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An old thread I know.

I wondered the same thing last night, but i assumed it would be too slow to write too, but could we use a fast CF card as a buffer, and automatically or manually move the files to a hard disk so the user didn't have to keep changing cards.

Can you move .MLVs or .RAWs from the CF card to the USB hard disk for example?  You could then format the card and start shooting again.

I know you can move raw files around the CF using File Manager, but can file manager access the USB drive c:/ aswell as a:/ the CF?

Hi all.

Sorry if this has "cropped" up recently and i've missed it, I search the forums every few months about it.

The last thing I've read was Alex talking about a CMOS register.

Basically I really like Crop mode, it was that for 2 second bursts of 12fps on the 550d that made me buy the 50d. I Noticed that the frame was around the same size as a 2/3" broadcast sensor. So I mounted a ENG zoom lens on there, being a wide range fast zoom, 18x at 1.8 constant.

The issue is as we know that the crop isn't centred in the frame, which means at the wide end at decent res I get vignetting, and If I zoom its really nasty as it veers off to the side.

Is there any ideas about on how it could be fixed. Even partially to get some more sensor use without the vignette?

I'm happy to try recompling the raw rec module for the 50d If we can work out if we can address it to centre.

There's clearly something amiss because digital dolly doesn't really work properly either, could be the slower hardware but I assume its to do with the crop.

For other 50d users, as some of you've asked. I'm after a teleconventor and i'll report back if I can get those ENG lenses to work well on 2x and 3x in non crop mode. 

I also assume that fixing this could open up the possibility of using an PL-EF adapter and some PL S16 and 16mm cine glass.

Yes you can stick big cards in there.

Full sensor HD is a no go, highest is the 1540x mode, which looks pretty damm good. The reason why is not CPU, Ram or card, its the physical output of the sensor, the camera upscales this to provide the compressed HD.

I've found the 1000x cards help, I'm running lexars at the present which work perfectly.

You won't get continuous HD crop, you'll get 10-20 second bursts really at maximum.

I've never seen a card hit above 79mbs in actual write conditions.

I don't go higher than 640 iso on any camera. Even on the Red Scarlet I told my DP not to go higher than that. So yeah that's sensors for me. I'm not a run-gun shooter I take time for my shot. I rather shoot on a 7D with poor low light performance than a BMPCC with HOT pixels on the native 200ASA. Maybe I have bad luck.... But if you read the black magic forums and reviews you see that more people had "bad luck".

I shot on the GH2 in poor low light conditions with good fast lenses with limited dynamic range and still I had very good images. With GH2 I never go higher than 320 iso.

Not sure thats the smartest piece of advice i've ever read...

The Reds native ISO is 800, thats where it performs best, the Canons native is at 100 and the native steps are 100, 200, 400, 800. 
A colleague of mine liked 640 on the 7D too, but we've decided to be rather careful about it after looking at the DXO information about the camera.

"Low light performance" is a misnomer, its a non technical way to describe lots of different things. Lots of people have this obsession with tiny ISOs or clean files at stupidly high ones. Neither is totally smart. Dynamic range will be best at native speed settings, there should a be a good reason for not being there.

Remember that these days you can get rid of a bit of noise, you can't fix a badly lit scene, or recover a scene without sufficient dynamic range.

Hi the global draw was on and recorded in .raw -  Its only if I go over the 4GB limit that I see this problem.  Also using RAW2DNG for 50D only made by Andy.  The files are rendered fine with the RAW2DNG but when they are opened in a program for processing they appear corrupted.

The reason I asked is that both have caused me pink frames or torn frames in the past, try without global draw on and see what happens. On the 50D i've seen speed loss and one or two pink frames when recording with GD on, on the 550D every clip with GD on would get screwed up somewhere, so its something to check.

I've been having issues with shooting long takes in ML Raw on the 50D.  If I go over the 4GB file limit and the clip switches to a zip file to continue the raw recording, when I render the ML RAW files into Cinema DNG, I get strange pink frames with lines all through the image.  The image is not even recognizable.  Any idea why this is happening?  Maybe a setting on my camera?  I tried many of your latest builds and even different cars and different recording resolution but all the same results if I go over the 4GB file limit.  Any help would be great!  I can even post a sample frame so you can see what I mean.  Thanks for your time and consideration on this.

Was global draw switched on while recording? and where you recording .raw or .mlv?

No, this is just the way it works I'm afraid, its also the way a red works for example.

Doing anything other than cropping requires processing power and potentially degrades the output. It is then no longer raw, or its lineskipped raw, anymore lineskipping is something we don't really want.

I've also been looking at b4-mount glass too:

Thats exactly what i've been using, beware that you'll get no higher than 1700 without vignette i'm afraid, decent lens for 2080x1080 silent pics on the 550d though.

This particular lens can be a bit hazy wide open, but can get fairly sharp at F4-F8.

I wouldn't want to shoot looking at a 10x magnification. 5x view is just about useable but is still only around 50% of the captured frame size(=2.475x at 1080p dimensions).

Aliasing and moire seem to be getting confused here. The 50D will alias (sometimes badly) in non-crop but is much less in 1:1 crop mode and totally down to pixel size. Moire is rare in crop mode but can happen. Hey, even the ARRI Alexa suffers from it  Moire can only be totally defeated with a huge increase in pixels and a reduction in pixel size but this also has a knock-on effect to low light performance.

Excessive moire can also be down to how you process the DNG files. For extreme cases you really need to use AMaZE debayering (as found in Raw Therapee) or the anti-moire tool in ACR. Aliasing is more difficult to treat. I've tried anti-aliasing plugins but they have minimal positive effect. The only 'ok but not perfect' solution I have found when trying to rescue a 50D shot with bad aliasing is some serious post work, rescaling up to 4k or larger and back to 1080p. This softens the image but reduces aliasing artifacts. You then need to add selective sharpening to enhance areas that are less prone to aliasing and possibly add blur or even do some matte paining to artificially correct a scene. It's a lot of hassle if you're only shooting for fun.

That said, I've found the 50D is actually better than the 7D (which has FPN problems) for raw video and it can just about match the Bolex D16 image. The Black magic Cameras are significantly better but obviously much more expensive than our 5yr old DSLR.

After using 50D raw video for the past 9 months I would offer the following advice:

1) remember the limits of what you are shooting with. Don't expect night vision or 5D Mark III quality. The 50D is somewhere between an S16 and S35 but behaves like Super 16. It has +/- 11 stops of DR (Dx0 tests) but in reality only about 9-10 without excessive noise. However, noise can be cleaned up with Neat Video and can be squeaky clean but retain detail at ISO 1600 with the right settings (i.e. temporal filtering and only reducing noise in the channels that actually have noise).

2) The 50D needs light! It will give exceptional results (considering it's age) if you remember this.

3) Post processing is important. You're shooting raw video so why skimp? If you want fast and easy then shoot H.264 (or, pardon the plug, use Cinelog and a LUT ). It takes some careful steps to even get to a good starting point for grading but it's worth it.

I'll hazard a guess that no matter how bad your shot is, it can probably be cleaned up if you use the appropriate tools for the job but ask yourself first 'is the shot is worth saving?'! Sometimes a re-shoot, after learning how and where aliasing/moire occur in a given situation, is a better option.

+1 On this.

I Love the image that comes out of the camera, but you have to be aware of the limits, Putting an extra AA filter doesn't really solve the problem, we still have a big sensor with a very inappropriate pixel density for HD video. No amount of post is going to solve this problem, once its tried to resolve above the nyquist point, its happened thats it, you can try to hide it, but its already happened, the pixel horses have bolted.

The mosaic filter is a really great product that helps us get that little bit extra out, but its not going to turn it into an alexa, the same way a "speedbooster" can't turn this breed of M4/3 cameras into 35mm cameras.

For me the 50d raw package is a great camera, that I would happily pay to rent, but its not digital cinema camera in the true sense, but its a great camera for those shallow detailed shots, and produces an astounding (IMO) amount of color information. This still goes for crop, I've still had it alias in crop when my DOF was too large, it simply couldn't resolve it and it produced artifacts, but the rest of the time, it was a lot better than full sensor mode.

Hi everybody! I'm late in getting to the 50d party. I own a 550d and was shooting RAW with that. But just got me a 50d and, of course, am very happy. One problem, and yes I've been going through the tread but can't seem to find an answer.

-Is there a way to center the crop mode in the middle of the sensor. It seems to record a region slightly to the upper left of center, and after moving the joystick around a little, it seems to jump around to various regions but never dead center. I did a test on my 550d, and it seems to be in the center. Am I missing something or is this the case with the 50d. Not the biggest problem, but i do have a wide-angle adapter for one of my lenses, and the region crop mode uses starts to include that fuzzy area you get on lame wide angle adapters. Having the crop mode region dead center would help.

Sorry if this has already been covered. Oh yeah, I'm using Tragic lantern (andy600 build 2014.2.1), with preview set to auto, and focus box set to center x5 zoom.

You guys rock! and KahL, awesome stills!

Funny we've just been edging on this discussion, I'm glad a few people are talking about it, i'm really hoping we can find some way of improving things.
I too came from the 550d, which made me assume the crop would be centred, I've tried a few builds and like Andy600 says i'm yet to find a way to do it too, and it seems nobody else does.

I wanted a wide angle in crop but alas canon conspire against us. It seems better in 10x though , can anyone offer an explanation about that one? because the recorded area is the same, but I seem to get less vignetting.

But to point out, it is better in crop, but the aliasing is still there in spades, I've shot a river a few days ago in 2000x1080 that looked like a multi coloured mess. Don't think that shooting in crop will give you a IKON or Digital Bolex on the cheap, I've realized that and it was a real bummer on my day.

Similarly to @Jackeately I remember 16mm lenses being briefly covered in this forum, but I can't find. anything definitive for use in crop mode. I know that flange distance might be an issue. Anyone have anything definitive? Is it theoretically possible to use a wide or moderately wide16mm lens in crop mode on the 50d with an adaptor?

S16 PLs on an adapter would work fine, 16mm PLs would probably work fine (Coverage wise).  If there was a issue with the rear flange being too long, there are modded PL mount 50ds around that where used for timelapses and production stills.  http://www.fdtimes.com/wp-content/uploads//2009/09/canonpl_pic_0403_031web.jpg

C or D mount is obviously a no-go due to registration distance, but work well on the EOS-M.

I can post some DNGs tomorrow when its light again in the cold dark UK.

But what i can tell you is that if we can centre the crop the wide end would cover 2000x1080, but at present it causes a hefty vignette at either side, my lens a canon 9.5-143mm will however cover this at 130mm and up with no vignette.

Highest res I can currently get at the wide end is 1728x972 but you can work at single focal lengths only, any zooming and the centering causes the lens to zoom off centre and looks very nasty, zooming out is sometimes OK but doesn't really look right.

But for long tele and wide crop mode it works well for now, and you get a fairly compact cine style lens thats parfocal and constant aperture, normally quick too, mines f1.8. Slight downside being that its really only useful from f3 down due to the softness and aberrations.

@ Jackeatley
Hi, I'm curious to know how you mounted the B4 lens, 'cause I have a fuji zoom lens and would like to work with it!

Adapter from a ebay store from Singapore.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181227040910

Obviously works but i'm having a issue with centering the crop, known to work well on the HD crop mode on the 600d.

Hi Guys, Thanks so much for all your hard work, i've been watching and reading for a few years now, i've never felt the need to register because I just search the forum for an answer to my question, but in this case my searching has failed, one thread came close to answering, i didn't want to post on zombie threads or make new ones so i'll ask here.

I've been really digging 50d crop mode, so much so that I occasionally use lenses that don't cover the sensor but look nice as crops.

my problem has arisen trying to use an old B4 mount TV lens, i've got it mounted properly and it looks good, but I can't for the life of me work out how to (or if i can) properly centre the focus box. I'm ok cropping out a small vignette in post, but obviously i'm loosing the wide end of my lens, and if I use the nice smooth servo zoom it obviously zig zags off at an angle because the crop isn't centered to the lens. I've tried digital dolly but the joystick just stops working.

I've seen other threads which allude to the box never getting centered but I can't work out what the actual deal is.

I know its a strange thing to want to do, but can anyone help me?

Cheers

PS I don't seem to have this problem on the 550d, but obviously I can only shoot 15 frames before the buffer fills.