Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Magic lantern... Dude.

Damn it... I didn't want to get into a debate as I am too busy... but it is out there now so be it :)
 
Talking about "exceptions" (like Jim - who is a "college dropout") - the Forbes list of richest people in the world is made up primarily of two kind of people - ones that were "born into" rich dynasties and the another type that is usually a self-made "college dropout" that started from virtually nothing but their dreams, vision and sheer determination, educated by life itself...

Just because you don't have a PhD it doesn't mean you aren't educated. I, for one, spend on average at least an hour each day to learn something new - whether it is about our craft, or even just looking up a Wiki explanation for a new word/terminology that I haven't encountered before...

Having said all that - there are two crucial factors that have absolutely nothing to do with education - intelligence and talent - neither of which can be "obtained" through any form of education, nor bought with money for that matter. You either have it, or you don't...

PS: Well said Ivan...

:sifone: Peter
 
Why this thread gets deviated always on this education vs practice thing...?

here are some comparisons between 5dmkIII, C300 and 1DC http://www.eoshd.com/content/10475/canon-1d-c-vs-5d-mark-iii-raw-and-c300-gh2-resolution-comparison

if this hack is going to hurt someone is going to be Canon's C-line - the 5d3raw, that little beast produces amazing images for its form factor. No doubt its going to become a player, no matter the whining from all the people who invested in much more expensive gear. For its size and weight the thing is amazing, fullstop.
 
I, like you Ivan, are a man of many hats... With little to no documentation to prove it... Bachelors in Art... That's it... However computer science, engineering, and physics were all along the way. I also play jazz with some educated Grammy winning folks, but didn't want to waste my money (come from a trailer park) on a music education that I would inadvertently learn on my own anyways.. (Before I go any further, music like many things is a lifetime pursuit, which one never masters)... Would I be a better musician with the degree? Absolutely... Would I be on this forum if I'd gotten my degree in music? Probably not. But... In my town, there are quite a few overly educated musicians my age that don't have the regular string of gigs I have... Why? Because while they were concentrating on getting their piece of paper I was playing solo instrumental music in Restaraunts. 4-5 nights a week.

Don't get me wrong.... There are many drawbacks to the path I've chosen.... I don't have the musical vocabulary that educated players have... Because I can't read music... I can comp chords from charts all day long, but... To learn melodies I have to listen to the song and internalize it... Then, and only then, can I attempt to play it.

That means that I don't get hired for "professional" band gigs... Unless its a group of musicians I've assembled...

Luckily... I'm a camera geek.

The fact of the matter is... Education does matter... How you get it determines how other people can use you.


it doesn't hurt my feelings that I'll never get hired in Nashville, new york, or LA for a studio/touring gig... I never set out to do it. I have friends in all three markets... While they are monster players... When I tell them the things I've been a part of and gotten to work on, their eyes light up... i've heard quite a few of them express a sadness associated with wishing they'd followed a different path.

Likewise... I'm quite sure that Hollywood won't come knocking on my door... Because I never walked the route to get there.

But... No matter what... Everyone on this forum has walked a different path to get right here... Sitting at their computer... Staring at their phone or tablet... Reading this thread on a forum dedicated to a tool that magically captures time... And allows us to manipulate it.

We all have one thing in common... We love cameras. Period.


the 5d magic lantern hack is amazing. Period.

will Hollywood use it? Nope.

will it be widely used elsewhere? Certainly.

Every day the magic lantern guys/gals are blowing my mind... As are the Red dudes/dudets... As are the Freefly family... As are reduser members conversational knowledge of all things awesome.

There really is no real debate here... Education matters... How and where we get it determines who will hire us... And for that matter, how much they will pay us.
 
jake blackstone said:
5D is a special camera with very unique look, that should be used sparingly, while carefully working around it's limitations. Once used correctly, it is capable of producing beautiful images, like these.
https://vimeo.com/61084566
https://vimeo.com/44031078
https://vimeo.com/29262251
Oh, BTW, all this was shot with crappy H264 recording. Think how much better, it would be, if it was RAW...
Click to expand...
Your second link calls to Arri Alexa not 5D. But 1st and 3rd it is.
 
Andrey B said:
Your second link calls to Arri Alexa not 5D. But 1st and 3rd it is.
Click to expand...

Actually, in that case, that proves my point even better. Camille is an amazing director, who shoots, edits and grades his own stuff. An overwhelming majority of his work is shot on 5D judging by his demo reel. I guess he likes the shallow depth of fuild:-) So, by occasionally using Alexa and some film (Maybelline) in place of the usual 5D he underscores my original point, that the camera is just a creative tool, when used correctly can produce stunning images, regardless of price or prestige. Having RAW capability on 5D is another tool in the tool belt.
 
william howell said:
There really is no real debate here... Education matters... How and where we get it determines who will hire us... And for that matter, how much they will pay us.
Click to expand...

Nobody is doubting that education matters, and yes there is no debate.

However it is only in how one choses to limit their dreams which will dictate how limited their skill set becomes. But the same cant be said for the reverse.
 
Last edited:
Ivan Kovax said:
In an hugely ironic twist of fate several A-List (along with non-A-list) universities in the United States and elsewhere have picked up on a slightly viral documentary film I shot in Fukushima recently and are actually using it to educate their students in Documentary/ Film class. Yeh, I may be below the line, but these same places are using my work to educate others on how to be above the line.
Click to expand...
:P :beer:
 
These Canon "raw video" talks starting from dslr video blogs are very misleading.

True raw data is preserved and unprocessed data from the sensor, not reduced by line skipped scaling and turned into oversharpened video-texture packaged into dng format. This "raw" naming convention creates an illusion of having a cheap solution on par with actual raw recording motion imaging cameras.

Based on the sensor readout and jello, likely unavoidable line skipping and finally quality of its motion rendition, quality which is not apparent when staring at a one frame of a motion imaging camera, it is obvious that this/these cameras cannot process motion imagery properly, even if the scaling was proper.

What would be interesting to see is 1080p .dng recording on C100, for example.
Not the greatest motion rendition but still noticably superior to DSLRs and with proper scaling from QuadHD and natural looking texture.
 
I guess the signal is coming from sensor, in any case, the only point to really count is the result we see in the footage. It is even funny I have to write it here. Other than that, it is what the ancient latins were used to say: verba volant... ;)
 
Hrvoje Simic said:
True raw data is preserved and unprocessed data from the sensor, not reduced by line skipped scaling and turned into oversharpened video-texture packaged into dng format.
Click to expand...

So by extension, are you implying that r3d's are not raw, because they are actually processed sensor data?
 
Aside the claim there's no line skipping on 5D3...
 
Ivan Kovax said:
So by extension, are you implying that r3d's are not raw, because they are actually processed sensor data?
Click to expand...


Every raw recording digital camera aimed at photography or cinematography markets makes some type of alteration to its raw signal path, whether it is related to a type of sensor readout and data combining, gain, bad pixel correction, noise reduction, or any other. These are all processes not controllable by the user but necessary to make the digital raw signal optimised before being recorded. They affect the final image in positive way with negligible repercussions and in that context "raw" naming and classification is more accurate and related debates less productive to a majority of camera users, as this raw actually records the most from the sensor with minimum loss of quality.

In the context of this classification and with a purpose of avoiding misleading and misinterpretations, a distinction should be made at a point where something named as "raw" fails to fully meet the purpose of a raw recording format, and what is recorded as "raw" has already had its quality greatly reduced.
 
Hrvoje,

Fair enough. Point taken. But for all intents and purposes most people doing the hack will be looking for increased colour and DR, which the hack provides, so for the sake of discussion, raw, despite inaccurate according to what you said, is close enough a term...

I haven't seen any video yet, but I am assuming if the skew is anything similar to that the h264 of the 5Dmk3 does currently, that people will be jumping all over this, jello or not.

Ivan
 
Last edited:
I think it's been established that there's no line skipping on the Mark III, just on-chip pixel binning, and the read out is actually raw data, unprocessed, and not even sRAW or something. The jello is still bad, though. But no worse than the Mark III normally, which has half the jello of the Mark II, which has been used on tons of reasonably large productions. So for what it's good for it's still good... only better (and a nightmare in post).

Why do people hate this so much? It's significantly better than the Mark III was to begin with and pretty clearly the best image out of any consumer dSLR. The colors look great. It's pretty cool and cheap.
 
Matt W. said:
Why do people hate this so much?
Click to expand...

Great question. I think it's because people don't understand technology... They think they do, but they don't. I think the real achievement here was that the Canon engineers built the hardware and the software "pipeline" that made this hack possible, not the hack itself. Although, the awesome thing is, they found it; without any documentation or help...
 
I think the engineers at Canon are happy about this...finding the full potential of the camera they designed
 
dio Zafi said:
I think the engineers at Canon are happy about this...finding the full potential of the camera they designed
Click to expand...

Cameras are like aircraft. The "operational limits" are far lower than the actual engineered system limits (Airbus anyone?)
That's because you can never desing a system that is 100%.
You may think you can, but then you take 20% off the specs, and you end up with a system which is 95% operational :D
 
Ivan Kovax said:
Fair enough. Point taken. But for all intents and purposes most people doing the hack will be looking for increased colour and DR, which the hack provides,
Click to expand...

DNG route used here removes compression artifacts, enables improved color performance and helps in parts of post. Its appeal is logical.
What it also does is swallow around 90 MB/s for 1080p which is not full quality 1080p, while revealing some picture deficiencies which compression can hide in some cases by reducing picture detail.

DR range utilization is a property of gamma curve, it is not dependent on .dng or raw formats. Which is why professional RGB recording video cameras allow more detailed gamma adjustments.
What .dng does here related to DR is allow gamma and exposure corrections after the shoot. H.264 itself does not limit recording the available DR of a camera, its utilization does.

Ivan Kovax said:
so for the sake of discussion, raw, despite inaccurate according to what you said, is close enough a term...
Click to expand...

Yes, in the context of one discussion between experienced motion imaging professionals it might be close enough, although this is closer to "uncompressed" than "raw", with poor quality scaling in mind.
It starts to present an issue when easily thrown around terminology, born on enthusiast blog, is perceived by people with less technical knowledge and accepted as generally attributable fact, inaccurately describing quality of motion imaging recording.

Which leads to yet another portion of spending time and energy on debunking internet myths and re-educating a client, prior the shoot or after being given the material in the post suite. Which in this case entails the talk about why this "raw" and that raw are not really the same and cannot achieve the same performance or be freed from same limitations. Despite being labeled the same somewhere on the internet. Then after explaining the drawbacks being asked to fix them in post.

One might also ponder over the notion of using the same terminology for labeling "the best you can get" and "the least you can get away with".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top