ProRes RAW - Atomos Ninja V - Fuji X-T3

Camera: Fujifilm X-T3. Monitor: Atomos Ninja V.

My experience level:

I am just starting to learn how to use my Fuji X-T3. I have no experience shooting or editing anything professional. I’m currently taking the X-T3 out each day and test-shooting with different settings to figure out what looks best to me. I'm doing research to get my technical choices settled so I can then do a passion project. My goal is to get the highest quality possible out of my camera, every bit of color and detail I can possibly achieve. I’m not worried about hard drive space. I want quality. I’m on a super tight budget so won’t be buying another camera any time soon.

I’ve posted on this forum before while I was learning Fusion, and I am very impressed by the community. But now is the time for me to finally get down to brass tacks and learn good old fashioned filmmaking, the nuts and bolts shooting and editing to become a competent videographer and editor for my own projects.

The situation:

The latest firmware update for Atomos Ninja V allows for recording in ProRes RAW. I’ve definitely heard that shooting RAW is the best possible thing you do in terms of quality. I've never used RAW before and have been recording in DNxHR HQX, which was the highest quality possible up until now. The Fuji X-T3 sends out 10-bit 4:2:2 and I'm seeing very nice colors and detail that look great to me.

I don't want to record in DNxHR HQX (which looks great to my eyes but is not a RAW format), and go through all the trouble of doing a project for several months with lots of people, only to find out that I probably should have been recording in RAW the whole time to truly capture the highest quality possible. So I want to make the correct decision now so I have no regrets later.

I am aware that you cannot edit ProRes RAW in Davinci Resolve and there are some business competition interests preventing this. Likewise, I'm aware that Atomos Ninja V does not record in BRAW (which Davinci Resolve of course does accept).

If Davinci Resolve did accept ProRes RAW, I assume the highest quality workflow would be to shoot in ProRes RAW, edit in ProRes RAW, and export to whatever was appropriate for my deliverable. Likewise, if Atomos Ninja V would allow recording in BRAW, I would record and edit in that.

My questions:

1. Would it be worth it for the quality upgrade to go ahead and record in ProRes RAW in the Atomos Ninja V, then find a third party software (I read about something called EDIUS, and also Adobe Media Composer or Premiere) to convert it to some other non-RAW ProRes intermediate that Davinci Resolve will accept? Or is this essentially the same as recording in DNxHR HQX, since I'm converting it to a non-RAW anyway to edit?

2. Since I am using an X-T3, which has a smaller sensor (APS-C) than, for example, the GFX100 (Medium Format), perhaps the quality upgrade would be negligible if I shoot in ProRes RAW and not worth the trouble. Perhaps it would definitely be a noticeable difference if I had a GFX100, but the X-T3 is simply not capable of providing the amount of data that would benefit from the RAW format in a way anyone could actually notice. Or maybe I’m wrong, and RAW is always better quality, if one can deal with the larger file sizes of course. Would I be correct to think that my X-T3 wouldn’t benefit noticeably from shooting in RAW?

Please correct any of my statements or assumptions, since I am just starting out and not experienced with workflows and productions. I’ve done lots of searching and reading on this forum to try to figure these things out. I can’t wait to proceed to the fun creative stuff, confident that I’m not making any rookie technical mistakes and doing things in a less-than-optimal way. Thanks in advance for your recommendations.

1. Converting it to DNx for editing wouldn't be a problem...if you were going to color in RAW. So unless that's part of the plan, just bypass the transcode and continue shooting DNx.

Thank you. Also, after further experimentation, I was seeing ProRes RAW in the Atomos Ninja V as an option, and it was also telling me how many minutes I could record onto the hard drive space in RAW, but once I actually tried to record, it actually gave me an error saying that the X-T3 wasn't able to provide a RAW signal. So apparently I can't even do it unless upgrading to the GFX100. Maybe this will help someone in the future.

Your camera has to output a ProRes RAW signal via HDMI for the Ninja V to record in RAW. If the Ninja V did in fact start supporting BRAW it's the same deal. If your camera doesn't do BRAW external, your SOOL.

There's a lot of posts here requesting that Resolve start supporting ProRes RAW files. I recently made the point that BlackMagic and Apple are not in competition as far as cameras and post production equipment is concerned. Black Magic gives away a mostly functional version of Davinci Resolve. The studio version costs the same as Final Cut Pro. Again, no competition because of Resolve's free version.

Finally, both BRAW and ProRes RAW are open source and free to license, so I have to ask, what is the advantage of BM not incorporating ProRes RAW into Davinci? If anything it would give Resolve yet another advantage.

Come on, BM, be a guy will ya? Not incorporating it is not going to make me trade in my GH5s for a BMPCC 4k, incorporating it won't make BMPCC owners switch to other brands that export ProRes RAW.

I think the issue comes down to where the ProRes RAW is recorded. For BM to use ProRes RAW in the Video Assist they would likely need a license from RED just like ATOMOS or depend on ATOMOS for the source from the Ninja V. None of the BM cameras would output RAW over HDMI they do not even output UHD. Why would they support a competing version ? BM are a hardware company they would like you to buy a BM camera then you have BRAW and they give you Resolve to edit it free with the camera. In the interim they will try and persuade other camera manufacturers to adopt BRAW. Panasonic has already started. Maybe we will see BRAW on the GH6.

Not incorporating it is not going to make me trade in my GH5s for a BMPCC 4k

The better reasons to make that switch are:

1. Lower price
2. Better colors
3. Internal RAW recording (which is the only kind that really counts. )

RED's patent is only for internal recording in the camera and doesn't apply here.

Finally, both BRAW and ProRes RAW are open source and free to license, so I have to ask, what is the advantage of BM not incorporating ProRes RAW into Davinci? If anything it would give Resolve yet another advantage.

Braw is not free decoding implementation codec, is not free and is not open-source.
We are allow to use their sdk to add decoding (reading) to our software, no more, like red code, like many other.

Braw is avaible only on Blackmagic Design product, and record raw from few cameras be cause they should profile sensors to build custom compression.

ProresRaw is available only in Atomos for a patent between apple and atomos, you Are free to add decoding (may be, I’m not sure) but not to encoding, it’s patent apple protect.

Do you see some converter from xxx raw to braw or prores raw? No, for this reason.
Ps I know someone could told me that raw cannot be converted and stay raw, but it’s not correct, David Newman do this for cineform 15 years ago.
But no one do that today.
Anyway to answer for first post, X-t3 or x-t4 not output prores raw (I had both), and if Fuji don’t do a firmware upgrade cannot do. Actually camera that do that should be upgrade with pay update, like nikon, etc.


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Thanks for the replies, fellas. To clarify I meant that BM should support ProRes RAW in Davinci Resolve, not as another RAW codec in their cameras. Perhaps only in their Studio version. They would sell thousands of copies if not more.

I could swear I'd read that both ProRes and BRAW were open source and freely available to use. You seem to back me up on that, Carlo. Again, I meant to add decoding it to Resolve, not to BM cameras.