Magic Lantern now works on the EOS-M with the new firmware

[Mark Rosenzweig]

I have installed it, but have not tried many features yet.

Can shoot RAW video (yes, on the EOS-M) as well as higher bitrate AVC. Adds focus peaking, zebras, live HDMI out while shooting, live histogram and audio meters while shooting and lots more.

[Alex Anderson]

I also have been using it on my M, but still a lot of fixing to do with it. If you have only had version 2 firmware like me, we cannot just boot up like before. We have to always do the firmware update to get it running. Shut down and back on, same deal over and over. The are working on it. People with version 1 firmware can boot it normally.

Mark, please tell me exactly what you do to record raw on the M including what cf card you use. I cannot get it to record raw after trying many settings. I have never done it before, so I probably am doing something wrong. I have a Komputerbay 128GB SDXC Secure Digital Extended Capacity Speed Class 10 600X UHS-I Ultra High Speed 60MB/s Write 90MB/s It it seems to not have an effect like i thought it would.

Alex

[Mark Rosenzweig]

I actually shot a few RAW clips by accident by pressing the wrong button. The camera reported bitrates of 37 *megabytes* (not bits) per second while it was going and stopped after about four seconds (there is a way to get it to continue). The camera also reported the resolution I was getting, but I do not remember it. You need to invoke crop mode for sure.

I got clips with names like M06-1948.RAW. They are each about 250 megabytes in size.

I used a Sandisk Extreme 32GB sdhc card that claims a write speed of 50 megabytes per second. It is possible that ML does not work completely with SDXC cards in this version.

I also used the higher bitrate AVC mode, and got average bitrates of over 64 Mbps (1.4X cbr). This compares with about 40 Mbps the camera normally gives. So that works fine, but there is no audio (a warning pops up saying this).

[Alex Anderson]

damn, i get nothing. the red record button shows maybe one second and then it stops. nothing gets recorded to a file even..how do i use the crop mode? what tab and item and possible setting does it give you? maybe that's the problem. I tried my 32gb card and the same for me. I must be missing something else.

what other settings did you have? Like the resolution, etc. you touch the screen when you turn the raw on and the sub menus pop up.

alex

[Mark Rosenzweig]

I'll experiment with RAW mode tomorrow and try to get clear what one needs to do and get back to you. As I said, I accidently triggered it so I need to go back. I was more interested in the high bitrate AVC modes, which works great. But now I am intrigued by RAW. A 32GB very high speed card is essential for RAW video.

[Alex Anderson]

same here with me. I keep accidental y doing things and then not know why or what. I did get some raw recording, but I don't know what changes made it happen. I have to now figure out how to see it and work with it. two files showed up as raw.

alex

[Mark Rosenzweig]

I got RAW video working:

Make sure the modules are loaded (gear icon on top of ML menu).

Make sure you are in video mode (hardware dial on top of camera).

Set RAW video to 'on' in the video menu using SET hardware button.

Set the crop mode to on (this is necessary) in the video menu.

The start recording button default is the hardware MENU button (which is probably why we accidently shot RAW).

I set resolution to 720p and the aspect ratio to 2:35 (widescreen!) in the video menu.

The default start-up delay is 2 seconds.

I then shot video using the hardware MENU button to start and stop.

While shooting I got a running report on seconds elapsed, on megabytes used and bit rate. The running report said that shooting could be continuous and the bit rate was 35 megabytes per second.

I shot for about 25 second, almost a gigabyte's worth of file size. I now have a gigabyte-size RAW file.

[Mark Rosenzweig]

Canon EOS M Test Video: Video from RAW Using Magic Lantern on Vimeo

This is one sequence shot in RAW mode with the EOS M. Then, the single RAW file (one take) was split into its 800 frames as 800 sequentially numbered .DNG files. The .DNG files were read into Adobe Lightroom, where white balance was set (I chose the daylight setting). I also lowered ev by one third and then all 800 files were outputted as .Tif files. The set of 800 Tiff files (really frames) were read into Sony Vegas Pro and then rendered out as an MP4 file with a bitrate of 40Mbps at 29.970. The original frame rate was 29.970, shot at 720p in 2:35 aspect ratio (1280x544) - and that is what you see. The sequence bitrate in the camera was about 35 megabytes per second and continuous shooting (I could have shot until the file size limit). The original RAW file was almost 1 Gigabyte for this 25-second sequence shot in extremely bright sun. the dynamic range seems much higher than what the camera delivers in the .MOV files it creates.

[Alex Anderson]

Mark,

Thank you for all the info and showing a finished file to playback. I am curious to know your real honest opinion now about the whole workflow compared to just straight out shooting to a H2.64 file. Do you feel there is a big enough quality difference in the end for the extra time involved in raw?

Alex

[Jon Fairhurst]

Alex, I haven't shot RAW on the M yet, but we've shot a fair amount with the 5D2. Here's my opinion:

* For green screen work, RAW is the only way to go, unless you are going for an authentic/amateur look.

* When you really want to push the colors, RAW is the likely best way to go, unless you can get it close in-camera with h.264.

* The cost of RAW is time and storage. It takes time to transfer, to convert, and takes money to buy storage. If you want speed and budget, avoid RAW.

* RAW can actually speed up the production. Setup your scene and lights, frame, focus, expose, and shoot. There's no fiddling with white balance and picture styles to slow things down while the crew is waiting. (Of course, you pay for this in post, but the crew isn't standing around in post.)

* You need to really nail the workflow and have enough fast cards to keep things rolling when shooting RAW. Workflow includes the camera part (keep the camera off and cool when unused; pop the battery after each use) as well as the data wrangling (make backups, don't format cards until copies are verified...)

Overall, I love that we don't have to mess with the camera much on-set, that the dynamic range is so huge, and that pulling keys is like melting butter - easy! I love that we now have a low-stress workflow figured out. I don't love the time it takes to process everything.

BTW, we are creating compressed DNGs for our masters. They keep storage costs low but take some time to create. (On greenscreen, we get 5:1 compression and the quality is excellent.) We then load into AfterEffects and render to the standard Cineform codec as a proxy for editing.

One can purchase Cineform Studio Pro and encode to Cineform RAW. This is really fast and might be the way to go for grading, but the images were a bit noisier which wasn't acceptable for greenscreen work. You can do the one week trial to see if it meets your needs.

Rating quality for the 5D2, I would say...
* Uncompressed DNG - A+
* Compressed DNG - A (Can hardly tell the difference.)
* Cineform RAW - B- (Noisy, compared to DNGs.)
* h.264 - C (Less dynamic range, fewer bits & compression block artifacts, but might actually have less noise than CineformRAW.)

If CineformRAW weren't as noisy (and maybe it's not too noisy if you aren't doing effects work), I'd use it in a heartbeat. It's really fast. Maybe they will improve it or offer a more robust version in the future.

[Alex Anderson]

Thanx Jon. Very good info.

Alex

[Paul Cascio]

I've been on ML's website and read through a 70+ page discussion and I am totally confused about how to install ML on the EOS M, and also how to access the ML menu with 2.02 firmware. Could someone please post this info?

[Alex Anderson]

go here to find out how
EOS-M Shooters Guide

ask questions in the M forum for more help
EOS M ** Alpha 1 ** [FIXED][DOWNLOAD]

Alex

[Paul Cascio]

Thank you , Alex. Great info.