15May Canon 5d mark III with 1080p Raw video thanks to Magic Lantern
A few days ago the Magic Lantern team announced the breakthrough of RAW video capture using the Canon 5d Mark III. The first announcement only offered the ability to record about 60 frames in DNG format. Although interesting, 2 seconds of shooting time isn’t very practical. A day later they announced a workaround that would allow data to bypass all of the processing and encoding which allows for much longer files. This allows the information to be written to the CF card in a .raw file which would be processed into DNG or Mjpeg on a computer in post. This new method requires a CF card with very high write speeds (80MB/s or above) and a lot of storage space (128GB will give you about 15 minutes).
I’ve been watching this unfold for a few days now and I must say that this is very interesting. The hack is still very early in it’s development and it seems there are still a lot of things to sort out.
So far it appears that audio isn’t captured during the process which is unfortunate but understandable. Also the workflow looks to be a bit on the complex side of things. The question I have is, will there be overheating issues? The sensor isn’t being abused by this hack (as far as I can tell). This is because the sensor is still streaming the exact same data to the buss as it did when the camera wasn’t hacked so that shouldn’t be a huge issue. But the data being streamed to the CF card slot is pretty demanding and i’m wondering how much heat will be generated by the components involved in writing data to the CF card.
As of right now I’m not brave enough to start testing my cameras, but I have started ordering a few 1000x 128GB CF cards in preparation for future testing. With something like this it’s best to wait a few weeks to see how things pan out.
If you feel like you just can’t wait here’s a pretty good guide on how to install, set everything up, and handle the work flow. Also be sure to donate to the guys at Magic Lantern for bring such amazing new features to market.
May 15th, 2013 at 6:58 pm
Thanks for posting this Deejay
I’m tempted to give this as hot and see if it will route to my Ninja 2…
May 15th, 2013 at 7:52 pm
I don’t think the hack will affect the HDMI output quality. Infact I think you have to downgrade the firmware to 1.1.3 to get the hack to work correctly.
May 15th, 2013 at 7:30 pm
A shot
May 15th, 2013 at 8:28 pm
I would love to hear a complete workflow example to see if this is even realistic. (Not that I have a 5DMk3…Darn!)
May 15th, 2013 at 11:16 pm
Computerbay 1000x 128gb CF cards seem not to be fast enough. Beter to us same brand, 32 or 64 gb.
May 16th, 2013 at 5:54 am
I have two of the 1000x Komputerbay cards on the way. I’ll run some tests once they show up and post the results.
May 16th, 2013 at 8:32 am
1000x speed cards not fast enough? I doubt that …
May 16th, 2013 at 9:17 am
A few people have reported slower then advertised speeds with a few of the 1000x cards. I read good things about the Komputerbay cards but it’s always good to run some speed tests.
May 17th, 2013 at 9:50 am
So I guess my question is should i spend my money on cf card or an atomos 2 recorder?
May 17th, 2013 at 11:03 am
I guess it depends on home much color grading you plan to do, because that’s it’s biggest advantage. I don’t think there is a huge advantage to the Ninja 2 in sharpness. On the other hand RAW seems to provide excellent sharpness and endless options for color grading, but the work flow is double or quadrupedal post possessing times, unless someone comes up with a good way to automate it.
Or if you can live with the footage you’re already getting, save the money for the next big thing.
May 17th, 2013 at 12:31 pm
Great advice! thanks
June 2nd, 2013 at 8:06 am
Deejay,
I am back again to ask some more advice. I have some money that i would like to reinvest in to camera gear, I have been saving up for an external recorder. Part of the purchase of the external recorder that i am looking forward to is having a monitor but do to the fact that there is not a huge improvement to video quality i have been thinking about buying a monitor like a small hd? i guess my question is it a better investment to just buy a monitor or spend a more money and buy the external recorder and use it for monitoring and recording?
May 18th, 2013 at 3:48 am
So do you think this might pave the way for 2.5 or even 3.5k video out of a mk iii in the future?