Magic Lantern Adds 4K RAW to Canon 5D Mark III, Announces It on April 1st
One of the best April Fools trolls in the photo industry wasn’t a troll at all… which made it that much better. Announced as a joke yesterday to many a rolled eye and “suuuure,” Magic Lantern has managed to add Super 35mm 4K RAW video recording to the 5-year-old 5D Mark III.
This is an incredibly impressive development. Put together by A1ex and the rest of the Magic Lantern team, 5D Mark III users with the custom firmware installed on their cameras now have access to 8 new resolution modes:
- 1920×960 at 50p (both 1:1 crop and full-frame – 3×3 pixel binning)
- 1920×800 at 60p (same as above)
- 1920×1080 at 45p and 48p (3×3 binning)
- 1920×1920 at 24p (1:1 square crop)
- 3072×1920 at 24p (1:1 crop)
- 3840×1600 at 24p (1:1 crop)
- 4096×2560 at 12.5p (1:1 crop)
- 4096×1440 at 25p (1:1 crop)
- Full-resolution LiveView: 5796×3870 at 7.4 fps (128ms rolling shutter)
The 4K modes are 3072×1920/24p, 3840×1600/24p, and 4096×1440/25p. Of course, none of these are the ‘true’ 4K standard of 3840×2160 at a 16:9 aspect ratio, hence “Super 35 4K.” EOSHD put together a helpful comparison of frame sizes on top of a full-frame sensor that you can check out if you want to get a feel for the crop.
Alternatively, watch this early test of the 3.8K mode by Luigi Baccino:
For now, this brand-spanking new development is only available in the newest, most experimental builds of Magic Lantern.
If you’re an every-day user of Magic Lantern, you might want to hold off until more stable builds emerge. If, on the other hand, you’re a daredevil with some developer experience, you can check out the details of this new feature at this link, and download the latest build here.
