12May Canon 5d mark III clean HDMI output compared to ALL-I in camera
I finally had a chance this morning to take a look at the clean hdmi output of the Canon 5d mark III and compare it to the internal codec. At 200% there isn’t really a big difference in image quality. There does seem to be a little bit of color shift in the ninja footage but it’s not extreme and probably won’t be an issue for most people. The Prores recorded by the Ninja 2 will provide more headroom when grading but the footage itself isn’t much sharper than the internal codec.
You can download the frame grabs here and take a look at them for yourself. If you were planning on picking up a Ninja 2 to improve the sharpness of your Canon 5d mark III footage, you’re probably going to be disappointed. If you plan to heavily grade your footage in post, the Ninja 2 could still be a reasonable option.
The disappointing part for me is that the HDMI signal doesn’t contain audio. I haven’t had many issues with the detail in the images provided by the 5dmkIII, but it would have been really handy to capture 4 tracks of audio with the ninja and have them all conveniently rolled into the a single clip. I generally try to avoid syncing audio unless it’s absolutely necessary and the more tracks I can bring in the better.
I can see some use cases, for example if you shoot a lot of legal work, having a Ninja with you could allow you to record extremely long sessions. It might also be a benefit when green screening. I’ll post some more screen grabs once I’ve had a little more time to test, but as of right now it doesn’t look like a Ninja 2/5d mark III combo will be worth the cost for many.
May 12th, 2013 at 5:49 pm
Well you must be blind then!! Time to see the optometrist I think.
Because you can definitely see more colour information in the ninja-2 pic.
May 12th, 2013 at 6:06 pm
My number one reason for buying the Ninja2 was for backup on the fly.
About 4 months ago I lost my entire A roll and audio due to a CF card failure.
I was so freaked out I swore to myself I’d get a Ninja as soon as the MKIII firmware came out.
May 12th, 2013 at 7:19 pm
I don’t plan to sell my ninja. The video recording is a great option for all kinds of applications and makes some of my old cameras useable for production. Plus it seems to do a great job with the hero 3.
May 12th, 2013 at 6:09 pm
Do,you have any thoughts on running a shotgun mic to the Ninja and the MKIII simultaneously?
May 12th, 2013 at 7:17 pm
I’ve been looking into it. I’m thinking that the best option is beaming the stereo audio back with the Wi audiolink, then split the signal and feed it to both the 5d mark III and ninja via the 3.5mm jack.
May 27th, 2013 at 9:54 pm
I’ve been unable to find a 1/8 splitter. You?
May 12th, 2013 at 6:16 pm
Well you are correct in one way.
Yes, seeing a difference with the naked eye is difficult, if near impossible.
But there is a difference in the amount of information received in chroma subsampling.
Canon’s in camera compression ALL-I H.264 is 4:2:0 vs Ninja-2 ProRes 4:2:2.
That is quite a difference in color information, but if you’re happy with H.264 keep using it.
A great demonstration of this is on Stefan Czech’s video:
https://vimeo.com/65471795
May 12th, 2013 at 7:11 pm
I’ll be posting the difference matte when I get a chance so you can see the actual difference in the amount of information captured. On the surface it looks the same but you’re correct there is a lot more information captured.
May 12th, 2013 at 8:49 pm
I’d imagine the biggest difference would be seen in the shadows and highlights. More detail in both and less clipping. Also, AVCHD really falls apart when you start to play with it too much. Still really interested to work with a C100. The stuff I’ve seen online is fantastic and rivals the C300 when you use an external recorder.
May 13th, 2013 at 7:26 am
What about codec noise? Underexposed parts of the images should have less noise when recorded with ProResHQ.
May 13th, 2013 at 8:24 am
I’m not sure about less noise, but the there is definitely more color information in ProResHQ. Take a look at this.
May 14th, 2013 at 7:23 am
Could you make a lowlight test at ISO 640 with only half of your face perfecly exposed an a spot in the background. The rest relatively dark so we can see the difference in noise in the very dark areas?
And I think greens screen work will be alot easier with the ProResHQ footage!
May 14th, 2013 at 12:09 pm
I’ll see what I can do.
May 14th, 2013 at 4:30 am
Two questions:
1. Is the workflow any easier by recording straight to Prores with the Ninja 2? Each week I shoot DSLR TV content for my client, and my client requests that this content be transcoded to Prores 422.
2. Does the Ninja have a line in for mic audio?
May 14th, 2013 at 12:08 pm
The Ninja does have a line in for audio. Also the Ninja would save you the need to transcode your footage every week which could be useful. Plus it will capture more information then the transcoded DSLR footage.
May 19th, 2013 at 7:54 am
You can go right to editing from the Ninja. Very fast. Except….
There is an audio sync issue. The Ninja audio is about 5 frames out of sync from the video. A single long clip is an easy fix, but a large amount of clips can really add up to a log jam of your time. Hopefully Canon will address the lack of audio out through HDMI. Pain in the arse.