in crop mode for me.  Maybe Iim doing something wrong.  Yes the ML Grayscale mode looks horrible but you just need if for framing.  Once you have everything framed up then turn global draw off.  Then press the "set" button to begin recording.  A read out will show you your recording speed.  North of 80 mb/s is where you want to be.  Don't worry if you are a little blow.  A lot of the time it speeds up as you record.  There is also a nifty read out that tells you how many frames have been recorded and how many more frames you can expect to record if current conditions prevail.  As your card speeds up the expected number of frames will increase even as you are recording.

The worst part about 1920x1080 for me isn't the record time.  It's the crop factor.  The crop factor is nice because it eliminates most moire/aliasing.  But it is like the 3x zoom factor on the t3i except you don't have a live picture to help you follow objects/animals/people that you are zoomed in on.

Crop mode on the 50D is butt ugly compared to the 3x zoom on the t3i.  It really makes you appreciate how polished ML is on the t3i.  But when you finally see the results out of the 50D you will know it will always have a spot in your stable.  When I have the time and the scene is appropriate nothing in the price range touches the 50D... Nothing.  Keep in mind if you don't use the ML grayscale preview what is shown in the screen is not an accurate representation of what you will record.  I don't know why.

Also, I've seen a lot of raw tests on youtube.  Some look incredible @ default 360p.  Others look cropped and don't seem to be that great of quality.  What are the do's and don'ts here from you experience?

Well a lot depends on the original resolution, conversion software, compression codec, and how the operator and Youtube beat up the file.  I've seen, no lie, compressed SD footage demonstrating 50D raw.  Only a psychiatrist can explain that.  1920x1080p 23.976 fps in crop mode looks excellent when processed and  exposed properly.  Using inadequate available light and underexposing ruins even a good thing.  I would rather bump up the ISO than underexpose at a lower ISO.  Beyond that use a fast (f/1.4, f/1.8, or f/2.8 in a zoom) lens to get plenty of light.  A stabilizer such as a monopod, tripod, glidecam (probably useless for crop mode), or shoulder rig improves shots immensely.  I don't understand the plethora of shaky hand held test videos.  I mean set the camera on a table, chair, rock, car hood, etc. if you can't afford or be bothered to buy/borrow/steal a tripod.  Where did these people learn photography/videography?!  They are wasting people's time and bandwidth.

keywords:  Canon 50D, Magic Lantern, raw, tips for beginners, instructions, guide, cropped mode, zoom

It has to be design for a specific sensor and should be used in the normal mode (no zoom mode). That's it.

The 50d do have fullhd mode, but it is a zoom mode (3x crop) which reads every single pixel so there is no need for an extra aliasing filter.

As you can see it has nothing to do with resolution.

I have a 600D.  Aliasing is markedly reduced in 3x zoom WITHOUT VAF.  VAT-TXi works on full resolution 1920sx1080.  It does not work on the 720p resolution.

I am seeing a bunch of resolutions for the 50D.  Which ones would work with a theoretical VAF?

Got the 50D out in the mail today to reach Mosaic Engineering!

Got plenty of time to think about it... But, what would you consider an appropriate testing procedure for the 50D and the VAF?

The problem as I understand it with Anti aliasing filters is they work best at one resolution.  So which resolution is Mosaic Engineering going to make it for?  I got the 50D to shoot raw.  As I understand it at the moment Full HD raw is currently not available so I will be relegated to using a lower resolution raw for the time being.  Are they going to make a $300 filter for the lower res raw?