This would be amazing for the GH2/GH3, but just the ability to have a more flat image profile would be great as well. The current hack bitrates are nice and high, but I would just love some flatness to compete on a similar level to raw in post, even if raw itself is not possible. Either way, I've never owned a Canon DSLR, but this makes me want one... I love color grading and having all that raw data to manipulate is a colorist's dream... Here is to hoping for something like this for the GH2... if there is even anything left to gain...

Interesting, so how does BM manage to produce a camera that can do raw at a fraction of the cost of high end cameras? Which off the shelf chip have they chosen?

BM is physically fraction of other cameras and have only fraction of features. Hence the price.

Otherwise they most probably using custom FPGA or similar coupled with some embedded LSI.
Plus they made very tigh restrictions of FPS available.

Bm is not example of future cameras, as it uses bare 2.5" SSDs that are unsuitable for wide spread cameras (due to connectors not made for insertion and removal and high probablity of electrical damage).

@kazuo

Problem with raw is not enginners or managers. It is simple lack of fast progress in chip industry. Most SD cards speeds are still low. Most of mobile memory is still not fast, supply is scarce, and it has limited width bus.

As for peaking, something tells me that engineers have nothing to do with it.

Low compressed h.264 with 2 streams . . . . sort of like MXF that also carries 4:2:2 data?

Anyway, Panny will not release GH3 raw for simple reasons:

1. The GH series was never conceived as a professional suite.
2. What on earth were the engineers thinking when they took out peaking? A faux paus on any pro tool. Sign of more silly things to come?
3. Panasonic has a broadcast range to protect. GH3 RAW? Who's going to buy AF102?

I agree with you Vitaliy raw could easily become a pain in the "Arze", workflow is too heavy and times are just out of reality for day to day work.

So if GH3 is to be hacked [of course it will :-)] Then if its possible, I would be much more happy with having directly from the raw sensor source 4-2-2 10bit 75mbp/150mbp h264 intraframe compression. EVEN IF ITS only 10bit 4-2-2 HDMI OUT I would jump with joy all around the house.

And just maybe it would be possible to squeeze 1 or 2 stops of extra latitude of DR, by having more information on low and highlights.

And just dreaming maybe more user friendly codec like ProRes 422 , Avid DNxHD, :-)

That for me clean 10bit 4-2-2 in GH3 is wayyyy better than raw, if you want raw just go with BM 4K producction camera and get a free global shutter, even with less DR, you can restore that in post.

Im with vitaliy here. Low compressed intraframe h264 would be grate. Evenn better if 4:4:4 is managed. then so no other frame of low contrast and light willbe required. but a compressed form is important since managing raw data at this poin in time its not that grate. it very time consuming, and for video is about $ per minute.

SD cards will be capable. But the bus speed of the camera would have to be high enough to support it.. and of course a large enough buffer to cope with lag and fluctuations in writing.

I'd like to see in terms of raw is lossy-raw (or even 1.5-2:1 lossless-raw) 3:1 would work great. That'd be full bit-depth and no sub-sampling since it's raw/pre-demosaiced.

Getting the full IQ to HDMI out would suffice also.

Hacked GH2 will be my primary tool of choice till better is feasible, which looks like the Black Magic new cameras will be first.

@aldolega That is what I understood as well. @eatstoomuchjam I've heard that as well and agree completely. I hope their SD cameras will be able to do better than what they are getting currently. That would make the 60D very appealing to me.

Correct me if I'm wrong (please do, I'm still learning):

I really think there is some confusion. Looking into this, I've seen people swear that the Extreme Pro cards write 90MB/s and read 95MB/s. But realistically, people say that they manage about 42MB/s for write speeds. Still pretty amazing. I've heard that the CF cards are all that are holding the 5D Mark III back. I'm just approaching this skeptically. If 90MB/s is a baseline for 1080p 24fps, all I was implying is that we might not get 1080p 24fps second RAW on a camera with limited media. We might have to settle for a lower resolution/burst mode if it is RAW. 90MB/s might need buffer time while it loads onto the card, therefore it would be more ideal for a burst mode like the Nikon V1.

I love my GH3 and it is already a beast. Release its shackles and watch it eat other cameras for breakfast. Panasonic still has 60fps 1080p for $1,300 US and some of the sharpest glass on the market.

You guys rock on this forum! I've learned so much.

@Kairutan The limiting factor on the SD card Canons is the controller in the camera. There doesn't seem to be much difference in the benchmarks between the Sandisk 45MB/s cards and the Sandisk 95MB/s cards on them.

@kairutan Sandisk Extreme Pro cards are 95MB/s and getting faster all the time.

Guys really, I have no idea :-)

Making such thing requires bunch of time and bunch of people.

@Pind - that would make my year if he pulled it off.