100D/SL1 RAW Video guidance needed

[sebi2k4]

Hi there,

first of all I am really impressed what you all are doing here to make our canons even better. Thanks for that.

Now as I experimented with ML for about a week (with intervalometer and still images) I would like to get a step further with RAW video recording.
My intention is to use my 100D to shoot some good looking videos in a resolution as close to 1920*1080 as possible. And of course I am really dissapointed with the video quality the canon firmware brings up.
Seems like I need some guidance with the RAW module(s). I would really appreciate any help of you experts.

1. I have installed the 4K raw video experimental build for 100D on my SD card which was formatted inside my camera (on low level) as it says in the ML installation documentation. Do I need to switch over to exFAT for recording raw videos in good quality or is the whole 'exFAT thing' only for creating files bigger than 4gb?

2. I am kind of confused with that 'Canon feature comparison sheet' https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16cgnRivbUv7nA9PUlCLmLdir3gXdIN3pqzCNAAybepc/edit#gid=5
I always read that the maximum horizontal resolution using the 100D for raw video is 1728. But the column 'max resolution in crop mode' says that 2496x1080 is possible.
As I mentioned I would love to create good looking videos in 1920*1080 resolution, can I do so using this 'crop mode'. What do I have to do to use it? Is there any documentation for that?

3. Following to that my third question is: which settings do I need in both canon settings and ML settings to achieve my goals described above?

Sorry for my noobish questions but I hope I posted it in the right forum and I find some guidance ;-)

Thanks in advance.

[dfort]

You will probably find your answers or at least find other users that can answer your questions on the Canon 100D / SL1 topic. Since this is your first post let's cut to the chase.

1. Don't worry about card formatting. If you format in camera it should be fine. The camera splits up large files in 4GB chunks no matter what file system you are using. (Someone should fact check me on that one.) What is more important is to use a fast UHS-1 card.

2. When shooting H.264 the camera is doing some tricks internally to give you 1920x1080 or 1200x720 images. The sensor is designed for still photography so in order to reduce the resolution down to HD video it has to bin and skip pixels so the maximum horizontal resolution in "non-crop" mode is actually 1728. The crop mode you're talking about is called "zoom mode" and it doesn't bin/skip pixels but it uses all the pixels in a smaller area of the sensor. This means that you'll need to use a shorter focal length to deal with the crop factor and you'll loose that shallow depth of field you get with a large sensor. It does give you higher possible resolution and less aliasing/moiré.

3. If you want the large sensor film look go for 10 or 12bit lossless compression. You'll have to experiment to see what resolution you can use to get continuous recording. If you really want a 1920x1080 original go with zoom mode and adjust the image size to 1920 horizontal and 16x9 aspect ratio, again using 10 or 12bit lossless compression. Note that you can get higher resolution using 23.976 fps rather than 25 or 30fps.

[sebi2k4]

Thanks a lot dfort. Your post helped me a lot understanding things better now.
Please allow me one or two further questions to make sure I can put it to practice. 

1. Understood that the "zoom mode" may be my option to use even though I need to deal with a transformation of focal length. Which ML modules do I have to acitvate and which settings in canon and ML menu do I have to use in order to use this mode? Sorry if there is already a documentation about this. Didn't find it.

2. Your hint with the "large sensor film look" sounds pretty good to me. I would like to try out 10 or 12bit lossless compression even with only 23.976 fps. I guess without zoom mode this won't get me to 1920x1080 on the 100D, correct? But I'd also love to try out. So same question as on 1.: Which modules and settings do I need for it?

Thanks again.