Does 5D + Magic lantern + Juicedlink pre-amp = audio capture success?

[Bill Davis]

Rodney,

I heartily agree with everything you wrote. Including, by the way, the realities of ENG work and the necessity of sometimes accepting that what you can get — is what you can get.

Perhaps one of the reasons that I’ve been so vehement in this discussion is because it’s so hard for newbies to understand reality of what I’ve come to think of as the CURVE of QUALITY.

Let’s assume a project where it will take a skilled practitioner 10 hours to get a first cut that’s OK –

In my experience to improve the quality of the work by 10 percent might take TWICE THE TIME. And to get from GOOD to EXCEPTIONAL might take a whole week! The pursuit of quality is nearly always along a difficult curve of diminishing returns.

So how are we going to DISCIPLINE ourselves to push beyond being just OK when there’s a PENALTY extracted for taking the time to be better than just OK?

Many don’t. They just gleefully take the easy way and let quality slide. They prize “cheap”, work on little margin, don’t pay proper taxes or for insurance or business licenses and work out of their Parent’s bedroom and with a 5dMkii they claim that their work is “JUST AS GOOD” as the big players work. Hell, maybe it is! But it’s also unsustainable.

Doing audio on a 5d without double system, strikes me as a clear sign that someone has decided that OK is good enough. And I don’t quibble that sometimes that is precisely true. But it’s also a TRAP. If your STANDARD becomes OK – then you’re willingly leaving yourself stuck in the great pack of OK.

And I suspect that the next generation of men and women who are going to find their names on the credits of the GREAT work 10 or 15years from now – and hopefully retire satisfied with comfortable bank accounts and fond memories are NOT going to be those who stop trying at OK. Because OK is way too easy these days. Any knucklehead who can afford a 5d and read these boards can get to OK in a jiffy.

Every still photographer who starts playing with their DSLR’s “movie” feature is potential competition in OK. Every 15-17 year old with indulgent parents or grandparents is potential competition in OK. There’s GOT to be something that keep the rest of us pushing beyond OK.

I make one small stand against that idea of OK with my dismissal of on-board 5d audio.

Again, I’m NOT saying it’s EVIL, or that it can’t be justified. Simply that I won’t make it MY standard. And so I won’t waste my time trying to learn tricks in order to make it something it’s inherently not.

Yes, it MIGHT be OK in many circumstances. But OK is simply not the standard that I aspire to.

YMMV.

Simple as that.

[Danny Winn]

Everybody needs to go watch these two videos that demo all audio options for the 5D directly into the Audio input jack in conjunction with the free Magic Lantern Firmware.

the first video tests 4 different units.

The second video is the conclusion of all the tests with full samples and a convincing argument that great results are possible.

Video 1: https://vimeo.com/5370880

Video 2 “the Conclusion”: https://vimeo.com/5903379

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[Ty Ford]

Danny,

Maybe I’m mis-reading all of this but it sure seems like the heat is on to sell us on something and I’m just not convinced,

On the second clip, I don’t see or hear anything to convince me that the juiced link is the best other than some guy on camera telling me that.

On the first clip, the recorder he mentions being boomy. Didn’t sound boomy to me.

On the key jangle test, there should be no plastic, just metal keys and they should be shook in a way that causes some pretty nasty transients.

Magic Lantern sounds VERY noisy.

What would work – and this is the 3rd time I’ve asked for it – is for an uncompressed clip to be loaded to an ftp site so many people could listen.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Want better production audio?: Ty Ford’s Audio Bootcamp Field GuideWatch Ty play guitar

[Bill Davis]

I’m sorry. And I know and appreciate the work you put into this. But as a technical comparison – this makes me uncomfortable

Since people in this thread have responded that they like my stories, here’s another one that explains WHY I think tests like these are problematic.

Eons ago, I hung around with a lot of Psych grad students and I helped one design a high school presentation in psychological manipulation. Heres how the setup went. On a table were setup six parallel rows, each consisting of six small toys – 36 in all. The object was to MAKE a student designated as the CHOOSER who was staged outside the room – come in and to make them select a pre-determined toy via verbal manipulation.

Here’s how it worked (a process so foolishly simple that once understood, it’s effect seldom is forgotten – but a technique that’s STILL commonly used in politics, marketing, and sales every day, quite effectively!)

Let’s say the “TARGET” object was a blue bear that was in row 3, position 4 down from the top.

The CHOOSER arrives and the “INSTRUCTOR” says – “Okay let’s see if what you pick of your free will. YOU make YOUR first choice – by selecting ODD or EVEN.” the CHOOSER says “ODD” and the “INSTRUCTOR” says “You’ve selected ODD – so let’s remove the EVEN rows and concentrate on your choice.

GAME OVER.

Right here, smart people often “get” the game. Because if the CHOOSER had said “EVEN” all the INSTRUCTOR has to do is say – EXCELLENT – you’ve selected EVEN, so now I’ll REMOVE what you have selected.

BOTH instructions result in the outcome that includes the “choice” you wish the CHOOSER to make.

At every choice, the INSTRUCTOR can set the outcome by either INCLUDING or ELIMINATING what’s said, . The INSTRUCTOR NEVER loses.

Now we’re talking about a CHOICE between microphones. But what’s MISSING? Plenty. We have no STANDARDS for judgement. We TRUST (And I truly do TRUST) that this experiment setup was done fairly and each mic was given the SAME chance to perform. But only within such a NARROW RANGE OF CHOICES that we’re left ACCEPTING that the choices that THIS experiment offers are the RIGHT ones. I’m NOT suggesting AT ALL that anyone is trying to suppress CHOICE as in my story example. I have NO DOUBT that this was undertaken as fairly as the designer believed was needed.

However, nothing in this test reveals anything very deep or meaningful about the ability of the gear to recording anything but a medium male voice and some simple sounds that frankly, in an open field, far from electrical interference and ANY room characteristics, make this a pretty much a SOFTBALL test- in other words it’s a test centered around the MOST BENIGN conditions – You’re testing a recording chain using ONE mic with ONE performance profile recording ONE easy signal. What if ALL the recorders in the test are all simply UNIFORMLY mediocre under these conditions? How would we know? There’s NO objective standard for comparison.

And sorry, but your conclusions given are done in terms that don’t really have any uniform meaning! Boomy? NEUTRAL? FUll TONE? As compared to what? You appear to be about my age. I know my personal hearing is NOT as accurate as it was when I was, for example, 25. Where do these subjective evaluations come from? Is this one person’s opinion? If so, what are their evaluation credentials?

This is precisely why honest traditional microphone tests attempt to avoid this type of subjective grading and also NEVER stop at just sticking a mic in one a specific situation and trading out ONE component. You want to assess performance over a RANGE of conditions.

When there ARE highs present – not just the brief transients of jangling plastic key fobs – but perhaps windchimes of a flute played loudly – how does the INHERENT RECORDING CHAIN of DEVICE A – CAPTURE THAT? AND does DEVICE B do as well, or more poorly? Does ONE quantitize harshly with respect to the others? Or more smoothly? If a person with a LISP does the narration, does this particular recording machine SPLASH the sibilants? Or take them in stride? What about LOW end. Many inexpensive units have a switchable High Pass filter set at around 150 hz – useful for knocking out wind transients – but simultaneously INSURING that you will NEVER get an anywhere NEAR accurate recording of a jet taking off with that unit. Does that matter to a particular user?

In a TRUE test of audio – you REMOVE as much distracting as possible by testing in the ABSENCE of noise – NOT because the noise won’t be there in field conditions – but because you understand the need to evaluate performance flaws might be COVERED by the very content you’re recording. And just because you can’t hear a performance problem – or even much DIFFERENCE at THIS volume setting, how do we know how Unit A compares to OTHERS in operational conditions.

Again, you’re just testing ONE sliver of performance. And that’s simply not enough to draw conclusions from for a system that will MAKE OR BREAK my ability to have confidence in my professional work.

YMMV.

Again, honestly thanks for your time and effort. I understand that it’s hard to put work out there and receive criticism on it like this. But in an era where anyone and everyone can post material for global review without ANY peer review, I just felt that someone needed to point out some of the issues that might not make this the last or best word on the subject.

I hope I’ve not been unduly harsh. But objective standards in equipment evaluation ARE critical if any of us are to be able to learn when the wheat is the chaff, and what device truly does exceed the performance of another.

Peace.

[Jake Stutzman]

Thanks for your insightfulness here Bill. Although this is an old thread its still a relevant issue. I make a living with the 5d however I won’t use the audio functions of the camera unless its my last option. People who really understand audio wouldn’t touch it with a 10′ stick. Some are satisfied with second rate and hate it when you point that out to them.