Atomos Ninja V+ Review (With Canon EOS R5)

welcome back dp review tv viewers it's jordan drake here to talk about the brand new atomos ninja 5 plus now the original atomos nintendo 5 is one of my absolute favorite video accessories it combines a very nice monitor with an external recorder and it just got constant updates to support all of the new cameras coming out however recently we've started to see more and more of the mirrorless cameras and cinema cameras offer 8k recording or 4k 120p those are things that the original ninja 5 just couldn't support with its processor now we've got the ninja 5 plus that'll give you those options the ninja 5 and ninja 5 plus can record video as prores or dnxhd but if you're looking to do raw video they only support it through prores raw now this is optimized for final cut works brilliantly you can also get a plug-in for premiere or avid if you want to work with the prores raw files there however there is no support within davinci resolve which is extremely popular for video grading so if you're using resolve then this might be a non-starter right from the get-go so besides the record modes they must have made a bunch of other upgrades to the ninja 5 right unless you count gray paint as an upgrade then no this looks and feels exactly like the original ninja 5 it's the same display same interface on it it just has the new processor to support those higher frame rates and higher resolution modes so since the body and features are the same as the ninja 5 be sure to check out our full ninja 5 review that's on the channel now right now if you're looking to test 4k 120 i'd need a sony fx6 or fx9 which i don't have access to but to test the 8k that is supported on the canon r5 which i have right now so let's see what kind of difference this can make now the r5 is a really bizarre choice i think to debut external 8k raw recording because it already has internal 8k raw recording in both c-raw and the c-raw light format so i wanted to do a test and see if there was a real image quality difference so i set the camera to the same exposure settings did a very high contrast scene right here and i apologize i can't seem to sit in the exact same place doesn't seem like a tall order but i couldn't master it and you can see here that the highlights are clipping at the same point on all the recorded formats and looking in the deepest shadows at the noise there you can see we're getting the exact same amount of noise with all three profiles as well so it doesn't seem like there's any kind of image quality difference between all of those raw formats okay so if we're getting the same image quality out of the externally recorded raw why would we bother dragging around a ninja five plus on top of our camera well the first thing you really need to remember is when you're using the r5 it can only record raw video to cf express type b cards where when you're using the ninja 5 plus it records to nice easily accessible ssds and if you're looking at it just in terms of storage space generally you wind up paying about three times as much for cf express media as you do with fast ssd media so if you're doing long recordings then yeah the ninja 5 plus just makes more sense using the ninja 5 plus also unlocks the ability to record a super 35 5k 60 frame per second raw mode that's not available for internal recording so if you want a little bit of slow motion or less rolling shutter that is an option for you as well you don't have to worry about overheating when recording raw video externally which we all know can be a real problem with the r5 there's also going to be a huge appeal to the externally recorded prores for final cut editors like myself because canon c-raw files just absolutely chug when you bring them straight into the editor and you don't have access to a lot of metadata controls like iso and white balance that you'd expect to have with raw video now you can use canon's cinema raw development software in that you can adjust the iso white balance tweak all those settings and then export them into something more easily editable in final cut but that's a huge pain in the ass whereas the externally recorded pro res raw goes into final cut beautifully right within the software i've got access to changing all of the metadata that i want to and it just performs brilliantly on my m1 imac so if you're a final cut editor then it's definitely going to be worth the investment to record that raw video externally okay so that's the case with this particular camera and recorder combination but what if you've got another camera and you're just wondering should i save a bunch of money and get the older ninja 5 or spend more than twice the price on the ninja 5 plus what other upgrades do i get my biggest issue with the original ninja 5 was really slow start up time and the fan noise now those are both things that could be addressed in the ninja five plus with its new processor so i ran a couple of tests first thing in terms of startup time it is absolutely identical now for fan noise i thought i'd do something fairly demanding so i recorded 10 minutes of 5.9 k raw video off the panasonic s1h after 10 minutes recorded the fan noise to see if one was louder than the other and i found the same thing they were both just as loud so neither of my two biggest issues have been addressed you're really just getting the extra recording modes with the ninja 5 plus but that's really not the whole story because atomos is one of the best companies in the business for providing really meaningful firmware updates not just adding support for new cameras but adding entirely new features and the ninja 5 came out a few years ago and it is now a very different and much more powerful tool than it was when it first launched but i really think we're kind of hitting the end of what this older processor is capable of so i do think in the future we're going to see a bunch of new firmware improvements with the ninja 5 plus that won't be offered with the older ninja 5 recorder so the big question is are you willing to pay more than twice as much money for whatever those future unknown capabilities might be that's a question i can't answer for you but hopefully this video has helped you figure out if the ninja 5 plus is going to be the right tool for you if you found this useful i would really appreciate a like and maybe a subscription to our channel otherwise we will see you all again very soon with some more dp review tv you

Channel: DPReview TV

Views: 43,463

Keywords: dpreview, digital photography review, digital photography, photography, digital camera, camera, Atomos, External Recorder, 8K, 4K/120, Ninja V+, Shogun, HDR, Video monitor, Chris Niccolls, Jordan Drake, Review, Field Test, Samples, ProRes Raw, ProRes Raw vs. CRaw, ProRes Raw vs. Canon Raw, CRaw Light, Waveform, HDMI, Fan Noise, Startup

Id: 0ebel5hxfms

Length: 6min 11sec (371 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 03 2021