550D/T2i raw video recording port official thread

Started by dlrpgmsvc, May 22, 2013, 12:11:45 PM

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Khayam

Hi everyone, this is long past due as I've been using ML for a while.

I was planning on shooting a short film in two weeks on the 5D RAW but that project got postponed to an unspecified date. So i thought I'd play around with the RAW thing on my trusty T2i. I have a small short-film coming in less than a month (much less ambitious than the other one) and figured it would make a nice opportunity. It would be the sequel of something I shot one year ago when I was kindda knew to the DSLR filmmaking (lots of things went wrong, starting with sunset being faster than expected) :

http://youtu.be/kTjBGDKaz-s
(I'm not embedding it because some might think this is a RAW capability showcasing).


Anyway, I was wondering if the actual capabilities are enough to consider to shooting RAW. The first post is not very informative, stating the problems rather than what's actually possible today. At what resolution can I hope for continuous recording ? I have a single SanDisk Extreme 30MB/s 16 GB and I'm getting the feeling it's not enough.

Also, during shooting, what can I hope for in terms of control. Is LiveView working properly during recording ? Is there some kind of playback (I'm guessing not but maybe it's possible to look at the single pictures ?) ?

Thanks a lot for the amazing job going on here.

lemuet

960x540@24fps is maximum for continuous shooting at the moment, it is not possible to go higher regardless of card speed. Well, you can set lower fps to go a bit higher resolution if what you are planning to shoot does not have much movement or if it's a look you are going for and if you can work with short clips.

Personally after doing my own tests (nothing scientific, just random test shots), I really like the "look" it has but I would say generally there are more disadvantages at this point for shooting a "real" project using RAW on 550d. It's a lot of fun and quite amazing what is possible to do in terms of color grading but there are a lot of things to consider:

I don't know the exact factor, but there is MAJOR crop, it looks like 2x to me, so you have to consider which lenses you plan on using because your wide angle lens definitely won't be wide angle anymore ;). Basically (as I understand it), the 960x540 is cropped area in center of censor, rather than having full censor image resized to fit the resolution (ie: unlike shooting 1080p vs 720p h264). So when using Live view you will see cropmarks in center of image showing you where image will be cropped (very small).

The 960x540 resolution actually looks surprisingly good when blown up to 1080p, but of course it can't be as sharp as real 1080p and there can be a lot of aliasing, so you have to keep that in mind depending on your shooting locations and what is seen in your shots (ie: telephone lines will look very aliased).

It is possible to see clip playback in camera but I think it's very beta at the moment, video plays in b/w and is slowmo.

Then there is the RAW workflow, there is a lot of posts in this thread and many others about it, you will have to do some research there. So far I only tested using trial version of GingerHDR which allows me to import and edit raw clips in Premiere/AE directly without converting. It's a bit pricy for me because I have no interest in HDR itself which is the main point of that plugin, so I don't think I'm going to buy it once trial runs out.

As for card speed I have the SandDisk Extreme 32gb@45mb/s and it works without any problems. I'm not sure the 30mb/s version will be fast enough for continuous shooting, you will have to test and see for yourself. Also keep in mind that 16gb is going to fill up very quickly ;)

Hmm, okay that is all I can think of for now. Personally I find it very interesting to experiment with but there are too many things that could go wrong during a shoot to be worth it IMO, especially on a shoot with actors where there is a need for multiple takes and such. The low resolution, regardless of sharpening you can do and color grading, still won't be as sharp at real 1080p and will be obvious, ie: I would not shoot a commercial that way! I would (and will) use it for more "artsy" projects that I do for myself. To me it looks like something between 8mm and 16mm film, interestingly enough when raising exposure in post adds to this illusion because the iso noise is quite big, almost 8mm grain style. Black and white + blown up to 1080p + additional film grain looks very lovely to me :)

In the end it mostly makes me frustrated that I don't have money for the 5D Mark III, hehe. But still, I'm going to have a lot of fun with it!

Good luck!

keba

Quote from: David J. Fulde on August 31, 2013, 05:26:47 PM
Son of a Batch has dual ISO support :)
It'll be very kind of you for providing the hyperlink, Many Thanks.



telecastDaveRI

Quote from: keba on August 31, 2013, 05:08:52 PM
Any one successfully shots dual iso video and then post processing OK? mine case after download mk11174 cr2hdr and raw2dng file, dual iso raw video file still interlaced after using raw2dng (drag and drop method)

any methods that work for our beloved 550D? (i'm try to use alex method: using his raw2dng first and then cr2hdr but bad result in the end)

I'm having a different issue. What settings are you using. My issue isnt a matter of they not becoming....er....un-interlaced. I just keep getting a messaged that the footage doesnt appear to be interlaced, and after reviewing it....it isn't. I'm shooting raw video and choosing the dual ISO option. I must be overlooking something.

EDIT: despite what it says, it's working now! I reviewed the image before and after and it definitely went from interlaced to a "useable" video/image sequence! awesome stuff!

NedB

@telecastDaveRI: Would you mind telling us exactly what ML you're using and also what cr2hdr.exe and raw2dng.exe (links if you have them)? I had an experience similar to yours where I thought it didn't work and then all of a sudden I thought, "Oh, yes it did". So I put dual-iso aside for a few days, hoping it would become clear what the issue was. If you'd tell us exactly how you got your results, I'll try to reproduce and then report back. Thanks in advance and cheers!

Edit: Oh, and if you don't mind, what dual-iso settings/resolution/etc. Just to eliminate other causes of "failure"...
550D - Kit Lens | EF 50mm f/1.8 | Zacuto Z-Finder Pro 2.5x | SanDisk ExtremePro 95mb/s | Tascam DR-100MkII

keba

Quote from: telecastDaveRI on September 01, 2013, 10:47:35 AM
I'm having a different issue. What settings are you using. My issue isnt a matter of they not becoming....er....un-interlaced. I just keep getting a messaged that the footage doesnt appear to be interlaced, and after reviewing it....it isn't. I'm shooting raw video and choosing the dual ISO option. I must be overlooking something.

EDIT: despite what it says, it's working now! I reviewed the image before and after and it definitely went from interlaced to a "useable" video/image sequence! awesome stuff!
Dear telecastDaveRI,
I do have same request as NedB. Hope that you can share a bit about your success. Thanks!

BTW, while recording using live view i can zoom 5x but 10x make my camera crash immediately, so how can we do the proper focus without zoom in and how to back to normal view after 5x zoom (as above 10x crash)

Khayam

Quote from: lemuet on September 01, 2013, 03:37:52 AM
960x540@24fps is maximum for continuous shooting at the moment, it is not possible to go higher regardless of card speed. Well, you can set lower fps to go a bit higher resolution if what you are planning to shoot does not have much movement or if it's a look you are going for and if you can work with short clips.

[...]

Good luck!

Thanks mate, that's a lot of useful info. The crop factor thing seems to be the most annoying for me. I like wide angle shots and I bought a Tokina 116 for that. The google doc doesn't make mention of the cropping factor in continuous recording. I'll try and check that by myself.

This is just a small project with friends, no real actors or crew so it's not that much of a problem if things go wrong. I like what you're saying about the footage looking like 8mm film and I'm definitely checking this thing up asap.

Rewind

QuoteBTW, while recording using live view i can zoom 5x but 10x make my camera crash immediately, so how can we do the proper focus without zoom in and how to back to normal view after 5x zoom (as above 10x crash)

Just go to Prefs — LiveView zoom tweaks, and switch the x10 off.

telecastDaveRI

hello guys, I'll be out for the day, but now I am getting interlaced footage no problem. I just did a quick test before I am walking out the door.
I choose alternate lines (it's a setting under dual iso...I dont have my camera in front of me)
but now I am having issues with it converting!! I dropped the raw into raw2dng, and then from there I moved it over to the the cr2hdr_exp.exe and nothing happened! (a DOS window flashed, and disappeared)

When I get home and play with it some more I will provide the links and any success I have.

EDIT: to keep things organized, I had it in a folder within a folder. I then moved the dngs to the root folder and they converted!! The thing is....now, they are no longer interlaced. What I personally would like to test is if the ISO is actually having an impact or if I am just interlacing and deinterlacing "normal" raw footage :)

telecastDaveRI

Rewind,

What module did you add so that it would crop everything but the area that was being recorded? (everything else was black)
That was useful :)

Was that you that compiled the release that included that?

Rewind

QuoteWas that you that compiled the release that included that?

Yes, I've just added a couple of figures to Pravdomil's source to get more usable resolutions like 1200:
https://bitbucket.org/pravdomil/magic-lantern-hack/commits/all
and compiled it.

Here is the raw_rec

dlrpgmsvc

Hi folks !

It will be useful if you can share all of your testings about raw video recordings data and card speeds here: http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=8000.msg72051#msg72051

So this thread will not bloat !  ;D

Select the first links about the testings ! Many thanks !  ;)
If you think it's impossible, you have lost beforehand

dlrpgmsvc

Quote from: kpn on August 30, 2013, 06:51:09 PM
I did some comparison shots

H264 0.1x  1920x1080 16:9
http://i.imgur.com/r0hyb3xh.jpg
H264 1.3x  1920x1080 16:9
http://i.imgur.com/MXH8PBzh.jpg
H264 3.0x  1920x1080 16:9 cropped to 2.35:1
http://i.imgur.com/jGHDmvR.jpg

RAW 2.35:1 / 1152x490
http://i.imgur.com/sXCT4rk.jpg
RAW 2.35:1 / 1152x490 stretched to 2539x1080
http://i.imgur.com/ICh2yMU.jpg

There's no doubt which one looks the best :) RAW is so much sharper and natural looking, also having the ability to edit it in Camera RAW is just unbelievable and it upscales nicely.

VERY interesting ! Many thanks ! Can you tell what software and parameters inside it you used to stretch the last image ? Many thanks !
Also: what means 0.1x - 1.3x and 3.0x ? Zoom factors of the lens or the "quality factor booster" of h264 magic lantern ? Or what else ?
If you think it's impossible, you have lost beforehand

telecastDaveRI

Quote from: NedB on September 01, 2013, 11:49:37 AM
@telecastDaveRI: Would you mind telling us exactly what ML you're using and also what cr2hdr.exe and raw2dng.exe (links if you have them)? I had an experience similar to yours where I thought it didn't work and then all of a sudden I thought, "Oh, yes it did". So I put dual-iso aside for a few days, hoping it would become clear what the issue was. If you'd tell us exactly how you got your results, I'll try to reproduce and then report back. Thanks in advance and cheers!

Edit: Oh, and if you don't mind, what dual-iso settings/resolution/etc. Just to eliminate other causes of "failure"...

I tried both the cr2hdr.exe and cr2hdr_exp.exe (the former is in the first post on the "dual ISO- massive..." forum.) and the raw2dng listed under this forum, and now I am getting interlaced footage, but no matter what, the cd2hdr doesnt recognize it as interlaced and nothing changes. I had my settings at 100/1600 and 1200 frame size at a 3:1 aspect ratio, just to test. The other night, I took some footage and I was successful, but I cant recreate it. Anyone else having success with dual iso and raw? I'm going to keep testing today.

EDIT: popping the footage in After Effects and de-interlacing there works just fine. Still curious if I am missing something.

NedB

@telecastDaveRI: For our "low-information" readers and noobs, we should probably avoid calling Dual-ISO footage "interlaced", although I certainly know what you mean. If you are shooting Dual-ISO correctly (I mean, maybe not optimally, but getting footage where alternating lines have different ISO values), the individual frames look "interlaced", except that the two sets of lines are of course not separated in time by a half a frame, like NTSC or PAL interlaced footage. On the other hand, you can't "de-interlace" this footage in After Effects, because it isn't "interlaced", it's just Dual-ISO, which is a completely different concept. What you are seeing as successfully "de-interlaced" footage in AE is just a result which eliminates or blends alternating lines to make the individual frames look "smooth". But what a1ex does in his dual-iso software (originally an updated version of raw2dng.exe, but recently he is suggesting using cr2hdr.exe) is a fairly complicated mix of interpolation, estimation, prediction,etc., which attempts to combine the best pixels from the alternating-line footage in order to give you an image with an increased dynamic range. I can't stress it enough: though the dual-iso footage looks "interlaced", it is NOT interlaced in the true sense of the word. For what it's worth, I still can't figure out how to do the second step of a1ex's suggested dual-iso video workflow, that is, to "drag-and-drop" the .dng files on top of the cr2hdr.exe executable. When I do that, nothing seems to happen. When I open a command line, navigate to the location of cr2hdr.exe, and run it with a command like "cr2hdr.exe thingy.dng", where "thingy.dng" is one frame from some dual-iso footage, then sometimes this seems to work and produce a frame which no longer looks, um..."interlaced". But sometimes not, and this is obviously not a workable solution if your dual-iso footage contains hundreds or thousands of frames.

I guess we're both waiting for someone to chime in who has this working reliably (on a PC, I might add). It's fun to play with but I wouldn't want to use dual-iso unless I had a situation where I had to, as the resulting aliasing issues make it hard for me to accept the resulting images, noise-free (or close to it) though they may be. Cheers!
550D - Kit Lens | EF 50mm f/1.8 | Zacuto Z-Finder Pro 2.5x | SanDisk ExtremePro 95mb/s | Tascam DR-100MkII

telecastDaveRI

Quote from: NedB on September 02, 2013, 09:56:10 PM
@telecastDaveRI: For our "low-information" readers and noobs, we should probably avoid calling Dual-ISO footage "interlaced", although I certainly know what you mean. If you are shooting Dual-ISO correctly (I mean, maybe not optimally, but getting footage where alternating lines have different ISO values), the individual frames look "interlaced", except that the two sets of lines are of course not separated in time by a half a frame, like NTSC or PAL interlaced footage. On the other hand, you can't "de-interlace" this footage in After Effects, because it isn't "interlaced", it's just Dual-ISO, which is a completely different concept. What you are seeing as successfully "de-interlaced" footage in AE is just a result which eliminates or blends alternating lines to make the individual frames look "smooth". But what a1ex does in his dual-iso software (originally an updated version of raw2dng.exe, but recently he is suggesting using cr2hdr.exe) is a fairly complicated mix of interpolation, estimation, prediction,etc., which attempts to combine the best pixels from the alternating-line footage in order to give you an image with an increased dynamic range. I can't stress it enough: though the dual-iso footage looks "interlaced", it is NOT interlaced in the true sense of the word. For what it's worth, I still can't figure out how to do the second step of a1ex's suggested dual-iso video workflow, that is, to "drag-and-drop" the .dng files on top of the cr2hdr.exe executable. When I do that, nothing seems to happen. When I open a command line, navigate to the location of cr2hdr.exe, and run it with a command like "cr2hdr.exe thingy.dng", where "thingy.dng" is one frame from some dual-iso footage, then sometimes this seems to work and produce a frame which no longer looks, um..."interlaced". But sometimes not, and this is obviously not a workable solution if your dual-iso footage contains hundreds or thousands of frames.

I guess we're both waiting for someone to chime in who has this working reliably (on a PC, I might add). It's fun to play with but I wouldn't want to use dual-iso unless I had a situation where I had to, as the resulting aliasing issues make it hard for me to accept the resulting images, noise-free (or close to it) though they may be. Cheers!

NedB, you are absolutely right with everything that you are saying. Yes, all After Effects is doing is blurring the "lines" a  little and that's not really accomplishing anything. As far as the problem that you have with the nothing happening, do you have the program and all the dngs in the same folder? I have been able to do it every time, but for me, nothing appears to happen after I run the program and review the footage. If you havent been keeping the program and files in the same folder, and try that soon -  and it works, I'd like to see how well you make out on any future tests.

kpn

Quote from: dlrpgmsvc on September 02, 2013, 03:44:19 PM
VERY interesting ! Many thanks ! Can you tell what software and parameters inside it you used to stretch the last image ? Many thanks !
Also: what means 0.1x - 1.3x and 3.0x ? Zoom factors of the lens or the "quality factor booster" of h264 magic lantern ? Or what else ?

Thanks! I used Instant HD to stretch the last image. But it doesn't make a huge difference, just stretching a composition in AE does the trick.
You're right, 0.1x etc. is the bitrate of h264 in ML. I noticed that if I don't go over ISO 800 I can film on 3.0x without stopping. And it does make a difference.
I'll make some more tests and add it to this post in a while.

dlrpgmsvc

Quote from: kpn on September 03, 2013, 10:33:45 AM
Thanks! I used Instant HD to stretch the last image. But it doesn't make a huge difference, just stretching a composition in AE does the trick.
You're right, 0.1x etc. is the bitrate of h264 in ML. I noticed that if I don't go over ISO 800 I can film on 3.0x without stopping. And it does make a difference.
I'll make some more tests and add it to this post in a while.

Great ! I'm keeping an interesting ML directory, where we can keep together all our tests. Go here and then select the first item (video tests) and then begin contributing ! I also inserted this tests you made ! I hope you like the idea ! --> http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=8000.msg72051#msg72051
If you think it's impossible, you have lost beforehand

mine85

First off big thanks to all dealing with this tremendous piece of software. Y'all are Godsent.
Now, I've followed all the steps in the Dual IOS pipeline (Convert RAW -> DNG via raw2dng), drag the files to cr2hdr.
The resulting image seems underexposed after importing the sequence into After Effects.

One thing I noted during cr2hdr post process was this error in the console;

"black subtract didn't work"



Below are the settings used. Hope the info is sufficient;

Dual ISO: 100/1600
Dynamic Range Gained: 2.1 EV
Midtone overlapping: 8ev
Alternate frames only: OFF

Any suggestions are highly appreciated!  :)

Y.K
5d Mark III, 550d, EF 50mm f/1.8

telecastDaveRI

mk11174,

What is your workflow for the 550D for the dual ISO?
I saw the posts over at the dual ISO post and saw that the cr2hdr was just updated yesterday.
However, was that just to fix an issue with the 600D? Have you had success with the t2i? Are you just recording the video, converting to DNG, and then dragging into the application (cr2...)?

Any insight would be helpful. We aren't getting consistent results.

mk11174

Quote from: telecastDaveRI on September 04, 2013, 04:27:13 AM
mk11174,

What is your workflow for the 550D for the dual ISO?
I saw the posts over at the dual ISO post and saw that the cr2hdr was just updated yesterday.
However, was that just to fix an issue with the 600D? Have you had success with the t2i? Are you just recording the video, converting to DNG, and then dragging into the application (cr2...)?

Any insight would be helpful. We aren't getting consistent results.
I just use the RAW2DNG.exe for windows to extract the RAW file then drag and drop the DNG files onto the CR2HDR.exe file for windows and it merges the interlaced ISO DNG's into a normal looking DNG that you can adjust in Adobe Camera Raw but now with more dynamic range.

The only issue I ever had was it not converting the DNG when I dragged it onto the CR2HDR file, but I later found out it was because the CR2HDR file had to be in same folder as DNG files.

I guess if you getting bad results, it might just be to much of a dynamic range that your trying to achieve. Only time I ever had an issue.

The new CR2HDR file seems to work the same for my 600D and 550D. I have not really shot anything worth using Dual_ISO on though, I like the non Dual_ISO versions better for all the stuff I have shot so far just because I usually see alot of dead pixels with DUAL_ISO and also lots of artifacts around tree leaves in the distance and power lines but only if you get picky and look at them  at more then 100%.

It is a cool feature but really has to be the right type of scene to be useful. Maybe it works better for the higher end cams though.
500D/T1i  550D/T2i  600D/T3i  700D/T5i

telecastDaveRI

Quote from: mk11174 on September 04, 2013, 04:42:08 AM
I guess if you getting bad results, it might just be to much of a dynamic range that your trying to achieve. Only time I ever had an issue.

I wonder if this is MY issue. I've tried this at night within my house and the shadows may have been way too dark vs the light in the scene. Now that you mention it, I thought I read somewhere that someone had a similar issue with TOO much dynamic range.

Hmmm....may have to adjust my testing. Thanks for the reply. 

zuzukasuma

Quote from: mk11174 on September 04, 2013, 04:42:08 AM
Maybe it works better for the higher end cams though.

well, you're right, it is what it is. 550D is a cheap-old camera but 5D Mark III is the new master after 5D mark II. I think its wrong to wait same performance on entry level DSLRs.
in a complicated relationship with eos m.