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Magic Lantern 5.9

Tom recently wrote about our 5D workflow at Fashion Weeks around the globe. Well there are definitely problems due to the form factor and limited software of the 5D. While the problems of the form factor can’t be solved by now (maybe a few parts by adding additional gear - or buying another cam) many of the software issues can be solved by magic lantern - in theory.

I’ve been testing Magic Lantern releases for a year now, but AJ 5.9 running on Canon 2.0.9 firmware is by far the most stable version I’ve tested on the 5D Mark II. You can download this superb piece of software here. While the classic Magic Lantern for 5D Mark II has some more features on the photo side (like focus stacking and advanced bracketing) I found AJ Newmans version far more stable, also usability wise I prefer it much more.

On the last assignment, I decided to give AJ 5.9 a try for the first time on a real shoot. The story was playing on a kart racing track, part of the shots were narrative ones with basic acting involved, other parts were covering the race.

The features I used that day included:

  • magic circles
  • focus distance
  • audio meters
  • live histogram

I didn’t use the higher bitrate settings because on earlier tests I didn’t get the camera running stable. Too many different variables like focal length, aperture, motion and detail are involved. One really needs time to run through a take a few times because maybe the recording will immediately stop when the bitrate gets too high. Then you have to dial down and give it another try. Not the way you want to work if you have many setups and you can just maybe get a second take. Furthermore your attention is drawn away from framing and looking for the right perspective because you’re worried if the camera will run stable on the next shot …

Well, using the features described above, the magic circles and the focus distance helped me focussing, audio meters are there for dialing in the levels and live histogram was just for backup (I set the right exposure with my light meter). FYI: I used Transcend 400X CF cards and set magic lantern to autoboot.

The results from about eight hours of work: several times when I switched on the camera and afterwards the liveview, my screen just kept pitch black. Could hear the mirror slamming up, but no sign of anything on the screen. But the camera didn’t freeze (firmware info said ML was loaded), another take did get me a picture on my screen - ML was up and fully working.

One time this day ML didn’t boot up at all, nothing (even the on/off switch) was working. Had to remove the battery, afterwards our beloved alternative firmware was rolling again.

I’m pretty happy with this test but for run and gun situations like interviews (imagine you’re in front of Kayne West or Anna Wintour and ML won’t boot up) I definitely can’t recommend ML at this stage. So our Fashion Week problems don’t seem to be solved by now.

But we’re happy people: today was announced that a Unified Version of ML (Unified means same features and same release for every supported camera) for the 5D Mk II will be released. Hopefully we will see some bug fixes and an even more stable version of ML.

To make this happen, the developer who’s in charge for this development needs to get a 5D Mk II (currently only owns 550D/60D). If you do want support him: read his announcement here where you will find a link to donate.

Watch a walkthrough of ML AJ 5.9

a DSRL Camera guy at Fashionweeks

the blog is dead! long live the blog

Working as an DSRL Camera guy at Fashionweeks - Setup and short report

A lot of people where interested how we work at Fashionweeks, so there’s a little report - sorry for being that late.

Just for the sake of clarity what we are doing at Fashionweeks: We shoot interviews, front rows, backstage stuff and footage for miscellaneous highlight reels. We shoot in the Fashiontents and the outside area of it. Many shows take place at offside locations, which is mostly quite stressful if you’re trying to get from one show to another, a quick cab driver is a big plus. In addition to that we shoot footage for clients, which for example want to cover a catwalk show from queuing to the show to the final applause and stuff like that. A typical working day at Fashionweeks starts at 07:00 am ends 03:00 am for us, which gets quite exhausting after a few days.

The Gear

Always at Fashionweeks, we are shooting with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and are using our homemade, wooden Shoulder rig, as well as different other rigs, like mono and tripods and other commercial shoulderrigs. In 90% of the time the shoulderrig is the adequate one, mobility is fairly the most important thing at a Fashionweek, quick location changes are totally standard. Most of the time I am using the Canon 24-70mm 2.8 lense, with lot of location changes and crowded places the flexibility of the 24-70 is just great. Another must have is a light panel for front row shots and interviews in darker spots.

The 5DII is still kind of trendy, the look is still fresh and producers are asking for 5D camera setups. However the workflow at a fashionweek points out some weaknesses of the 5D, though the 5D remains a great camera. In the following I’ll try to give a short overview of how we work with a 5D at fashionweeks.

Picture Style

Usually theres no colorgrading work done on Fashionweek footage. You need to keep working and render time as low as possible because of the huge work load you have to handle. Because of that it’s important to use a slightly more contrasty colorprofile for your 5D than you would use on a normal shoot - because there’s no post. At the London Fashionweek we used Marvels Cine Picture Style for the first time, it offers more dynamic range than the build-in neutral style, but is more contrasty than Technicolor Cinestyle. The developer of the Marvel Cine Picture Style is former Fraunhofer Institute Scientist Jorgen Escher. Here you can check out a comparison.

Conversion to Apple ProRes

The raw footage of a 5D has to be converted, because Final Cut Pro 7, which is the general cutting software at fashionweeks, can’t handle the h264 codec of the 5D raw footage properly. The conversion to Apple ProRes time consuming and can also be a error source. (to safe time we are using LT422 mostly)

ProRes is in accordance to Apple “visually lossles”, but as I told you, usually no post work, no colorgrading is used on the footage. In my opinion it would make sense to cut directly in h264 - that means adobe premiere. It would be a huge timesaver, two maybe three hours a day - which would be enormous. Because there is not much other done than pure cutting, a good FCP editor should easily be able to switch temporarly to Premiere, you don’t need deep programm knowledge for that job. Another question is of course how Final Cut Pro X develops, maybe it’s sometime an alternative to FCP7 and everything will be fine. Generally spoken - the whole conversion process costs huge amounts of time - only to make the footage editable in FCP.

Audio ain’t that easy

The 5D is also used as an interview-camera which makes partly sense, because with the great depth of field you can seperate people beautifully from the background, but on the other hand you have to use a secundary device for the recording, because the 5D in-camera sound isn’t for professional purpose and you can’t monitor it with headphones. We are using the Zoom H4n to record the sound seperatly and sync it afterwards with the 5D in-camera sound. The downside of that is that you have an additional device to handle, there is no audioguy at fashionweeks with you.

You are more like a news reporter than a moviemaker at a Fashionweek, you have to handle quite a lot of stuff:

  • Battery check (radio microphone, radio receiver, Zoom)
  • Signal check
  • Leveling the audio-input
  • check exposure
  • set white balance (at new location)
  • set yourself up
  • set up interviewer and interviewee
  • get a nice framing
  • set the image sharp, ideally via zoom in
  • RECORD

and of course you should monitor your audio recording during the interview, so it’s nice to have to Zoom in sight range.

With that many seperate steps you have to do before pressing the record button and giving the interviewer a “camera rolling, audio good” it happens that the interviewer gets nervous, because you need sometimes 15-30 seconds to set yourself up. You have to imagine yourself hunting huge rooms down, to find somebody interesting to do an interview with, so it’s quite stressfull. Most important thing is to stay calm and relaxed, doing your steps methotically and exact. It’s better to give yourself extra 10 seconds, to do everything right, than deliver an Interview without audio.

Most crews I have seen doing interviews with a DSLR setup have an additional audio operator, we don’t have one. In my opinion an audio operator is a must to get professional audio, otherwise it stays a error source. On the other hand - if there is a new 5D at some point - professional in-camera sound would be pretty neat.

So, quick recap: The 5D is a great camera, especially for that price. But in extreme conditions like at Fashionweeks there are some weaknesses. Partly those weaknesses can be balanced with the right workflow and experience but with some you have to live or in other words you have to work with them and try to get your stuff done in the best way you can.

here is one example video from London Fashionweek, quality of the player isn’t the best, sorry for that. lfw5 /images/blog/markes_4.jpg

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