50D Raw video

[Roman]

Not really, if the focus isnt changing through the shot.

It's just that the above is the quickest method.

 (I have a lilliput monitor but dont use it if I can help it)

[araucaria]

A quick test, worst case scenario for me, high DR and very fine detail and shot with a pretty bad 28-70 canon 3.5-4.5 at f9 (waiting for nikkon adapter). I got a lot of aliasing. I made some slides which turned out to be horrible but at least you can see the movement which induces aliasing.
1592x636 1:1 mode, build May 28th. Had to shoot in this low resolution as I'm still stuck with some old 4gb 32mb/s card.

Workflow. raw2dng->AfterEffects->h264 (I tried to compile the compositions and use them in PremierePro but I was getting strange speed jumps)

I fixed the alisasing with defringe option in ACR and sometimes with NR ,color 100, colordetail 0, although you have to be careful not to kill your colors.

[rockfallfilms]

You might notice in some of the clips (

) a slight jump, which looks similar to a dropped frame. 

I didn't notice the magenta blips in the camera display, but when hooked up to a SmallHD HDMI external monitor, I saw the attached frames.  Not consistent and sometimes 1, but usually not more than 3 in a 30-second span.

Happened with both 16:9 at 1600 using all the recommended settings as well as 3:2 at 1600.  Pretty consistent and roughly 90% of my RAW files have them. 

Examples:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/operationstarfish/8993240548/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/operationstarfish/8993241174/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/operationstarfish/8993241934/

I get this with a monitor connected too.

[Andy600]

Hi guys,
Firstly, @GregoryOfManhatten - Excellent work on your latest (Unified) build. I did receive your email and I'll update the first post to reflect developments. Sorry I couldn't do it sooner but I've had a very tough week at work. (UPDATE: First post now updated)

I finally got my CF cards earlier this week and had about 10 mins to try them out. My Komputerbay 64gb was DOA (neither the camera or card reader would recognize it) so that's gone back and my temporary solution of a Kingston 600x could only manage 40-45MB/s in-camera and only 61MB/s with Crystalmark on a Transcend USB3 reader (http://www.transcend-info.com/products/Catlist.asp?modno=331). I would not recommend the Kingston cards for raw video but they are great value for H.264.


Obviously I was a bit annoyed and impatient to wait another couple of weeks for a working Komputerbay card so I did some research yesterday and found that the Transcend 600x cards should do the job (90MB/s max write speed). I bought a 16gb card this morning and I'm happy to report it writes flawlessly up to 60-65MB/s in the 50d (2000x750 shoots continuous). The Transcend 1000x card looks like it will be even better but beware that you need at least the 32GB card or greater as the 16GB 1000x card is considerably slower than the 600x. If my replacement Komputerbay card has any issues I'll just stick to Transcend cards.

BTW I noticed a few posts about battery life when shooting raw video. If you purchased a 50d secondhand with batteries your should consider buying new ones. Look for replacements rated at least 1700mAh as they will last longer and charge faster than original Canon batteries. I recommend Phottix if you can get them.

I suppose I should go shoot something now 


p.s. @JulianH - No luck yet with finding a J9 but I'm looking

[LEVISDAVIS]

... Been processing footage in ACR... Adjusted the output setting from Screen to Glossy Paper... Final images had vertical streaks in the image... Thought it was associated with the camera's native recording. Discovered that it was not the issue when I processed footage via RawMagic (doesn't work properly with 50D and utilizing the current June 8 build). Anyway, had posted earlier that it was an inherent factor in a shooter's ability to capture greater bit depth and image resolution... Good thing for tests, right?

... The ETTR technique (exposure to the right) is really pushing the boundaries of dynamic range and image resolution. Just sort of hanging back and thinking about a fast work-flow post-production procedure and of course proper file spanning. (Note: have not shot over 4GB yet and need to test. It appears that other users have spanned files and yet others haven't.)

The quality of the footage is really driving my abilities as a shooter into a whole new light. I'm quite satisfied with how well the camera consistently responds scene after scene.

Thanks.

[John-Jo]

BTW I noticed a few posts about battery life when shooting raw video. If you purchased a 50d secondhand with batteries your should consider buying new ones. Look for replacements rated at least 1700mAh as they will last longer and charge faster than original Canon batteries. I recommend Phottix if you can get them.

Having battery issues myself. Just wondering what the average usage time was for the folks out there?
My first 2 canon batteries that arrived with the 50D were only lasting 2 mins and 10 mins.. so ordered a new (non canon) and it worked well for first day, but then the charger was saying full, but the camera said 1/3 and not enough to update firmware. I'm leaving it on charge for ages and seems to get a bit more from it, hoping to get the full icon like the first day. Have been counting to 5 before removing CF card also..

So, how long shooting time do you get from you batteries? Canon and others?
Thanks!

[rockfallfilms]

My batteries last about 30 mins but they came with the camera so are probably old. I've just ordered a couple of duracell replacements so I'll see how I get on with those.

[John-Jo]

My batteries last about 30 mins but they came with the camera so are probably old. I've just order a couple of duracell replacements so I'll see how I get on with those.

Sweet, thanks for that. I'm used to my 7D batteries going for ages! I have read somewhere that as 50D not designed for video, it will use a lot of power (live view etc)  All good though.

Got 2 more batteries on the way so will be sorted soon enough. Still would be good to get some more input. Anyone using NEW Canon batteries out there? How long you get out of them shooting RAW video?

[rockfallfilms]

What are people using to nail exposure, raw histogram? raw zebras?

What do the numbers in the red circle mean on the histogram?

[GregoryOfManhattan]

1. raw file format was refined slightly yesterday and some of the post processing tools need to be updated to use the latest raw2dng code so you may experience temporary issues with your favorite tool (as did those who tried rawmagic beta 3 yesterday which is better now that Thomas Worth released beta 4)

2. pink frames - may be related to the glitch in the matrix caused by these changes to raw
seem to be gone in a build i tested with this morning's code - 11GB without the pinkness (i.e. no pink glitchy frames as artiswar and others have posted).
(do get alIaSiNG which we will need to shoot around on the 50D)

[savale]

Sorry guys, less progress on this side. I guess my komputerbay 1000x 64gb is defective. I cannot get stable transfers using 2 different cardreaders (get IO timeouts) and in raw recording mode It suddenly stops recording / crashes during recording (while I have descent speed and just one star buffer)

[jakub]

Hello,

here is my my 50D RAW Video test:

Do you know how to get rid of the problem that sometimes exposure is automatically controlled by the camera itself?

[GregoryOfManhattan]

recovering footage with black borders.
for footage from older builds before we fixed the black borders on the raw frames, the "black point" is incorrect in resulting DNG files and it is difficult to process them.
if you want to use such shots, i would process them to 16bit tiff with gimp.org (cross platform) which has a slider on one of the color curve windows you can use to shift the black point then try out the batch tools to get it to process a directory full of tiff files.
on the mac you can also try RPP with the Black Point at some really large value, like 10.0

zoom mode for cinemascope -  known issues are covered in another thread.
 Topic: 1k 50D raw cinemascope difficult when LiveView not showing 2000x750 8/3
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=6082.msg44905#msg44905
framing is not correct
display is magenta (pink) no matter what Preview Mode you are in (auto, canon, ML Grayscale, or Hacked)

[Andy600]

Latest build working well for me but I think there may be an issue with the exposure warning message. I'm only using manual lenses so I'm not sure if this is relevant when using electronic lenses but when I see the over exposure warning and stop-down the over exposure warning increases by a stop (i.e. it's doing the opposite of what it should be doing). Can anyone else confirm?

[a1ex]

What exposure warning message?!

You have full manual exposure, right?

[rommex]

A quick test, worst case scenario for me, high DR and very fine detail and shot with a pretty bad 28-70 canon 3.5-4.5 at f9 (waiting for nikkon adapter). I got a lot of aliasing. I made some slides which turned out to be horrible but at least you can see the movement which induces aliasing.
1592x636 1:1 mode, build May 28th. Had to shoot in this low resolution as I'm still stuck with some old 4gb 32mb/s card.

Workflow. raw2dng->AfterEffects->h264 (I tried to compile the compositions and use them in PremierePro but I was getting strange speed jumps)

I fixed the alisasing with defringe option in ACR and sometimes with NR ,color 100, colordetail 0, although you have to be careful not to kill your colors.
...vimeo....

wow, this is AMAZING! thanks for showing this. I hope I will overcome my moire problems )

[Andy600]

@A1ex Yes, full manual. I'm seeing a black bar with 'preview over exposed by 0.5 EV'. If I stop down 1 stop it increases to 1.0 EV if I increase shutter speed it changes to 1.0 EV (sorry, meant if I change shutter speed the warning changes. If I stop down, the warning message remains at 0.5 EV)

[a1ex]

That happens if you ask for some exposure parameters that are out of range (usually if you have FPS override on, which limits shutter speeds a lot).

And... you are in photo mode.

[Andy600]

@a1ex - ah ok, I get it. Thanks! I have FPS override on. BTW, I'm curious to know how we can now have 2k width when DNGs were previously restricted to 1920? It shoots stable at 2000x750 up to 25fps for me

[a1ex]

See here: http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=6215

I'll restrict raw video to movie mode to avoid this kind of mistakes. The raw backend does behave differently in photo liveview, because... I'm assumming you are taking pictures in photo mode, not videos.

[Andy600]

I don't have video mode enabled (haven't actually tried H.264 on the 50d yet LOL). Will restricting it have any impact on the length of shots I can get? Photo mode seems very stable to me.

[a1ex]

You must enable it. In photo mode, most the raw stuff (white levels, histogram) behaves differently, it's optimized for getting a histogram that matches the CR2 pictures. For raw video, this can cause severe exposure issues.

In photo mode, you are not even getting the exposure values from menu (not even in expo override mode), you are just getting something with equivalent brightness (ExpSim). And white level on the raw files recorded in photo mode will be wrong.

[Andy600]

Well that's something i didn't know Thanks.

I assumed if it was working in photo mode then it was ok. I just did my first few shots 2000x750 and it's looking great although exposure wasn't exactly doing what the meters were telling me. I'll try again now with video mode enabled.

[artiswar]

1. raw file format was refined slightly yesterday and some of the post processing tools need to be updated to use the latest raw2dng code so you may experience temporary issues with your favorite tool (as did those who tried rawmagic beta 3 yesterday which is better now that Thomas Worth released beta 4)

2. pink frames - may be related to the glitch in the matrix caused by these changes to raw
seem to be gone in a build i tested with this morning's code - 11GB without the pinkness (i.e. no pink glitchy frames as artiswar and others have posted).
(do get alIaSiNG which we will need to shoot around on the 50D)

Exciting stuff. When should we see this trickle down to non developers? Still joining files in Terminal?

[JulianH]

Oops.. I've been working with Movie mode disabled as well! (explains why I couldn't really understand the way exposure worked in live view I guess) Thanks for the tip A1ex. Turning it on by default when raw rec is enabled makes sense!

Giving Auto ETTR a spin now. I'm working with a manual lens, the variables are iso and shutter speed. I can set a minimum shutter speed, but can't change the iso limits and it doesn't seem to go higher than 1600.

Is it possible to use AutoETTR with a fixed shutterspeed (and manual aperture)? Baiscally that would be auto iso, but still, that sounds the most practical to me for video.