Messages

@reddeercity - Thank you very much. This was exactly what I needed.

Enfuse is either a command-line tool, a gui or a LR plug-in, and it is rather good. But I have felt for some time, that HDR Photomatic was a little better - and then free basic Easy HDR surprised me with HDR's that were at least on par with Photomatic.

But of course you're right @A1ex. There is some very good open source software out there, and new approaches come up all the time.

T2i/ML has HDR. Not too expensive HDR-stackers are HDR Photomatic and Easy HDR. Easy HDR even has a smaller Basic freeware version, that actually works very fine if you stay with jpeg - raws are somewhat reduced. http://www.easyhdr.com/

ML Universe is a place, where good and hard working people contribute to a bigger purpose. Writing software to improve on cameras that are already damn good takes a lot of skill, courage and entrepreneurship. I like to see this community as a gathering of like minds, trying to improve their photographic and videographic skills by exploiting the very best options provided by the hardware assisted by some very sophisticated software and by exploiting facets of the hardware, that even the creators in Japan may not have thought about.

Trying to attack this universe with out-of-topic or downright abusive posts is showing disrespect.

I'm totally proud and very happy to be a minuscule part of this universe. I learn a lot every day - and I'm challenged and thrilled every day. DeafEyeJedi, dmilligan, Walter, A1ex, danne, Audionut, nikfreak and hundreds of other dedicated and devoted enthusiasts write about technicalities and share videos and photos, I'm still working very hard to understand and emulate. I'm just not able to fathom why somebody out there wants to destroy and abuse our sphere of friendship, playfulness and search of excellence.

When people spit on other people, or abuse their trust and friendship, they have exposed themselves. They may surface in these pages under a pen name, but I firmly believe, that they know, they'll never be parts of this community.

That said, I totally agree with the idea, that our first posts should be factual, focused and relevant to the purpose of ML. So new members might experience, that their first post would have to be 'cleared' by the majordomo - and probably delayed for some time - before it shows up in these pages.

Am I too sanctimoneus?

Excellent sound. And if my eyes and ears don't deceive me - you have both a shotgun mike and a label mike attached to the Shogun. Excellent, and a good enough quality for broadcast interviews. A lot of hard working and experimenting ML-users, who excel in good raw footage should see your demo video and try experimenting with "raw sound" as well instead of just putting a piece of music  in their movie. When you master the shooting, playing with natural sound makes the experience complete and very satisfying.

Gotta go get me a Shogun one of these days - I've found a good teacher, DeafEyeJedi!!!

Latest: I can understand why you used the venerable 7D, since it has a full Audio/ML menu. How does your setup work with 5D3 (both versions)?

You may want to check out RBrune's eminent cam calculator:

https://rbrune.github.io/mlraw/

Look for the 600d tab.

@danne - I will. ML is a helluva good tool. While learning ML I have been looking at the old User Guide - excellent piece of work - I even formatted it and pdf'fed it for printing. Even if it was not always "bang on" it was lots and lots better than nothing. I have also been leaning heavily on Redrocks' excellent post.

@DeafEyeJedi - another four from wedi1x since your posting. I sincerely wonder what people get out of spamming us like this.

I strongly suspect that one of the links they refer was the one that put the Adobe Flash virus on my computer recently. I had to reboot to factory standard, purging everything and basically reformatting the machine.

I'm in the process of photographing all menus in 700d and 5d3 - if any of you would want access to these pics I'll put them out in Postimage. I'm trying to compile a User Guide, but I'm not working very fast, so if anyone might use the pics (for FAQ or ...?) be my guests.

http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=14309.msg159788#msg159788
Horizontal pixel * vertical pixel * bit depth * frame rate / 8 = Byte/s
Example: 1280 * 720 * 14 * 24 / 8 = 38707200 Byte/s ~ About 37 MByte/s

http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=14309.msg159788#msg159788

This afternoon I filmed a local show, 2 x 35 minutes. I used a 700d/10-22ef-s as my static camera/sound base (for sync). I used a 5d3/16-35 2.8 as my flying cam, doing semi-bodyshots and 1/4totals, close-ups, details, all the good stuff. And another 5d3 with 50/1.8 for audience/musicians. Main audio source is a Saramonic VMIC Recorder placed near the stage. Secondary audio are two tiny Sony dictaphones with small but excellent microphones strategically placed near the music and the audience.

The final product should be 12-14 minutes with highlights, H264 MP4 for common broadcast. I won't have time for raw/lengthy post production. By using (mostly) Canon zooms, I know that the result is footage, that is a little on the soft side. That'll be remedied in editing/post (Adobe PP, AE). I operated all this equipment single-handedly. With 3 cams recording I don't have to run around all the time, so there is plenty of time to plan ahead, check audio levels, check power and 4GP/29.9min limiters. The last two days I was present during rehearsals, so I know what was going to happen and when.

I'll never discuss my methods or my tools with the client, and he'll never get to see me at work in post. For many years my projects have not been discarded. Often there is criticism, but that is only to be expected, and it's mostly very constructive. A few times I have offered to re-edit, if a client wanted to emphasize something. That's quite okay with me. The bottom line is: Satisfied clients > more jobs > more satisfied clients.

I do this for a hobby. I own my equipment (but rent glass when necessary), and if a client is satisfied, I get my transportation and food covered plus a little tip for candy and tobacco. I get to do jobs, that would otherwise never have been done, if the clients would have had to buy a professional team to do the job. So I don't undercut the pros. I have been a member of the Journalists' Union since 1977.
From time to time the local TV broadcasting companies (understaffed) use me for quick-and-dirty news work, and here I get paid by the standard tariffs for journalists and photographers. Of course it helps, that I've been working with some of these guys since 1981. From time to time I come up with a bigger project with some interviews, background, footage from factories, farms, transportation companies, the military, stuff like that... and good time to get it done. That's exactly what an old journalistic cowboy like me likes to do.

@extremelypoorfilmmaker - never let the clients get too close to your production methods. Remember: They can't do the job themselves, but they'd love to set their fingerprints - sometimes in their internal powerplays. Give them what they expect, but (try to) impress them with your independence: You'd love to do the job, and you're the best man to do it, but if they make your work a living hell with all sorts of silly demands, they can forget all about it and go elsewhere or do it themselves.

@extremelypoorfilmaker

I have been teaching photo for many years, mostly in my spare time (I have been a radio and TV journalist and a photographer since 1981) and when we still used film and photographic paper, I showed my students to make a cardboard box with a tiny hole in one end and a sheet of photography paper at the opposite end inside the box (in the darkroom, of course). I closed the tiny hole with a pin, placed the box in a well lit room opposite a beautiful woman with the hole facing her, took out the pin for 10 seconds and then closed the hole again. Back in the darkroom I took out the sheet of photographic paper, developed and fixed it - and VOILA a beatiful, softened portrait of the sweet girl.

So when my employers ask me what gear I use, I tell them that isn't any of their business. The good cam doen't make the bad photographer good. But a good photographer gets results with a cardboard box.

You should be judged by the very deep knowledge and skill you have expressed in your many posts here in ML World.

A portfolio with stills from some of your best footage with links to (ie) Vimeo or Youtube, and maybe a smart website might help you.

Your list of cam and glass is impressive, so you're well equipped. Your clients should select your skills and experience, not the hardware you bring to the job.

I for one would love to see your productc or exercises here in Share Your Videos.

Good luck

I've had so much good info from this site - and you -, and I'm generally able to find what I look for. The site is well built and it contains a treasure of info not found anywhere else. I very often admire Walter's patience, having to repeat himself over and over again to help get ML to run on peoples' cams, and more often than not his dry wit sends me howling from laughter.

But basically you're quite right. Ever so often I ask myself "where was it that A1ex wrote about the ~2MB limit of ML and the need to be very conservative with what features you put into ML?" And where are those "best practices for raw workflow"?

Forums like ML must be some kind of linear and chronological, but high-grade info is often obscured by cris-crossing arguments and posts. I don't have a solution other than an elaborate, huge and association-driven "hyper-index", which might certainly prove unable to be maintainable. The problems you mention persist and are very real.

It might be worth your time to look at these two wonderful movies. They're extremely well done, and even on mainstream TV sets produce amazing images. The latter is a 3.5 test made with a 5DIII. I have shown these two movies in our photo and video society a number of times, even on equipment barely able to show the amazing quality. Even on 2K monitors and TV sets the pics are extremely good and very detailed. Try them yourselves on different equipment and agree with me: Quality IN - quality OUT. All credits go to the creators of this wonderful footage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLmOkDBfxv0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEykpKDEXj4

So, @cwphoto, this is what is achievable with the 5D3 (the first movie shot with another brand of camera.)

For a comparison to 2K you may want to look at this little flick I made with a 700D/10-22 ef-s in Sicily for the local marching band a while ago:

https://vimeo.com/153297449

The T5i/700D is an excellent camera - has had one for 3 years. Magic Lantern expands the scope of the camera immensely, and the T5i actually handles raw film making quite well. The best advice I could give is to browse the ML website. Tons of important info is found here, not only in the T5i-thread but all over the place. Take your time to learn your camera both with and without ML; it's a good work horse. Good luck from Denmark.

Excellent way to present a very tough issue. Very elegant trick with the mirror in the end.

Wow - what an effort you excellent people do towards managing the card formatting possibilities. Amazing.

I tried my little card tricks with my 700D: An old 32GB 300x fat32 card was reformatted in the cam: Fat32. Then I formatted a brand new 32 GB Lexar 1000X, which was exFat'ted just a few days ago - one of the cards I use with my 5DIII.123 btw. Result: Fat32.

OK. Forced exFat on the old 32GB card via my PC, reinstalled the next-to-latest ML (Feb 24 - hadn't seen the Feb 28!!!), fir'red the good old 700D: ML runs happily on an exfatted old 300x SD-card - ridiculous of course, cause the card won't do any good with serious moviemaking in raw.

When I returned my fast Lexar card to my 5DIII.123 after reformatting to exFat and reinstalling ML - the cam wouldn't eat the .fir update. No way, Sir. Don't like the taste.

OK, the reformatting circus probably destroyed the hidden "signature file". Reformatted card in 5D: Fat32 - no surprise, but the cam got to set her fingerprint. Back in PC, reformat to exFat, reinstall ML, and this time the 5D ate it all up with a satisfied burp in the end. Now the signature was alright.

Got to think about it. I didn't use low level formatting, either in cams or on PC, so obviously some kind of file thing has of course survived the formatting, which isn't the same as a wipe.

@a1ex - I'd love it

And where would we be without ML?

HyperDrive ColorSpace UDMA3 specifications indicate, that it will work with fat32 OR EXFAT -  BUT... Individual files must be smaller than 4G. Strange...!

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1191265-REG/sanho_shdcsudma3500_500gb_colorspace_udma_3.html

Of course that would be the solution if your raw videofiles never exceed 4G. Normally I'd never make so long shots myself, but maybe once in a year a job comes up, where one cam has to continue filming beyond the factory limit. Then I'd feel safer with exFat permanently mounted instead of having to remember to prepare a card specifically for this job. So from now on I'll have exFat on all cards in my 5dIIIs. If there should be any kind of a problem with this I'll post ML Universe immediately.

But, @itsDPmikey, don't blame yourself too much. Until I tested the stuff I believed, that 5DIII would format 128's and higher with exFat.

Did my little test all over again - with the difference that the SD cards in both cams (with ML) are now exFat, just to eliminate the cams from following the format from the SD-card (until yesterday they were fats, until I forced exFat on them, Ml'led and fir'red - ML works just fine.) I formatted both CF cards, the 64GB in my 123 and the 128GB in my 113, and both were "reduced" to fat32, so obviously my two cams haven't learned how to do exFat. I put both cards back in my card reader and PC-reformatted them back to exFat. The cams accept the exfatted cards and install dcim and misc folders without any problem.
So my experience tells me, that what I have thought to be true - that 5d formats bigger cards (128>) with exFat - isn't correct, at least with my cams. From now on I'll only rely on my PC to exfat my cards.

Even the respected DP Review maintains in their thread 5D Mark III video time limit, that 128GB cards will be exfat-formatted in cam - which my cams don't seem to know.

Of course the major weakness with my argument is, that I haven't tried cards larger than 128GB.

My humble card says Lexar Professional 1066x 128 GB UDMA 7 with a clapperboard symbol with 65 in it.

I'm low-formatting my 128 with exFat, takes a while, and then I'll reformat in cam. But, hey, I got this idea: Both my SD cards in 5d113 and 5d123 are fats. So maybe the cam formats the CF in accordance with the SD?

I'll put the CF in cam, take out the SD and reformat CF. If exFat is still there, we might have learned something. I'll get back in a minute or so.

OK. Low level formatted and verified exFat with MSI winX/64. Reformatted in 5d123 without SD-card. CF was returned to fat32.

Next I'll try is to format CF as exFat and NOT reformat in cam, and then go out and produce some footage.

Well, I didn't make Steven Spielberg level footage, but the exfatted card works excellently without in-cam formatting and remains exfat. So: On 5d don't format CF in cam if you really don't have to. Put exFat on in PC.

Next I'll be formatting my 64GB with exFat and let it sit in cam w/o formatting away from exFat.

OK. I formatted the CF 64GB I use in 5d123 > exFat. Then I took out the SD-card with ML, reformatted in PC to exfat, reinstalled ML and fir'red the card in cam without in-cam reformatting. Voila: exFat on 32GB 1000x Lexar Professionel 150MB/s SD-card. With ML running as smooth as a new-born shitting in his diapers.

Did the same with my 5d113 including reinstalling settings. SD is still exFat. And works with ML.

So I wonder why the install instructions in the nightlies keep telling us to format in PC, then in cam and then copy ML to the card. IMHO an exFatted card loaded with ML in the PC and fir'red as usual in cam should do the trick - and you'd escape the annoying return to fat32.

Cards 64 and below are fats. 128 and up are exfats. So the bible says.

But...

I just formatted my Lexar Professional 1066x with exFat on my computer just to verify this post and verified it with 'properties' - exFat. And then reformatted in 5dIII.113... Voila. Back to fat32.

Hey, guys, while I have being trying to compose something very deep and existentialistic, you'all circumvented me - and with good reason. But I'll post this anyway, because there are a few very principal issues here.

@dfort - your questions touch on a very deep feeling in me. I am happily working with my gear, trying to test the span of my possibilities, always seeking the limits, always looking beyond the horizon. And just now you strike the core of what ML is all about.

New features have to be tested very thorougfully and with extreme care before merger. ML is our basis for adventure, so it's our home base and the place we return to, when we have succeded or failed in our ventures.

I try out my files with MLProducer, MLRawviewer, ML Lite, I test luts, AE, Davinci Resolve, different lenses, different settings, different everything. And I get some results with one combination, other results with another, and in certain situations I end up with native 108op, a little post without losing the virginity... And of course I some times end up with a profound frustration. Back on the horse. Try again.

Thank God my cam is always my trusted horse. Postprod software may change, new systems pop up... But my ML is my point of reference, so I understand, when a merged feature doesn't seem to work after all. But then again... back on the horse.

The many ways to good ML footage represent the ideas and research from many dedicated people. The hard work behind MLVFS represents an approach different from MLProducer, MLRawviewer and MLVConverter, which is completely in harmony with the whole purpose of the ML Universe: to create several sets of ways to improve our work with our cam to chose from, based on our "chemistry", temperament, objective and preferred choice of method.

I'm totally confident that the latest nightly is a common denominator. It is what's tested and proven. I load the new ML Lite module with confidence on top of a good ML, and of course I'm willing to have a crash or two - or twenty, because ML Lite is uncharted, but fascinating land.

And I'm totally looking forward to the possibilities in LUA; dmilligan is doing an awesome job just as he is doing with ML Lite. Terrific.

I am totally confident, that the devs put nightlies together, that are "watertight", and I really love to put new features on top of my trusted basic nightly. My cam3 is a trusted 700d/ML, so I follow intensely the research on focus pixels and pinks, you yourself represent. The other two are 5dFrees, and they beep for joy whenever I invoke ML.

But basically I love the fact, that the nightlies are extremely conservative, and that new features have to pass an extremely tough examination. The member basis of the ML society is something like 46.000 people. Of these, maybe a few thousands are really exploiting the "deeper" features of ML. And maybe only a few hundreds are actually testing focus dots, pinks, LUA scripting, ML Lite, etc. so the statistic basis of testing may not be that large - and consecutively the depth of testing before implementing in the nightlies.

Which is a darn pity.

What I'm really trying to say is, that as long as you guys keep presenting ud with new ideas and solutions, I promise you that we're going to lick it up, test it out, discuss virtues and flaws... We have seen on many occasions, that research in one area has led to breakthroughs in other areas. But we do it on top of a well known basis: the trusted nightly.