Canon 5D mark III now records RAW!

thats insane, however i feel canon may start to step in at some point to stop this if they can.

but for the 600d? how would that be possible? i thought it was more likely on the 7d than the 600d? i have the 600d so this would be a godsend, however i doubt that it would be possible with its capabilities, but lets hope and pray eh.
 
It seems like it's going to be relatively difficult to get Canon DSLRs recording raw for an extended period of time without exploding but if they get this up and running it would be awesome - the images out of it already look great.

I'd be happy with HD raw, never mind 2k, 3k+
 
...but for the 600d? how would that be possible? i thought it was more likely on the 7d than the 600d? i have the 600d so this would be a godsend, however i doubt that it would be possible with its capabilities, but lets hope and pray eh.

I also have a 600D. :)
About the 600D Andrew Reid wrote :

"Currently most of the action is being done on the 5D Mark III, once a reference version is finalised it will likely be ported to the 6D, 5D Mark II and even 600D. This is development code not finalised, not even Alpha yet. This is experimental code, just written."

It seems like it's going to be relatively difficult to get Canon DSLRs recording raw for an extended period of time without exploding but if they get this up and running it would be awesome - the images out of it already look great.

I'd be happy with HD raw, never mind 2k, 3k+

These cameras weren't designed to shoot like this so I suppose heating would be an issue but Andrew wrote :

"Is heat an issue? Well I don’t know yet – I haven’t shot with it for long enough or in a hot enough place. The card and camera are warmer than normal, but that is to be expected considering the huge data rates generated by raw. I don’t know what – if any – implications for camera life this hack will have, but the sensor is always doing a raw video output in live view mode so sensor heat shouldn’t be any more of an issue than it was with ALL-I H.264 video."

All of this seems too good to be true but I hope he's right... I want my 600D to shoot 1080p RAW. :)
 
I want my 600D to shoot 1080p RAW. :)
That'd be fine by me.
A full 2K might be NLE excessive for most one/two-man-show content producers.

Frankly, I'd like 1080p uncompressed on many more cameras since, as "Andrew" stated "... but the sensor is always doing a raw video output in live view mode so sensor heat shouldn’t be any more of an issue than it was with ALL-I H.264 video."
It'd be nice if an uncompressed option were available by other manufacturers.
 
This is huge for the $3249 Canon 5D mark III's image quality (and perhaps for low-end Canons as well). Very good news for current 5D Mark III shooters.

And, as Andrew says, this could be bad news for the $2995 Blackmagic BMCC (and for the $12,000 Canon 1D C).

Never thought I'd say this, but I'm going to have to start saving my nickels for a 5D MkIII :)

If they manage to implement this on the 5D Mark II that would mean that the technology to shoot RAW has been around for 5 years but Canon simply decided not to make it available. Let's see what happens in the next days...
 
Some caomparisons between RAW and h.264:

Example 1

Canon 5D RAW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OKNxFpyAX0

Canon 5D h.264
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvCRQ-haYYc


Example 2

Canon 5D RAW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHcZwMB5gKs

Canon 5D h.264
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CANqYdhx_U
 
If they manage to implement this on the 5D Mark II that would mean that the technology to shoot RAW has been around for 5 years but Canon simply decided not to make it available. Let's see what happens in the next days...

its always been available, but they wanted you to pay for it, also i believe it has something to do with licencing fees and classifications.

but if for the 600d we could record at least 30 seconds RAW in 1080p then thats good enough for me, I never shoot for that long when filming anyway.
 
I still wouldn't call it "available" - it looks like it's right around the corner but it's because of newer technology that's available. The reason RAW is hard is because it's processor intensive and needs ton of bandwidth. Even with the fastest cards put there, they're only able to record around 30 seconds before it runs out of buffer. It's also still not 1080p, rather an anamorphic 1920x800ish.

It's cool, but don't but a 5DmkIII just yet if your heart is set on raw video.

Also, from everything I've read a 5DmkII version is unlikely, as is a version for any of the Rebel cameras because of processor speed and data bandwidth internally. The pro series are designed for machine gun mode raw images where it'll record many images per second and that's what's making this possible. The rebel? Not so much.

Now, 720p for as long as you want it easy on the 5DmkIII and might be able to trickle down to the slower cameras.
 
I still wouldn't call it "available" - it looks like it's right around the corner but it's because of newer technology that's available. The reason RAW is hard is because it's processor intensive and needs ton of bandwidth. Even with the fastest cards put there, they're only able to record around 30 seconds before it runs out of buffer. It's also still not 1080p, rather an anamorphic 1920x800ish.

It's cool, but don't but a 5DmkIII just yet if your heart is set on raw video.

Also, from everything I've read a 5DmkII version is unlikely, as is a version for any of the Rebel cameras because of processor speed and data bandwidth internally. The pro series are designed for machine gun mode raw images where it'll record many images per second and that's what's making this possible. The rebel? Not so much.

Now, 720p for as long as you want it easy on the 5DmkIII and might be able to trickle down to the slower cameras.

It's working in 1080p and even 1920x1280 24p. Higher resolutions still have some drop frames. Looks promising.
 
The other factor in terms of the sheer speed needed for this kind of thing is the 5D can record to CF cards which are a hell of a lot faster than SD cards used in the Rebel/(x)00D series.
 
Screenshot Comp Between 1080p H.264 Compression & RAW

The comparison works best if you pull up both images on two different tabs and then just toggle between them. (A couple of CTRL+"+" key hits might help.)

H.264: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-...Mk%20III%20-%20Compressed%20Video%20Still.jpg

RAW: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-...20Canon%205D%20Mk%20III%20-%201080p%20RAW.jpg

FWIW, while noticeable, the detail difference is great but the underlying issue of dealing with "shifting blocks" when rendering subtle color gradations HAS NOT been resolved with the increased resolution. :grrr:

While the car is still in the garage look at the red hood, full screen, 1080p.
In BOTH the compressed and the RAW there's still a lot of that blocky jumping around junk.

2013%252005%252013%2520Canon%25205D%2520Mk%2520III%2520-%2520Compressed%2520Video%2520Still.jpg


2013%252005%252013%2520Canon%25205D%2520Mk%2520III%2520-%25201080p%2520RAW.jpg



Screenshot @ ~0:03 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvCRQ-haYYc

Screen shot @ ~ 0:37 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OKNxFpyAX0
 
Last edited:
Something tells me that people are making this a big deal but in couple of months nobody is actually going to use except maybe for certain shots .

Something tells me that the close this gets to some sort of release, the more and more we're going to hear that ridiculous phrase 'game changer' ;)

If this does happen on some sort of reasonably useable level though, it's a pretty big deal for the DSLR kids (and let's face it - they're the most vocal on the internet ;))
 
FWIW, while noticeable, the detail difference is great but the underlying issue of dealing with "shifting blocks" when rendering subtle color gradations HAS NOT been resolved with the increased resolution. :grrr:

While the car is still in the garage look at the red hood, full screen, 1080p.
In BOTH the compressed and the RAW there's still a lot of that blocky jumping around junk.

Wait, are you comparing videos downloaded from youtube? Youtube compression is the cause of the "blocks" you mention. Look at the available raw files, they're clean. That's for sure, macroblocks aren't an issue anymore.

Dng frame:
http://www.eoshd.com/uploads/ml/1_30.DNG.zip

This video was encoded to h.264 and uploaded to vimeo, download the original. Even after some compression the quality is amazing.
https://vimeo.com/66033769#comment_9271164
 
Wait, are you comparing videos downloaded from youtube? Youtube compression is the cause of the "blocks" you mention. Look at the available raw files, they're clean. That's for sure, macroblocks aren't an issue anymore.
Yes I did.
Didn't know YT compressed videos since I've seen some HD vids on there that weren't.

How do I look at the RAW files? :)
 
Yes I did.
Didn't know YT compressed videos since I've seen some HD vids on there that weren't.

How do I look at the RAW files? :)

All the videos on youtube are compressed, maybe it's not noticeable in some but they all are. The download option in vimeo is not compressed, that's why I posted the link (but was compressed to h.264 before upload).

You can view the RAW dng file in photoshop or after effects.
 
Two more videos in 1080p RAW...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcVmaS2HK3A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DxCzTurZnU&list=UUU4ROkGm6YrwW3epqGeMFBA&index=1
 
Back
Top