5 616 × 3 744 DNG silent picture mode for film scanner

[Appelicious]

Hello to ML community,

I have recently started developing film. You might ask what i am doing on this forum? Well, as i want to control as many parameters as possible and that i want to get to the next step of digitalising the film i am now planning on building a film scanner.

I believe it could be achieved by syncing a capturing system (meaning a camera for example) with a source of light and the passing of the film. In order to get a sufficient quality i need to capture in RAW in a resolution at twice the one estimated in a 16mm film. Meaning 4K would be a good goal. 8K if it were to be adapted to 35mm.

It is kind of a time lapse that i want to use. My need to do this with ML is that after some 100 000 pictures the shutter breaks in any DSLR wich is approximately 1hour. So i need to do this in "Silent picture" mode. Unfortunately i seem to find that i can't make this happen with the full 5 616 × 3 744 definition of the sensor.

I am aware that the buffer is limited in capacity but i wouldn't need it to be faster than just a few frames per second.

Do you have any solution for this ?

thanks in advance 

nikos

[PressureFM]

As far as I am aware, you are limited to LiveView resolution, e.g. 1/3 the sensor size (1872 x 1258 pixels).

[Appelicious]

Yes. That is what i guessed from the information i could find.

But i am wandering if it couldn't be possible to develop the feature? Theoretically it should be possible for the hardware and the CF card to record at such speed the full definition and depth. what do you reckon? 

I am also thinking it could be an interesting feature if one decides to make a long term time lapse. I haven't seen anyone making time lapses spanning for example over 6months. But still you would want to do that with full quality available.

[Appelicious]

It is a bit like the RAW video feature is a selection of pixels within the full sensor cause it can't produce full resolution at 24fps. but should be able at 2 or 3 fps... no?

[Stedda]

If you read up on how RAW video came about you'll understand that the highest resolution you're going to get will be in crop mode and after that without some other breakthrough there's nothing more to get. Each camera is limited by buffer, card controller, and live view feed. DNG silent pictures are done in the same way from what I understand.

[12georgiadis]

I think the question is : can we go above the limit res raw video, for instance 2560 x 1320 (5DmkIII), even if we have 1 recorded frame every 10 sec, as the goal is scanning.

[poromaa]

I have the similar question. The current SilentPicture is 1880x1250, but I can record raw (just a few hundred frames at 2144 x 1076 in crop-mode. Can someone point me to the discussion behind the RAW function?

I can recall that one early version (or maybe the recent?) SilentPic was a cropped scan trough the whole sensor. I don't remember the resolution though. But to me, (with my absence of knowledge), it appears to be possible to sequentially scan the whole sensor and store the info in separate files, say every 1 minute without letting the mirror go down (like silent pic) and then just turn off the LCD meanwhile.

In post, one could stitch the images to one large etc...

[a1ex]

Yes, it can be fun for novice coders

[12georgiadis]

I'm very interested too if there is a way to have the full sensor recorded, without lock up the mirror, even if it's one minute per pic =) !

[1%]

Multi pic silent photos have to come back. You can get the whole sensor in 5x if you move the focus box and align in post.

[12georgiadis]

@ 1% :  Great ! I have a 7D. Which build I have to install to get the whole sensor in 5X ? I would like to test it. Thanks in advance

[Appelicious]

I think the question is : can we go above the limit res raw video, for instance 2560 x 1320 (5DmkIII), even if we have 1 recorded frame every 10 sec, as the goal is scanning.

That is the question. And without the mirror going down. Technically it would be like a normal timelapse but with control over the shutter. But is that a function that can exist in magic lantern? and if not would it be difficult to develop?

Furthermore it doesn't have to be limited to scanning and can be exploited in many different cinematic ways.

[engardeknave]

I never tried multi pic silent photos. I'm assuming this is a feature that existed but doesn't anymore. Was the camera doing the stitching?

A little OT, but it sounds like it would be possible to do huge (maybe 64 frame) full-res brackets without activating the shutter. And probably fast too.

[a1ex]

Stitching was done in post. The ugly part was the trial and error to figure out the offsets for a perfect stitch.

Now that we have hundreds of MB of RAM, it's easy to stitch in camera and save a single DNG. Only that somebody has to code it, and I consider it fairly easy and with limited use => I prefer to focus on more interesting stuff.

There is an enhancement that's a little harder: moving the zoom box quickly at every LiveView frame. On 5D3 you can cover the full FOV with 6 pictures, so at 30fps, that means a picture in 0.2 seconds. For 5D2 I believe it needs 12 pictures. The place to start researching this is http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/ADTG

And the ultimate goal is to sample a full-size image as if it were in LiveView. The places to start researching are http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/ADTG, www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=1915 and http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Register_Map, assumming you are already familiar with many of the camera internals. The best I could do was to reduce the vertical resolution in LiveView (and I've documented the registers needed for this).

[Appelicious]

I am looking into your threads to understand better what you suggest. Unfortunately i am just a cinematographer and do not have your abilities to code. Just so it can be clearer, the idea i intend to base my project on is the following :

http://vimeo.com/66781749

From what i could understand the guy behind the kinograph is having the same kind of trouble, being limited by 100 000 cycles of the shutter.

Does anyone feel like developing the feature?