APS-C crop mode on a 5D mkiii

[bluefish]

I know this request has come up many times, but the only true thread I could find after almost an hour of searching was almost a year old and was quickly hijacked by those wanting a 3X crop mode, which I understand has now been implemented (great!). Apologies if this is kicking a dead horse...

some reasons for an APS-C crop mode on the 5D mkiii:

1. there are NO Canons yet that can do 1920x1080 at 24fps in Raw at an APS-C sensor size, yes?

2. this will allow maximum width of field-of-view on APS-C lenses without vignetting, so people with APS-C lenses can use them as we always have

3. those of us who started in 35mm motion picture shooting (me, for example) think in APS-C/Super 35mm lens mm terms, so it makes the transition much easier

4. a nice balance between workable depth of field and soft focus.  for me it is much easier to pull my own focus with APS-C than with Full Frame

5. it would be fantastic to have a Raw-capable camera (as opposed to Nikon) that can switch between the beauty of Full Frame and the practicality of APS-C


I am planning to purchase a 5D mkiii in the next month, probably on Black Friday.  what finally pushed me to the purchase stage is the Magic Lantern Raw release... fantastic job, ML folks!!!

I would much prefer the 5D mkiii over, for example, the BMCC because of:

1. better and faster software developers (mostly meaning you ML folks) and much better quality hardware (Canon)

2. i prefer the larger chip size (though my ultimate preference would be APS-C and even better still being able to switch)

3. the ability to shoot stills, particularly on a fantastic camera

Thanks,
Scott

[1%]

1. there are NO Canons yet that can do 1920x1080 at 24fps in Raw at an APS-C sensor size, yes?

There aren't? 50D and 7D and probably 5DII should.

[bluefish]

There aren't? 50D and 7D and probably 5DII should.

No, I don't think so.  check out the current specs in Raw:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgQ2MOkAZTFHdFFIcFp1d0R5TzVPTVJXOEVyUndteGc#gid=5

1548x1058 for the 50D, and for the 7D it just says "can record FullHD only when also recording H.264".  I'm not clear on what that 'also' means.

and the 5D mkii isn't an APS-C camera.

[bnvm]

Sorry but I don't think it is possible to record that size at 1920. For raw there are only 2 options FF which is a data stream 1920 pixels wide reading every 3rd pixel from the sensor or 3x crop which is 3584 pixels wide without any pixel skipping.

In FF mode you can have just about any crop factor, 1.0 or larger, you want but you crop out resolution, there is no way to maintain 1920 wide. In crop mode your minimum crop factor is 1.6 so you can only have larger crop factors from there but again you crop away resolution.

3X Crop
3854x1320 = 2.72 aspect ratio = 22.4 mm film back (this is almost 190 MB/s so not very long record times)
2346x1320 = 1.78 aspect ratio = 14.7 mm film back (this one is not continuous recording either)
1920x1080 = 1.78 aspect ratio = 12 mm film back (continuous recording)

FF
Any aps-c size you want but you cannot have 1920 wide.


Thats all.

[bluefish]

Sorry but I don't think it is possible to record that size at 1920. For raw there are only 2 options FF which is a data stream 1920 pixels wide reading every 3rd pixel from the sensor or 3x crop which is 3584 pixels wide without any pixel skipping.

In FF mode you can have just about any crop factor, 1.0 or larger, you want but you crop out resolution, there is no way to maintain 1920 wide. In crop mode your minimum crop factor is 1.6 so you can only have larger crop factors from there but again you crop away resolution.

FF
Any aps-c size you want but you cannot have 1920 wide.

you're obviously very knowledgeable but I'll wait for a reply from a Magic Lantern team member before considering my question answered...

some thoughts:

1. by your own logic, it seems that there's the chance that reading only every other pixel would result in something close to APS-C 1920x1080.  i'm not needing the exact size of APS-C, just in the ballpark.

2. i wasn't aware that the normal mode of shooting with the 5D is as a result of only every 3rd pixel being read.  in fact the articles i read at the release of the 5D mkiii claimed that it uses software downsampling vs. the line skipping of the 5D mkii.  but perhaps the signal is only clean if the downsampling is done in multiples of the resolution of the chip?  or am I mistaken altogether?

3. an APS-C-ish crop mode would have to be finished unto itself rather than requiring post work in order to be fully useful... much of the professional work that I've done requires the video to be completed or nearly so at the finish of shooting.  the producers download the footage to an HD (or, in some occasions, borrow the CF/SD cards) and are not seen again until the next job.

Thanks

[1%]

1548x1058 for the 50D, and for the 7D it just says "can record FullHD only when also recording H.264".  I'm not clear on what that 'also' means.

Not like I have cameras in hand or anything 

Zoom mode is 1:1 and bigger than 2k on both of these cameras. In non zoom, 50D is like above and 7D is like 17XX*1152..

5DIII "software downsampling" sounds like hogwash... they all appear to do it the same way. Line skipping is done in 1x "full HD" size and not done (as much?) in 5x/10x. 5DIII just has different elements in front of the sensor that reduce moire (like built in VAF)... 6D FW is almost exactly 5DIII firmware yet its full of moire.

Just to add... your H264 was never 1920 either but scaled from the 1x size.

[bluefish]

I'm also going to assume that this feature might be possible as it isn't listed on the "Features that are NOT possible: Please don't request them" list. 

[bnvm]

you're obviously very knowledgeable but I'll wait for a reply from a Magic Lantern team member before considering my question answered...

some thoughts:

1. by your own logic, it seems that there's the chance that reading only every other pixel would result in something close to APS-C 1920x1080.  i'm not needing the exact size of APS-C, just in the ballpark.

2. i wasn't aware that the normal mode of shooting with the 5D is as a result of only every 3rd pixel being read.  in fact the articles i read at the release of the 5D mkiii claimed that it uses software downsampling vs. the line skipping of the 5D mkii.  but perhaps the signal is only clean if the downsampling is done in multiples of the resolution of the chip?  or am I mistaken altogether?

3. an APS-C-ish crop mode would have to be finished unto itself rather than requiring post work in order to be fully useful... much of the professional work that I've done requires the video to be completed or nearly so at the finish of shooting.  the producers download the footage to an HD (or, in some occasions, borrow the CF/SD cards) and are not seen again until the next job.

Thanks

1.) Every other pixel is not currently possible FF since the data stream that gets sent is already every third and the ML dev's have not found any way to change that.

2.) As others stated the MKIII pixel/line skips just like the MKII it just has a built in VAF rather than needing to by one like the MKII. The canon marketing team tends to stretch the truth a bit.

3.) Ok, the only thing that would get you even close is shooting in RAW and that always requires post processing work. ML cannot do anything to the size of H.264 at the moment. Just I case that wasn't clear.

Who knows what the future my bring, raw video was impossible a year ago.

[bluefish]

1.) Every other pixel is not currently possible FF since the data stream that gets sent is already every third and the ML dev's have not found any way to change that.

3.) Ok, the only thing that would get you even close is shooting in RAW and that always requires post processing work. ML cannot do anything to the size of H.264 at the moment. Just I case that wasn't clear.

Who knows what the future my bring, raw video was impossible a year ago.

1.) not wanting every other pixel in FF, but rather in an APS-C-ish crop.  but I understand this may still not be possible.  or did you mean in a Full-Frame camera?

2.) i would still be very happy to have a Raw APS-C capability, which would be quite helpful in my feature work.  but of course APS-C with everything would be ideal.

I guess this hasn't been added to the "can't do" list since there's still a slim chance.  but thanks for clearing things up!

[bnvm]

Every other pixel is probably not possible in crop mode either as it would require the cpu to process the data before writing to the card and it is not fast enough to do so. There were attempts to convert the raw to 10 or 12 bit to save space but the cpu was no match for the task.