It is now official. The soon to be released firmware update will give us 24p/25p, live histogram, some better audio and that is about it. Sure it is great, but I guess I am not the only one who was hoping for more (as in 60p@720).
Still, I am an happy camper. On top of having a more film like look, 24p clips will take about 20% less space on my CF cards or be 20% longer.
Are we going to see another firmware update until the 5DMrkIII? I doubt it. The 5D has now evolved into a full cinephotographer tool and Canon answer to the Red Scarlet is probably going to come in some other form.
Canon rumors has a picture from a presentation where we can see the list of features which will be added with the next firmware in March.
The features are:
- Manual sound recording level & meters
- Histogram display when shooting in manual mode
- AV and TV mode for shooting video
- Increased audio sampling rate to 48k.
- 24/25 fps at 1080p.
So what does that mean?
First, no 60p720. That really sucks if it is true! I wont talk too much about this simply because everybody must feel the same as I do about it.
On the other hand, the new features are great! Shooting in AV/TV mode is an incredible feature if you need to shoot a subject moving in a variety of exposure and want to maintain a constant look.
While I dont care too much about the audio features, I know a lot of people who will appreciate it.
I kept the histogram for last. If there is one feature that can redeem the lack of 60p720, it has to be this one. While it is impossible to get a perfect exposure by judging the LCD image, using the histogram makes this job ridiculously easy.
What about stills?
Seems like there is nothing new for still photographers. This is a little bit ridiculous. How hard can it be to add a 5-7-9 exposures bracketing or auto ISO limits? Lets just hope there was a second slide to this presentation.
Shipping date
The week of March 17 is the rumored date and fits in the time line I was given (post Olympics) so I tend to believe it. I guess we will see soon enough!
I while ago I came across Syndicate 7D tool but for some obscure reason, it did not catch my attention. Now in this article (twittered by Dan), we have more details about how the software works.
Maybe I am getting a bit ahead of myself here. Lets start from the beginning. What is 4:4:4? 4:4:4 is a video encoding format (like H.264) which preserves much more information, than let say, ProRes 4:2:2. I dont want to rewrite the excellent article on Wikipedia so if you are interested in that technical stuff, go and take a look. The important thing to understand is that being able to get a feed directly from the HDMI output of the camera that has not yet been encoded has a much higher image quality than what you can get from the H.264 file. Read the rest of this entry »
Unless you have a WFT-E4 or are into long repetitive bulb exposures, this update does not change anything for you. It would have been a nice present from Canon to give us the 24p before the holidays, but I guess they are really going to stick to their schedule of 2010 (probably after the 1DMrkIV is out too).
You can get it here.
From the initial reports, it does not seem to include any undocumented features and compatibility with Magic Lantern has to be confirmed.
Sorry for missing this one! Actually, I did not miss it, I was just too busy working on a very special project (more on this tomorrow).
As you have all read elsewhere, rumors are that the next 5DMrkII firmware will include (as we expected/hoped) more than just the 24p frame rate. It would include 60p and 50p.
The thing is, the screenshot that was posted everywhere was not from the 5DMrkII but from the 1DMrkIV. So basically, nothing is set in stone yet and Canon could ditch the added feature at the last moment.
On my part, I am hoping (of course) for higher framerate but also for advance features like those we can find in the Magic Lantern firmware. Please Canon, give us serious video functions or at least full HD video out form the HDMI plug!
A little bit eclipsed by the announcement of the 1DMrkIV, the announcement of an upcoming firmware update for the Canon 5DMrkII that would give it 24p and 25p is, for most people much more news worthy.
The first benefit of shooting in 24p is, of course, getting the elusive film look we have been talking about since almost a year.
I personally dont care too much for 24 vs 30p. The important element in this news for me is how Canon is going to implement this feature. Are they just going to drop down the frame rate so we can record longer clips or are they going to use the 20% saved bandwidth to increase the bitrate?
We wont know until next year (please make this January!), which make me wonder how it could be so long to implement such update.
Up until two days ago, I did not. Oh boy, was I in for a surprise! Trammel has been working hard and added a few cool features. Some of these will be in the next firmware update, so stay alert.
1080i output from the HDMI out of the camera
Why this is great? Because it allows us to use an external monitor such as those made by Marshall
Cool stuff, mostly for people using the 5DMrkII to shoot films since it requires a bigger rig than what I could carry for my wedding jobs.
SMPTE Time code
If you need time code, you will be happy. If you dont, you wont care.
Warning
As always, you should understand that if you use the hacked firmware and blow up your camera, I cant be held responsible. The good news is no one ever complained about an issue with the firmware so far.
Just saw this on twitter. An anonymous donor gave a 7D to Hudson. While you might be thinking “So what? I have a 5DMrkII!” and even be a bit frustrated to know the 7D might take some time away from Hudson to work on the 5DMrkII, this could be in fact a good news.
Quoted from the Magic Lantern site FAQ when asked about if it would be possible to add 24p to the 5D:
Additionally it might be possible to read the firmware in the 7D or 500D/T1i to see how the different frame rates are selected and to program the DIGIC4 in the 5D Mark II with the same values to see if it works.
Only time will tell.
Seems like I was wront again or the Canon crew really like to contradict me! Yesterday Canon announced the 7D.
Is it better than the 5dMRKII? Well, it does have what everyone missed from the 5d Mark II: variable frame rate (23.976, 24, 29.97, 30, 50 and 59.94), higher burst rate (8fps) and, most important for all for photographer: a better AF system and 100% viewfinder. Only back draw? It is not full frame, only 1.6 crop so you can expect some noise.
For a detailed full review, go visit DPReview. There is no need for me to go in the details and repeat the same thing over and over.
What I want to point out in this article is that I don’t know what the hell Canon has in mind with this camera. By releasing a product perceived to be better than the 5d Mark II for most videographers and photographers, they are going to kill a big chunk of the 5dMrkII demands and move it toward a less profitable product. While I understand why Canon wants to go that way (to crush Nikon in the mid level camera market), it makes the 5d Mark II looks like the cousin nobody wants to invite to the family party and leave a hole in the product list. The 5d Mark II was already taking sales from the 1D, imagine now!
So, what is going to happen with the 5D Mark II? I think we are either going to see a firmware update very soon with variable frame rate control or nothing at all for the rest of the camera life cycle. I must be a positive man because I foresee an update soon. I just can’t believe Canon would pull the kill switch on such a successful product.
I must confess, I have a serious case of gear lust over this camera but the 1.6x sensor (and my bank account) is the show stopper. Once you get used to a full frame view finder and wide lenses, it is hard to turn your back on these. Still, this would be an incredible camera for sport and wildlife cinephotography. Hell, if you need to go wide, you could always put a 10-22
Want one? You can preorder it from Amazon US Store here
I usually don’t cover software updates, but the latest version of Magic lantern is awesome! Here is the executive summary:
- Custom cropmarks bitmap file
- Live histogram while recording
- Time remaining estimate indicator
- Automated Focus pulls
- Focus stacking
- HDR exposure bracketing
- Lens data (hyperfocal distance, DOF, etc)
- Cleaner, multi-level menus that timeout automatically
- Audio monitoring can be turned off during clip review
- Internal mic can be used (must enable audio.mic-power=1 in config)
- Output audio volume control
- Configuration file can be saved to magiclantern.cfg
Yes, you read it right: Automated Focus pulls! Go here to read details. I am not seriously thinking about installing this firmware on one of my 5D. Look at this video demo.
Hudson is doing some impressive stuff. I hope Canon is paying attention to his work and implement some of these features in the next update.
Thanks to 5D User for the heads up!
Update: Read the manual here.
