With all the incredible new 4K cameras — BlackMagic’s new pocket cinema, Sony’s mirrorless line — anyone remember last year’s excitement when Magic Lantern shipped 4K raw for the 5D Mark III on April Fool’s Day? Only it wasn’t a prank.
Sadly, continuous recording was iffy at best. But earlier this year, Magic Lantern enabled new 10-bit and 14-bit lossless modes to shoot 3.5K raw.
That’s right, 3.5K. raw. On a six-year old camera. Historically, the most difficult part about Magic Lantern raw has been the workflow: when shooting, the monitor barely works, and in post production, you have a tedious coloring and editing workflow. But the results are impressive for a camera that wasn’t designed to shoot raw footage!
So if you still have a 5D Mark III and wouldn’t mind shooting some great footage, it might be time to freshen up those Magic Lantern raw skills. If you’re new to shooting raw, here’s a separate tutorial on getting started with 3K raw on a 5D Mark III.
It goes without saying that using Magic Lantern is at your own risk. At worst, it could brick your camera and you’ll have an expensive decor piece for your studio. Anecdotally, I’ve been using Magic Lantern for over four years now with some crashes here and there, but no bricking.
This tutorial walks through a round-tripping workflow for quickly wrangling hours of Magic Lantern footage. DaVinci Resolve has amazing color controls, but I’m more comfortable editing in Premiere. Since both support Final Cut Pro XML, you can use them together! The tutorial shows an older version of DaVinci Resolve and Premiere, but the controls are still in roughly the same places in the latest versions.
I tried the workflow out on a trip to Yosemite National Park a few years ago to ship this travel montage. Forgive the wobbling — noob Glidecam operator at work.
https://vimeo.com/139290481
Have you shot any footage with Magic Lantern raw lately and tried the 3K or 4K modes yet? How did the experience go?