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Category: Canon EOS 5D Mark III

25 August 2016

Announcing the Canon 5D Mark IV

Written by Paul Moon

Canon’s true flagship camera has been its 5D series, and that’s the all-important theme, when it comes to assessing their next move into the Mark numbers of that lineage.  As a camera relied upon by probably more working professionals than any other, it has got to take good photos, in a weather-proof and durable body, even if it adds video features that keep pace with what’s going on in moving picture technology.

Today’s announcement of the new Canon 5D Mark IV brings at least one sigh of relief:  it shoots 4K video.  Of course!  But in some regard, this video upgrade is really just a re-housing of the great Cinema EOS 1D C, because the internal video recording codec is still limited to 8-bit 4:2:2.  At least it’s not the 8-bit 4:2:0 of the Sony a7 series, but even so, the marquee feature of the 5D series — its full-frame sensor — doesn’t get leveraged for video the way it does in, particularly, the Sony a7S II.  The gigantic crop factor of the Canon 5D Mark IV takes us right back to the constant guessing game when it comes to using full-frame lenses that cannot deliver — remember Metabones and its progeny of focal reducers?  Problem is, the Canon EF lens mount leaves no room for a focal reducer, because of the Canon body’s flange distance to the sensor.

But something in particular (already in this first hour) that all the blogs and media sources are avoiding is this extraordinary oversight:  no log recording!  Whatever the claimed specification of dynamic range, a camera’s true measure of latitude in video capture is its ability to shoot in log, requiring even just a minimal conversion to REC.709, etc., in post-production.  In 2016, log video capture is a bare minimum technical requirement.  I mean, even the sub-$1k Sony a6300 has got it.

But the theme remains as always:  this is primarily a stills camera.  And for that, it’s all good news:  a 30.4 megapixel CMOS sensor with high exposure latitude, Dual Pixel CMOS auto-focus and a new Dual Pixel RAW feature.  Also underestimated and finally arrived is GPS metadata recording, which is especially vital to the core 5D customer who engages in things like photojournalism and research (where the archival value of ascertaining the precise location of a photograph is invaluable:  I learned that using a simple point-and-shoot with GPS capability through this fascinating episode in geology).

But coming back to video, my experience shooting with a Mark III revealed two very specific shortcomings:  “soft” and “punchy” video, primarily caused by its anti-aliasing filter and default color profiles.  I did everything else I could:  uploaded the Technicolor profile to get the color space as flat as possible (angling to simulate log), and avoided shooting wide focal lengths for the usual reasons, then applying a sharpness boost in post.  Has the Mark IV gotten better at this?  The videos seem to suggest it, but of course they are demos meant to show the camera at its best (and naturally, 4K capture increases evident sharpness).

But it’s early, isn’t it?  Next come the reviews, and that’s where/when all’s revealed.  For quite a few shooters, though, the Mark IV is an automatic upgrade.  To that end, pre-orders are already available at B&H Photo and Video, and at Adorama, to name a couple.  I can think of a few people who will jump immediately, and when it comes to the most important value for working professionals — familiarity with an esteemed product line’s interface and behavior — today’s feature improvements are fantastic news and there’s no hesitation.

Ironically, I’m writing this in Cologne, Germany during a conference on film music called SoundTrack_Cologne, starting to see all the signs for Photokina going up around the city for next month’s big show.  The drama builds:  what’s next?

August 25, 2016 Canon EOS 5D Mark III, FocusPulling Original 1 Comment
21 March 2016

Atomos Shogun Flame/Ninja Flame, Say: HDR is Now

Written by Paul Moon

I remember the moment when I first got my Panasonic GH4, feeling amazed that it shot 4K without breaking the bank, but also:  freaked out!  It felt like the beginning of the end for me shooting HD, and sure enough, about a year later, I got fully converted.  My whole workflow now is just Ultra-HD (that’s a few insignificant horizontal pixels shy of cinema 4K resolution), even though I’m usually delivering output in HD.  So, it was one of those moments, of no turning back, 4K or bust, innocence lost.  Mixed emotions!

Today Atomos announces its Shogun Flame and Ninja Flame 4K HDR monitor/recorders.  Just like the GH4, you can call this another turning point, because Atomos is a company that makes things for everyone, not just rental houses and moneyed studios.  The Shogun Flame is up for pre-order now at $1,695, also the Ninja Flame at $1,295, and they’re both slated to ship March 28th, including a full kit of accessories in a hard case just like the launch of the original Shogun — but sooner.  Welcome to the front end of HDR.

flame products lowrez 72dpi

Unlike 4K resolution, which was an easy upgrade to grasp (just quadruple the dots of HD), high dynamic range (HDR) video is a much more complicated transition:  partly, because most of us already have it, and either we aren’t aware, or we’re confused about how to deliver it.  But words speak for themselves, and HDR is just what it says:  a higher range between the brightest and the darkest in your camera footage, generally 10 or more “stops.”  So, these days we’re accustomed to cameras boasting how many stops of dynamic range they can capture, even if the measurement is pretty arbitrary between one manufacturer and the next.  One thing’s for sure:  the more, the better.  And also:  it’s only relevant (for now) when you’re shooting in some brand of film log format, which basically squeezes the brightest and the darkest parts of an image into the gooey middle range of an image’s brightness and saturation, making it look “flat” and dull.  Sony calls it S-Log2 and S-Log3, Canon calls it C-Log, Panasonic calls it V-Log, Blackmagic simply calls it Film, and so on.  As we know, it’s only in post-production, back at the studio, where the flat log footage expands back out into the so-called REC.709 video format that’s ready-to-watch on a television or digital projector.

That is, until recently.  Sony started baking into their cameras a “Gamma Assist” function, so that even though it’s recording those gooey log images internally, you can see an approximate viewfinder preview of the final result as it would look after post-production color grading.  That’s really important when it comes to judging exposure, managing color influences while you have the chance, and your overall composition as a cinematographer.  We aren’t goofing around here!  Meanwhile, for those of us with Shoguns, Atomos last year made good on their promise to release a free firmware update that lets us apply our own look-up tables (LUTs), just like “Gamma Assist,” for previewing the real thing.

I mean, think about it:  when historic/legendary cinematographers peered into Panavision cameras (not today’s mirrorless OLED viewfinders at best), they saw the real world.  That’s important!  And our own eyes see HDR, on steroids.  We deserve something closer to that, whether on location or back in the studio.

Focusing on the moment of acquisition, Atomos is setting us up for HDR with these new Flame monitors that add three crucial specs:

  1. Brightness capability of 1500 nits
  2. 10-bit color accuracy, resolving 1.07 billion colors (compared to only 16.7 million colors on the prior Shogun and Ninja Assassin 8-bit panels)
  3. “AtomHDR” engine to render HDR output in a live view

Here’s the catch:  Atomos can’t solve your need for HDR farther down the road.  That is, their Flames will show you HDR on their monitors, as their prior ones couldn’t, but they’ll still just record whatever log footage you capture, the same as always, straight-to-disk.

Log Equals HDR

OpenEXRSo, it’s up to you once you’re back at the studio to figure out how to preserve all that detail being captured in log.  Normally, whatever LUT you’re using (e.g., FilmConvert) expands your log footage only into the narrow confines of the REC.709 color space, which limits dynamic range to “legal” levels that historically trace back to cathode ray tubes!  Whereas, for example, the latest version of Adobe Premiere has begun to incorporate HDR into the workflow, offering so far an output format you might notice in Adobe Media Encoder called OpenEXR (seen at right).  Meanwhile, when it comes to ultimately viewing the expanded dynamic range of HDR encoded content, there are — surprise, surprise — competing standards between HDR10 and Dolby Vision, sort of like HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray being technically similar but the former more widely adopted in HDR televisions for now.  At home, I have a Sony XBR X850C panel with HDR capability that arrived from a firmware update mid-way into the product’s seasonal life.  Going forward, most HDTV panels will include HDR capability — that was the moneyball at CES — but standards are still in flux.  It’s daunting and yet exciting to consider that everything you ever recorded in log can someday get upgraded to a render in HDR, as if this delivery technology existed all along.  Archive everything carefully?

Shogun_Flame_3(smaller)

Back to the Flames, if you’re like me, you might have felt underwhelmed initially by the news that they’re fundamentally an upgrade to an already best-in-class 7-inch monitor.  But Atomos has clearly treated this re-boot as an occasion to respect customer feedback in some key areas.  Their new design checks off a lot of the boxes that I complained about in my review of the Shogun Action Pack.  Their Armor was a rubbery loose fit on the Shogun and Ninja Assassin, but now it’s an integrally tight part of the Flame chassis.  It used to be that the Atomos Sun Hood posed an either/or dilemma, because you couldn’t mount it at the same time as the Armor; it’s not a problem anymore on the Flames, adding a “snap-fast” feature instead of screws you could lose — and the Sun Hood is included for free!  At that, if you’re shooting without the intention to monitor in HDR, you can flip over to a traditional video mode (REC.709) and get the full 1,500-nit brightness capability of the new Flames for outdoor shooting that has a fighting chance against sunlight, hood or no hood.

1458565296000_IMG_604517Between the Shogun and Ninja versions of the Flame, the differences are parallel to their predecessors:  the Ninja Flame lacks XLR balanced audio inputs, SDI inputs, and raw recording capability from select cameras, but you save some money too.  But both have an upgraded approach to power, addressing a key concern in the battery-hungry original Shogun and Ninja Assassin design, by adding a second battery slot to facilitate longer uninterrupted sessions and hot-swapping.  It’s like they incorporated their Power Station that I reviewed here previously, finding that it added too much bulk as a piggybacked accessory onto the Shogun/Ninja Assassin.  The Flame design effectively incorporates the best of the Power Station, at no extra cost.

Supported formats in the Shogun FlameSpeaking of which, we’re talking about Atomos here.  This is the company from down under (relative to where I am, anyway) who shipped the Shogun with tons of accessories that we’re used to getting gouged for when it comes to cameras, etc.  They never charged for firmware updates, and kept them coming.  They even shipped out free batteries when folks inevitably complained about the included one dying too soon.  I know, you don’t want to penny-pinch when it comes to production of important art/media, but at a time when the costs of gear are soaring into cynical opportunism (say, $2k lenses and bloggers getting flown all over the place to drool), Atomos is sending a message.  But mainly, it’s this:  HDR is here, and it’s for the masses.

March 21, 2016 ARRI Alexa and Amira, Blackmagic Cinema Cameras, Camera User Groups, Canon Cinema EOS, Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Canon EOS 70D, Canon EOS Rebel/70D/80D, FocusPulling Original, Panasonic GH3, Panasonic GH4, Sony a7S, Sony CineAlta F3/F5/F55, Sony NEX-FS100, Sony NEX-FS700, Sony NEX-VG10/VG20/VG30, Sony PXW-FS5, Sony PXW-FS7 8 Comments
19 October 2015

Atomos Master Caddy Docking Station: Got Something Faster?

Written by Paul Moon

When you use an Atomos recorder like the Shogun or Ninja Assassin, there’s no getting around using those Master Caddy II cartridges. Kind of a hassle, they’re not tool-less, with four tiny screws that need a screwdriver. Other than adding a layer of plastic protection, they don’t really do much, and become disconnected easily, as they merely use the same standard flimsy SATA drive connector designed for use inside of a computer case.

Atomos Shogun Sled versus Sabrent Dock-3There’s always been the Atomos Powered Docking Station product that mates your Master Caddy II with your computer via USB 3.0 using its single main blue plug, or USB 2.0 using the included pair of plugs. Even at faster USB 3.0, which has a maximum theoretical speed of 5 gigabits per second, the Atomos Powered Dock has often been dogged with the suspicion that it’s a bottleneck, slowing down transfers. It might be the internal USB 3.0 controller, or something else; but rather than figuring out the reason, I thought I’d run it through some tests and let the data speak for itself.

Problem is, that Master Caddy II also increases the height and width of the cartridge surrounding the standard SATA connection, so you can’t just plug it into a typical 2.5″ hard drive dock. You can’t even plug in a standard internal SATA connector, because it won’t go in all the way as the caddy recesses the connector a bit. So, to do this test, I had to go through the hassle of unscrewing the four caddy screws, and remove the hard drive for testing.

Atomos Shogun Sled versus Sabrent Dock-2The most simple but also ideally spec’ed tool for this is by Sabrent, seen in this picture, which plugs straight into the bare 2.5″ SSD, and terminates in a USB 3.0 plug (also the additional USB 2.0 connector for more power, if necessary). It features a protocol called UASP that may or may not be available to you, depending on (for example) your computer’s motherboard, for up to 20 percent faster speeds.

Benchmark using Sabrent Dock
Benchmark using Sabrent Adapter

Connected into the Sabrent, my SSD holding numerous Atomos Shogun files performed appreciably faster, as seen in my actual benchmark report above. However, the speed improvement was mainly in the write speed category, which is far less important for the primary reason you’d hook up your Master Caddy II: you’re only reading from it most of the time, to ingest footage onto your hard drive for editing.

Benchmark using Atomos Powered Docking Station
Benchmark using Atomos Powered Docking Station

You can verify this above by comparing my benchmark using the Atomos Powered Docking Station, where the write speeds are considerably slower. Are these tests of much practical value? Not really. First, you still can’t plug the Sabrent Adapter straight into the SSD when it’s screwed into a Master Caddy II – though it would have been nice to use the Sabrent instead, because of its faster speeds, UASP compatibility, and more portable form factor. Second, and again: this isn’t really a workflow for writing onto your SSD, mostly just reading from it for ingesting media, so the speed gain isn’t such a big deal anyway. But I’m glad I checked this out, hoping you find it useful too – and please let me know if you’ve gotten different test results using other products.

October 19, 2015 ARRI Alexa and Amira, Blackmagic Cinema Cameras, Camera User Groups, Canon Cinema EOS, Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Canon EOS 70D, Canon EOS Rebel/70D/80D, FocusPulling Original, Panasonic GH3, Panasonic GH4, Reblog, Sony a7S, Sony CineAlta F3/F5/F55, Sony NEX-FS100, Sony NEX-FS700, Sony NEX-VG10/VG20/VG30, Sony PXW-FS5, Sony PXW-FS7 atomos, master caddy, ninja assassin, sabrent, shogun 1 Comment
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