Canon 5D Mark III with Magic Lantern In-depth review

Hi all, Dave here.  For a very informative and very helpful review for anyone looking at the decision to buy the Canon EOS 5D Mark III camera, watch the video.

For those that like to read, here is a summary text of the review.
Reasons why I was looking at the 5D Mark III to replace my 7D.
1. Moire and poor anti-aliasing.
2. Lens purchase decisions fork in the road (crop vs full frame)
Compared to the 7D, the 5D Mark III is better at everything, higher quality build, built for video, full HDMI out.  Then came the 6D, full frame.  Mega pixels, focus, no headphone jack, but GPS, Wifi, didn't have the video quality of the 5D Mark III.
Compared to 5D Mark III and the Cinema series C300, C500 to get to 4K $$$ and missing features

And then came Magic Lantern video raw...
 -24fps 14bit raw video that blows away 8bit compressed video and competes with RED at least at 1080P
 -Promise of even better future... MLV format, ISO less HDR video (14 stops of dynamic range), compressed RAW, Sound, stabilized features/bugs

Things I love about the 5D Mark III
Camera features:
 -focus speed, FPS photos, auto-focus settings
 -no aliasing, no moire,
 -sensor is better, beautiful photos,
 -less noise at high ISO
 -600EX flash, High speed sync,
Magic Lantern features:
 -video quality
 -color depth 14bit amazing dynamic range ,
 -focus peaking,
 -zoom, mixed with 70-200 IS II L, amazing 600mm Zoomed video at F2.8
 -intravalometer,
 -histogram,
 -scopes,
 -advanced bracketing,

Things you will have to live with...
It is not perfect... yet.
- Setup/install/update of Magic Lantern not for the weak (hard to find and know the instructions are correct)
- Upgrades fixed pink frames but removed audio
- Raw video post processing steps/time (Rawanizer -> After Effects/Camera Raw-> Premiere)
- No audio sync, all separate and external (Zoom H4N)
- Sometimes flaky (video recording errors, pink frames, slow to start recording)
- 11 minutes of video per 64GB better know what you want and not waste time rolling
- Shooting Raw video in full hot sun temp issues

Is it worth it...
 - Resounding YES!  For the price and the quality and features, YES, you would have to spend $$$$$ on RED + accessories to get the quality with not all of the features (no photos), or double on Black Magic Cinema and get a cropped lens coverage with less features (no photos).

Accessories that you have to have:
 - A video editing capable computer to process the Raw video
 - Komputerbay 64GB(1000x) $120 or 256GB (1200x) $600
 - CarrySpeed VF-3 (used to see live video focus peaking)
 - Zoom H4N, H1, H6 (Quality sound recording)
 - Tripod with a Fluid head for smooth video pans

Huge price drop ($200) on the DJI Phantom over at Dronefly.com

---BREAKING NEWS---  DJI Phantom price drop

If you are interested in getting into the fun of flying your GoPro Hero 3 using a quadcopter, now is the time. Dronefly has dropped the price of the DJI Phantom down to $479.00 (from $679.00) That means that you can get the whole package, DJI Phantom ($479.00), DJI Zenmuse Gimbal (still $679.00), and GoPro Hero 3 Black (now $329.00) for a total of $1487.00. Of course you will still need extra batteries, extra props, and other accessories but this is huge.  I have worked with the guys over at Dronefly and they are great guys who go above and beyond to help all their customers.  Tell them that David Watson sent you.

This amazing quadcopter is so easy to fly and easy to get amazing HD aerial film. It is so easy to fly that even a child could do it!  Here is some of the amazing video that I have shot with this great combination.

Fire dancers in video raw

Hi all, I had the chance to attend the Luau at Thanksgiving Point this year. It was my first time. I gotta say, it was fun! When I got there, I was thinking that parking was going to be a nightmare. It wasn't. Smooth as silk, easy in, easy out. After parking, the line for getting in was at least a quarter mile long. I got in line thinking that I didn't even know if they were going to be sold out, or worse, run out of food. But the line moved pretty fast and I got in pretty quickly. The lines for food were fairly robust, but the cater company was keeping up nicely.  I waited until most people got their food before getting mine, it gave me time to walk the gardens a bit and shoot some video.

If you haven't been to Thanksgiving Point Gardens, or if you are like me and thought that the gardens were just in back of the shops, first of all you would be wrong, and second, you really need to see this place.  It is tucked away just to the north of the golf course clubhouse.  It is HUGE!  It will take you a couple of hours to walk around this place.  There are waterfalls (and they are not tiny), streams, hills, and the flowers of every variety and breed, all manicured and on display.  Seriously, you couldn't find a more amazing place hold, and to shoot, any type of event.

You see, if you take a camera into the gardens, it will cost you a photography fee of $100.00.  You can bring 2 people with you but anyone beyond that has to pay $10.00.  If you just want to walk around and take pictures with your iPhone, only $10.00.  The luau cost $21 for entry and food.  So, I figured if I was able to go to the luau, and take pictures with my equipment, I was saving myself 100 bucks.  Turned out I was right.  I brought everything but the quadcopter, which would have been cool... but after the latest news report of someone crashing into a crowd of people, I think it might be best to stay away from formal crowds of people.

So I shot some with the Canon 7D (16-35L II), and most of the Luau entertainment with the Canon 5D Mark III (70-200L IS II) using Magic Lantern Raw video.  Take a look.

Wild Tarantula crossing... up close and personal

So another day out looking for amazing video... Today's venture took me to the west side of Utah Lake. A long stretch of two lane highway with shooting ranges and beautiful views of the mountains all around.  I haven't been out there since I use to ride my bullet bike at speeds faster than I should have.  The weather was stormy, but not a bit of wind.  Perfect conditions to fly the DJI Phantom quadcopter.  I flew around for while, trying to capture some the beautiful light that was shooting through the clouds.  Got some footage.

It wasn't until the ride back that things got interesting.   It was about 7'oclock when I saw something on the road from quite a distance. As I came by and passed it, I realized that this thing was a big tarantula!  I flipped my car around and drove back to find this guy hanging out in the middle of the road.  I grabbed the camera and went to get up close and personal with him.  I realized that this guy was not going to move, despite the danger of staying in the road.  I grabbed a stick and helped him along to get out of harms way.  Luckily all the cars that passed stayed out of the lane and he safely made it to the other side.  I got back in my car and started driving home again.  I wasn't another mile later that I saw yet another one!  I decided that I wouldn't go back this time and kept going.  Another 1/2 mile, and another one and this one was even bigger than the last two.  I stopped and got the camera, and the tripod and got right up in this ones face.  Wow, what a face.  These creatures are amazing.  They are so tall when they stand up and get all defensive.  So I got some good video of that one and set off again.  I saw 3 more on the road.  I knew that we had tarantula's here in Utah, but I had no idea where they were, or how many there must be.  Scary!

So here is the video.  I added some of the flight video as to not scare you too badly.  Watch in 1080p if you aren't scared at all.


As always, this was shot with Canon 5D Mark III, Magic Lantern Video Raw (14bit), 24fps, DJI Phantom with GoPro Hero 3 attached to Zenmuse H3-2D, 1080P 48fps and color corrected in Adobe Premiere.

BYU Football opening game... oops, wrong stadium

So I am officially dumb.  I drove to Provo today thinking that the first BYU football game was today.  About half way there I realized that there was not nearly enough traffic on the road and finally checked with Siri.  Turns out that the are opening against Virginia, in Virginia.  Well, I decided to practice shooting the with the DJI Phantom quadcopter anyway.  So here is a short segment of flying around at the empty BYU Stadium on BYU's 2013 opening game.  Hope you enjoy...



So I freaked out a bit when I saw jello (warpy movement) in the video.  When I got home I thought that maybe I had screwed up the props and needed to re-balance them.  Well, after checking the props, turns out that one of the rubber grommets had disconnected, so the video didn't turn out as good as it should have.

A little football anyone??? Lone Peak vs. Bountiful and the dynamic camera combo

Bountiful High School vs Lone Peak High School

Hello blogger readers.  Today I did some testing of the Canon 5D Mark III with Magic Lantern software installed shooting a high school football game.  I am going to be shooting a professional lacrosse game in a couple weeks and I wanted to test out the 70-200 F2.8 IS II mixed with high action and fast moving sports.  We all know that this lens and this body are amazing at sports photography... but what about video?  Can this dynamic combo really hold it's own when shooting video?  Well, I think it can, but can I.  Well, after looking at the footage, I need to get a lot better at controlling the focus and don't let people stand in front of me during big plays.  Other than that, I am amazed what this combination can do.  I'll keep trying to learn and get better to be worthy of this camera.

Congrats to the Lone Peak football team, they won 32-14!

As always, watch at 1080p... it's the gear icon, just below the video.

Here are some photos from the game...

Wild Buffalo on Antelope Island...how close is too close?

Hey everyone.  Take a look at wild buffalo on Antelope Island up-close-and-personal that I shot on Saturday.  It was an amazing day.  As I pulled across the causeway, the water was as still as a millpond.  No wind at all.  But then 3 minutes later, the wind picked up to about 40 Mph.  Needless to say, I didn't get any aerial shots but I did get some amazing shots of the wildlife. There is one shot where the buffalo walked across the road about 15 feet in front of me.  Didn't need a telephoto lens for that shot!  Enjoy




If you want to see more, check out my Youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/dbrentwatson?feature=watch for reviews, and amazing video.

GoPro firmware update (07/29/2013) lowers the bitrate (quality) on Sandisk microSD cards

So if you have had a GoPro Hero 3 Black edition camera, chances are that you have probably had some problems  with it.  Lockups, auto-turn-off-while-recording that were a pain to live with.  So every firmware becomes a fingers crossed experience.  Well, things have gotten better.  But this update, has a little fine print that may effect you in a very negative way, and you wouldn't even know it.  It is listed under feature enhancements..  Here is the exact text from GoPro.

Feature Enhancements:

• Optimizes compatibility with select microSD cards by reducing data stream rate to 35Mb/sec while recording in 4K, 2.7K and Protune™ modes (HERO3: Black Edition only)

Sounds like they are doing you a favor, optimizing and all.  Unfortunately, if you have a Sandisk microSD card (like me), you just got royally screwed (or helped?).  Sounds like they ran some tests and found out that Sandisk micro SD cards aren't up to the task of recording at the bitrates that are really required for 2.7K, 4K, and they fail to mention, 1080P 60fps!

So after installing the firmware update, my Sandisk card records at 29Mbps for 1080P 60fps and 32Mbps for 2.7K.  So, I took a look at video that I shot before the update and sure enough, it was recording at 45Mbps for 1080P 60fps and 50Mbps for 2.7K.  Wow, I mean wow that is drop in bitrate quality by 33%!  

So, if you are like me, you are going to want to upgrade your microSD card if you plan on continuing to shoot and get the quality level that you were expecting.  I upgraded to the SAMSUNG 64GB Pro version that is listed as a "supported" card on GoPro's website.  You can find the list of compatible cards here.  And I am now back in business with the fast bit rates at 50 Mbps.  Scary reports of GoPro frying cards though.  

On a side note, I didn't notice before upgrade so I am thinking that this is also new with this version.  RAW white balance?  Anyone out there know if that was already available in a previous update and I just missed it?  I tried it out and I gotta say that I like it a lot.  

How to shoot the Milky way in a time-lapse, it's harder and easier than you think

Hi everyone.  I searched and search the internet for good information about how to shoot a time lapse of the milky way, surprisingly, I didn't find a whole lot of useful information.  Sure people are willing to share the settings on the camera, but to find the secrets of where to shoot, and how to shoot.

My guide to shooting night time time-lapse 

There are several things that have to come together before you try to go out and shoot.  The first is the phase of the moon.  You need the moon to not be out.  You can check the sunrise and sunset of the moon by your location at this site.

The next thing to check is the weather, check it here.  Make sure you check the cloud cover and the movement of the clouds at least a few hours before you go out somewhere.  You need the sky to be clear and you also need to know how much wind.  The reason for this is not only clouds, but the wind can kick up a lot of dust.  If there is a storm front coming in, chances are pretty good that along with that storm will kick up dust.

Ever here of light pollution?  Most of the time, if you live near any sort of city, you are going to have light pollution.  This is caused by all the lights that we keep on at night that end up reflecting and bouncing all over the place.  To find a place near you that has a dark enough sky, search here.

Ok, now we need to talk about equipment.  You need a camera, preferably a DSLR, with the ability to shoot long exposures.  How long? 10-30 seconds.  Most DSLR cameras can shoot up to 30 second shots in any mode.  You also need a wide angle lens.  The reason for this is because stars move.  If you zoom into a part of the sky, that smaller location will move more than looking at a whole lot of the sky with a wide angle lens.  You need a tripod and it needs to be stable.  The next thing is a intervalometer.  This is a device that will take a series of pictures at a specific interval.  I use Magic Lantern firmware which puts this capability in the camera.

That's it really.  There are lots of other equipment that can be used, but you don't need those things to take a good timelapse.

So I followed the steps above and this is location that I came up with:

It was far enough away to get out of most of the light pollution for my area and away from any traffic and close enough to drive within a couple hours.  The moon rise was 10:00 am so I didn't have to worry about the moon getting in the way, and the weather was mostly clear.  Because this is a timing thing that only happens every once in a while, I was willing to risk having a few scattered clouds.

Setting up

You need to find a location that has some amount of the earth in the shot.  You need this because without reference to something on the ground, it is hard for anyone watching to really see the amount of movement that is going on.  Also, because you are going to be shooting at a large aperture value (i.e. 2.8), you need to make sure that anything that is closer to you (like trees or bushes), isn't so close that you lose focus on the stars because of the depth of field.  Some of the more advanced shooters will increase the F-stop to allow for a larger depth-of-field to allow for this very thing.  You will then have to either increase the ISO, of increase the shutter speed to account for this.

I set the camera up, pointed at the horizon, and manually focus the camera.  Focus can be the most tricky part of setting up.  I usually end up turning on video mode, or live preview, and then pointing the camera at a star that is bright, and then manually adjusting focus so that the star is focused.  You may have to increase the ISO settings to above 3200 in order to really have the camera be able to "see" the stars.  If the stars are not bright enough, then you may have to resort to pointing at a man made light out in the distance to set the focus.

Next thing to setup is you camera settings.  Here are the ranges that you will want to test with:
Camera Manual mode
Lens: Turn off Autofocus
Lens width: 11mm - 24mm  (depends on crop or full frame camera)
ISO: 1600-6400
Shutter speed:  10-30 seconds
Aperture: F2.8 - F5.6
Intervalometer: Every 1-10 seconds (depends on how fast the shutter speed is)

Set the picture style to Faithful
Set the White Balance to 3200 K.  Do not leave it on Auto White Balance.

So take some test shots.  Keep the ISO as low as you can, but capture as much light as you possibly can. Try ISO at 1600, Shutter speed at 25 seconds.  In the camera preview mode, just remember that in really dark environments that the screen will look a lot brighter than the actual photo (or video frame).

Taking the sequence of shots

So now set the Intervalometer to take a picture every (shutter speed) + 1 second.  The length of the video will depend on how many shots you take.  Remember that every frame is only 1/24th or 1/30th of a second in video.  So for a 10 second video, you need 240 shots.  If you are taking 2 shots a minute, you need to shoot roughly 2 hours worth of shots.  This also may depend on the capabilities of your camera, but most should be able to handle it.  If you are using Magic Lantern on a Canon camera, this will work. I have tried using long exposure noise reduction and because it take quite a bit of time to process each frame in camera, I don't recommend it.  You can do better noise reduction in post. 

 
Obviously keeping the camera still is assumed.  If you have a lot of wind, you may want to make sure that you tripod is sufficiently weighted down to resist any movement.

That's it for the shooting part.  In my next blog post I will go over how to process the frames into a video.

 
 

Zoom H4N in-depth review

So you are thinking about getting an audio recorder for Canon DSLR with the Zoom H4N

Reasons that I thought about buying…
So if you have watched my review on Canon 7D here, you know that using the on-camera mic is not great.  I knew that I needed to add-on to the camera to allow for better audio recording.  I read review after review of people discussing an on-camera mic, but I really wanted the added flexibility of multiple channels of audio.  I wanted to be able to plug-in multiple mic's for field recording and I wanted it to be simple.  Funny story, I actually got my wife to agree to getting it because she was a big fan of Ghost hunting.  I told her that she could use it as a great EVP recorder.  Turns out, it's a horrible EVP recorder, because of it's high quality, the chances of "interference" causing "unknown" sounds to be recorded is pretty low. That being said, the Zoom H4N has become the de-facto standard of off camera audio recording.  There are many imitators out there, and even Zoom is trying to up-sell people to the new Zoom H6N that is about to be released.  But the abilities of this little recorder make it flexible enough to do just about anything.

Here is what I actually use it for.....
I use this as the main input for mic'ing and ultimately sending the audio into my camera.  The nice part of this is that I can record multiple mic inputs at the same time either on multiple channels or just from the x/y stereo mic on the zoom.  I will typically mount the zoom on top of the hot shoe on top of the camera if I am running and gunning or shooting an event like sports or concert type events.  It captures the stereo field rather nicely, and also has the ability to set limiting and compression for those moments that you want the maximum audio signal that you can.  In more advanced setups for interviews or training videos I usually run a separate condenser mic in order to get closer to the subject.  Originally, even though you could have this as a recorder, plugging into the Canon 7D directly out of the Zoom required a intermediate device or cable in order to cancel out the AGC from the 7D.  I bought a JuicedLink device to have the signal on half of the stereo channel to max out in order to allow the signal be controlled on one channel.  Now with the latest 2.0 firmware for the 7D, you just need to set the levels in the camera to Manual and then make sure the levels in the camera are set to not peak, and in the Zoom both the record level and the headphone out level so that the camera does not peak out anywhere along the audio chain.

Here are the things I didn't expect or didn't like...
Learning the menu system and learning the different options in the Zoom can take some time.  Recording multiple inputs at the same time with multiple mic's can be a bit tricky.  The Zoom also has updated the firmware to allow for setting input levels while recording multiple sources.  I highly recommend updating if you want to do multiple mic setups.  The biggest surprise was when I accidentally tipped my camera bag over into a river at the top of a waterfall.  The Zoom went off the 100 foot waterfall and survived the fall, not even a scratch on it.  I did the bury it in rice for a couple of days trick to get the water out.  And to my surprise, it worked.  Even the microphones sound no worse for wear.  I have used the Zoom in meetings, concerts, interviews, and in cold and hot weather.  It just works.  I haven't come across any flaws that I can find.  The only thing that I had to do is get a fuzzy wind screen.  The foam screen that comes with it doesn't help with wind. When shooting with the camera I typically don't even record on the Zoom, I just turn on Monitoring  (in settings) and go directly into the camera.  If you want to monitor with headphones, then you need a splitter cable for coming out the headphone out.

Here are the super cool things that I love about it...
If you are going to get serious about shooting video with a DSLR, you are going to need some way to get quality audio with the video.  The Zoom makes this possible with a portable, quality audio, at 24bit 96Khz.  I love my Zoom and would replace it immediately if it ever got lost or broke.  Because it is so portable, and the battery life is very good -- about 4-6 hours of continuous recording, taking on a shoot is a no-brainer.  I am going to look seriously at the Zoom H6N.  The added flexibility for the 6 channels and the different on-board mic options is a very nice set of added features.  I would highly recommend this piece of equipment for anyone trying out film-making.  It has about every feature you could ever want from a portable and high quality audio reproduction.
 
Common settings that I use...
Record Settings, 24 bit WAV, mp3 variable
Input Monitoring On
Record levels
Headphone out levels
Camera settings Manual levels
Multiple microphones attached