Messages

Interesting 
Sounds like a nice Powerbank, especially @70 Grams! These things are game changer for the EOS M. Just wished they made shorter DC Cables.

Yes Zeek, I plan to make a small battery holder that attaches to the camera hot shoe.  In this case the cable will go underneath the lens and be directly plugged in into the battery pack holder.  Since it can be very thin and short, it will not be in the way at all.  This will make the system very convenient for hand held and gimbal shooting.   In this way the EOS-M will be the smallest and lightest travel RAW-video camera with independent power supply worldwide.  With a 512 GB card you can film an entire rock concert in 4k, (1280x2160 anamorphic/12bit/24fps - about 2,5 hours continuous recording), without running out of power or card space!  Nice, isn't it?

Nice and indicative example, Deadcode.  The quality improvement with Dual ISO is clearly visible, especially in the darks.

I have been using Dual ISO in high-contrast scenes on a regular basis for quite some time, mainly for street videography at night using the available street light.  I do get flickering ocasionally but it is not all that bad.  In most cases I can cut these flicker portions out.  Overall I have been very pleased with the result - much better compared to single ISO.  Personally, I think that ISO research and Dual ISO are the most significant scientific achievements of our ML devrlopers.

then I have no idea what to say.. lol

Well, your 100/800 shot looks pretty good and clean to me.  Look under the table and see if the noise suits you.  If not, buy a RED or Arri Alexa :-)))!

I use 640/1600 and 640/3200 dualiso and compared to iso 800 is almost the same i think.

The reason you barely see a difference is because your scene is evenly lit and its contrast is quite low.  It is well within the dynamic range of your camera and you do not need Dual ISO for it.  Try including also the light bulb in your scene, expose for it and reshoot the scene with and without Dual ISO.  Then you will see the difference.  Dual ISO makes sense only if the contrast of your scene goes beyond the dynamic range of your camera.  In a situation like this, adding 2 to 3 stops of dynamic range with Dual ISO makes a huge difference in the noise of the dark areas.

Just keep experimenting until you understand Dual ISO !!!

Thanks Zeek, this makes sense.  The DC-DC converter is built inside the hexagonal piece between the powerbank and the dummy. It converts the 5V coming out of the power bank to 8,4V going inside the dummy.  In this way the heat generated by the converter is dissipated outside the camera.  The dummy just contains the regular protection circuit which does not dissipate heat.  Quite clever, indeed.

I built my own external power supply using 2x 18650 lithium ion cells of 3400 mAh capacity each, connected in series for 7,4V output.  I paid 8$ for both.  For the dummy I used the case of an old battery.  I just took out the two damaged cells and connected the protection circuit inside the case with the two LiIon cells via a short cable going through the hole on the battery door.  The whole thing weighs 70 grams and allows at least 9 hours of operation without turning the camera off.  I filled 6 cards of 128 GB each with 1280x2160 footage in that time and still had some power left.  The greatest advantages of this external power supply is that you can minimize the cable length in such manner that the cable does not dangle around and is not in the way during filming and also it is fully compatible with the original EOS-M charger which takes about 5 hours for safe charging.  The full charge voltage is 8,26V and the red indicator in the camera starts blinking at about 7V.  Camera shuts down at 6,2V.    The thermal indicator never showed more than 57 deg. C at room temperature.  In regular life view the EOS-M draws about 400 mA which increases to about 420 mA while recording.  For the 18650 cells these are very relaxed operating conditions, so a battery pack like this should last forever if used in a regular manner, say every day or once in a week.  If, however, you just use your camera a few times a year, battery life will degrade quite quickly. 

I think he use this..(dummy battery) like mine for 700d.

This means that there is a DC-DC stepup converter (5V to 7,4 V) inside the dummy battery. Possible but I doubt it, for thermal dissipation reasons.  It is not good if it dissipates thermal power inside the camera.  It would be much better if the converter is inside the power bank.  Such variable voltage power banks do exist but I do not know how the output voltage is adjusted at the desired value.

Try increasing the exposure of your Dual ISO shot in MLVApp in such manner that it matches the non Dual ISO one.  Then compare the noise levels in the darkest areas of both shots.

Nice and very informative video, thanks a lot Zeek.

I have a question.  The camera needs 7,4V for proper operation.  How do you adjust that voltage in your power bank and how do you prevent it from outputing more than 8,4V which could damage your camera?

unfortunately the setting you told is not included.. but it's ok.

Open the MLV sample in MLVApp and press the Info button.  You will see all the camera settings the file was shot at!  Then you can use these same settings to film your own tests at 18W LED lighting.  Compare your results with and without Dual ISO and  post them here.

does this also apply in low light conditions?

Of course it applies to low light too!  But you seem to prefer asking questions instead of testing by yourself.  Just follow the procedure that I described in my previous post and check by yourself.  It will take you just a few seconds.  18 Watts is a lot!  You should get an excellent image with that much light.

Here is a short room sample at 100/800 that I have just shot for you:

https://we.tl/t-QmeuJot9E1

The light bulb is just 11W.  Post processing and downsizing to FHD was done in MLVApp.  A short sample of the original MLV is also included for you to see all settings.

ML700D,

No matter what camera you use, you still have to expose to the right (ETTR) when filming at Dual ISO.  Needless to say that you should use Dual ISO only in the high-resolution modes with enough vertical resolution, (the 1x1 or 1x3 crop modes).  Activate your Zebras and Histogram, find your brightest spot in your scene, magnify it and start increasing the exposure until zebra stripes start showing up on that spot. Then dial the exposure down by 0 to 1/3 of a stop and watch the histogram.  If it shows an exposure reading between 0,1 and 0,3 you should be fine since you will be close to the highest signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in the darks without blowing up the highlights.  Also play around with the Dual ISO numbers.  The 100/800 setting provides excellent results when there is enough light.  When it is too dark though, then 200/1600 or even 400/3200 may provide better results.  In scenes with very high contrast, you may want to increase the second number by one more stop, e.g. 100/1600, 200/3200. 

And last but not least - do not try to push the Shadows too much in post!  If you do, at a certain point, you will get ugly noise artefacts in the darkest areas.  An image with minimum detail in the darks looks much better than one with noisy shadows!

And finally, practice, practice, practice!  If you do, you will very soon find out what ML is really up to.

Very nice, 70MM13 - one of your best low-light videos in my opinion.  And beautiful music too!  Please don't worry about your 5D3.  It will last longer than you think!

Looks ok to me. Just make sure to set "Vertical Stripes" to "Off". Credit to theBilalFakhouri -- see below:

Thank you so much, Vastunghia!  I was not aware of that.  It was an easy fix.  Dual ISO indeed provides a massive dynamc range improvement in 5D3 anamorphic footage and I am really glad, I got it working on my 5D3 footage again. 

Hello Masc and Danne,

I tried to film some Dual ISO video on my 5D3 using the latest April 1-st, 2021 experimental build by Danne but the file does not get processed properly in MLVApp.  The horizontal lines stay and I get very strange colors in the highlights and midtones.  Here is a sample shot at 12 bit lossless in 1392x2340 anamorphic resolution:

https://we.tl/t-hUeySxwwWO

I get the same results also in other modes.  It looks like the problem occurs with 5D3 Dual ISO files.  Such Dual ISO files from the EOS-M seem to process properly.  So do normal non Dual ISO files.

Could you please take a look?  Thanks.

ArcziPL,

I hope you are right but for whatever reason that thread didn't get very far.  I will be looking forward to 70MM13' results.  Hopefully, he does not fry his sensor.

70MM13,

Your videos are extremely clean and you seem to be an expert in sqeezing the last bit of sensor performance out of your 5D3 at very low light.  Sensor calibration is usually about color and I don't think it can fix any vertical scratches or other artefacts.  Canon is notorious for its natural colors and you probably will only make things worse.  In my opinion, you will be better off if you try Dual ISO, dark frame subtraction or other techniques for noise reduction, so you don't have to push your shadows that hard.  Just my 2 cents.

Very nice idea, professionally realized, as always.  Just don't fry your sensor.  You are going to need it!

Compare with your previous video and see for yourself.  In my opinion - much better now.

Set anamorphic to 1280x2160 resolution, close the aperture to say 5,6, put the camera on a tripod, focus carefully and try again.  You should be able to get a much sharper image.

I used different browser then I noticed that vimeo is blocked in my country.. 

For viewers from countries that do not allow Vimeo, here is a download link:

https://we.tl/t-NbXscDtnOT

It will be active in the next 7 days.  File size is 414 MB.

Thanks a lot, 70MM13!  I am still learning and your comments are very helpful and most wecome.

Hello all,

Two weeks ago I filmed with my EOS-M this video called "Miroslav's Home" for a friend of mine who lives with his family in a village in the central part of Bulgaria.  Yesterday, November 21-st, in my country, we celebrated the Day of the Christian Family, so I thought, it might be appropriate if I post the video here for those who value traditional family virtues.

Gear: EOS-M, EF 35/F2 IS, VND-filter, EF/EFS to M adapter, Ronin SC gimbal

Mode: Anamorphic 1280x2160 / 10bit lossless / 24 fps

Post processing: MLVApp (basic adjustments), export to ProRes422LT

Video Editing: DaVinci Resolve 16 Lite, final export in 1920x1080 resolution using the H264 codec

Conversion from H264 to H265 for file size reduction by a factor of 2,5 


Your comments will be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

In terms of sharpness this looks much better now.  You should try a really sharp lens such as the EF 28/2,8 IS to compare and see what I am talking about.

Thanks for reporting. Did you try the latest commits on your own? There has been a fix, close to this topic. Would be nice to know if it is worse, better, or the same with it.

I am not sure what you mean by "latest commits".  Did you upload an updated version 1.13 linked in the 1-st post or you mean something else?

I would like to report a bug which is not very important but quite annoying since you may loose your work if you have not saved it.  It occurs with the Windows x64 version 1.13 of MLVApp. 

When you click on a file which you would like to delete from your disk and select the "Delete from disk" option, MLVApp crashes.  I tested that on two different computers - one with Win 10 and another one with Win 7.

The "Remove" option works on both of them.  It removes the file from the session.