hyalinejim

"I think the white balancing sucks, and I'm sure why" I know what you mean. I've had good results with Cloudy preset rather than manual WB or dialling in K. It seems to actually capture different colours. When I manual WB I get a lot of green-magenta shit going on.

It's click bait BS. He couldn't even match WB between the two.

Yes, that was from a test by @tomsemiterrific which is no longer online. He tested at 20,000 ISO and it was very noisy but ghost free. Here's the file if you wanna check it out: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kcuoet3nxruwwgv/A043C899_161024FY_CANON.MXF?dl=0 He didn't have the MXF file so I don't know what picture style it was.

That sucks, @Pvandall. We had all previously thought that the XC15 was free of ghosting and for the price it's just a joke. For the XC10 I sent Canon samples from lots of different XC10s that I gathered here. They said the camera was within spec, that it's a side-effect of noise reduction and that there's no point in sending the camera in. Can you post a sample that shows the problem? If the XC15 is similar, you might find my recent posts in the big XC10 thread of interest to help combat ghosting. In short, shooting EOS Standard with contrast, saturation and sharpness turned down and with ISO at 1.66 stops lower than C-Log or WideDR will give you similar results in terms of dynamic range but with much less ghosting. If you can then keep your exposure under 2000 by increasing shutter speed or shooting wider you might find that you can just about live with it. Detailed info here: and here:

This post is a bit dense, as I've been figuring out ghosting in relation to picture styles, ISO and 4K v HD so skip this if it's not of interest to you. If you are interested, don't take this as gospel - find what works for you! I went and checked and it looks to me like EOS Standard has the least ghosting. Here's a motion test at ISO 4000, f5/6, 1/50s in 4K. I balanced the contrast between each of them and desaturated so that ghosting becomes more clearly visible and comparable. The area of grey in the middle would be completely clear of horizontal stripes if there were no ghosting in this camera. I'm counting (roughly) the number of times I see the white band repeating before it becomes so indistinguishable as to be unproblematic. EOS STANDARD ghosts = 4 CINEMA EOS ghosts = 5 or 6 WIDE DR = 6 or 7 C-LOG = 8 Now, whether or not you see the same number of ghosts as me doesn't really matter. The general trend is clear and it looks like EOS Standard has the least ghosting. This was at 4K and I tried the same test in HD at the same ISO of 4000. All four profiles were equally rubbish here but at lower ISOs the same trend emerged with EOS Standard having the least ghosting. Interestingly, in 50fps 1/50s the ghosting appeared to be a little better than in 25fps 1/50s because the ghosts were smaller. So you might get better results by switching to 50 or 60fps, as long as you can live with the effectively decreased bitrate. Also interestingly, in the EBU paper the guy talks about the resolution drop in HD at higher ISOs. I think Canon chose to address this in their last firmware update because now HD looks as if it might have more resolution than 4K at ISO 6400 - even when the 4K is downsized to match it!!! Check it out: HD on left, downsized 4K on right: In an individual frame, the HD looks much cleaner. But if I press play on this static scene it's pretty obvious that there is major noise suppression going on in the HD which feels a bit plasticky without added grain - and if there's movement in the scene then noise reduction and compression artifacts are everywhere. Still though, I'm very surprised that HD does so well - I can read the text much more easily than in the 4K. Perhaps the XC10 is now optimised for shooting charts from a tripod OK, back to ghosting and low light. Since it was the best, I did some more tests using EOS Standard and for me around 1600 to 2000 is a good cut off point in both HD and 4k. Ghosting is beginning to appear at this stage but if you weren't consciously looking for it you probably wouldn't see it. Any higher than that in HD and ghosting gets progressively worse, while the noise stays constant and the image gets smeared. In 4K, on the other hand, ghosting seems to stay about the same as ISO increases, but noise kicks in so much that HD is actually better. So if I ever do need to go 3200 plus - to film the ghost of Elvis or something (as long as he doesn't move too much) - I think I'd use HD rather than 4K as there's less noise and the same or more detail. I was surprised to see today in my HD ISO5000 clip of the girls and skeletons how usable it looked. In 4K it would be a mess of colour noise at that high ISO. So all in all, I'm fairly happy with EOS Standard as a workaround to mitigate ghosting. I can now utilise the ISO range from 160 to 1600 to help with exposure without worrying about messing up image quality too much. This captures a similar tonal range that you would get in C-Log at 500 - 5000... and that's a hell of a lot higher than I would ever have gone before. If I think back to the first video camera I ever owned, the Canon XM2, that had 3 stops of gain. Part of the reason that I like the XC10 so much is that it reminds me of that camera, shooting handheld when I was first discovering video. And I'm glad that I can now confidently use it in moderately low light.

There is definitely some aliasing with the 5D3 ML, even in crop mode. I've also had problems with detail in landscape shots. Have you checked that noise reduction is also disabled in the details tab? I turn everything there to zero, except for Color Noise which I leave at 20. I've got much more detailed shots by shooting 2K+ resolutions in the classic crop mode and downsizing to HD. And in terms of getting psychologically realistic landscape colours, I've found it very useful to use the Cinelog preset for ACR and then play around with various film emulation luts.

It's such a less contrasty profile that it's hard to know without doing an A/B comparison and normalising the contrast. But I'd guess that they're pretty much the same.

Second hand 5d3 with ML plus cards and hard drives is probably do-able for below 2000. The pliability in grading the image is amazing and will knock any 8 bit image into a hat in that regard. And I think this is important for narrative work, to be able to create a stylised look that suits your film. A C series camera will be sharper and less noisy, but a well exposed 5D3 image is a dream to work with in post and, as this guy says, 1920 x 1080 is enough for a 2k DCP. http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=18286.0

I have you to thank for that one - it lives on the camera permanently now

Testing Cinema EOS Std. in a place full of dead animals. ISO from 500 to 1600 in HD. Some shots are mush at anything over 2000, some shots are still usable, like the 2 girls with the spooky skellingtons at ISO 5000.

Here are some frames from a few shots I grabbed on the way to the shop, using EOS Standard > FilmConvert. @kidzrevil I think that Cinema EOS Standard at ISO160 is an even closer match to C-Log at IS0500 than EOS Standard is - it's way less contrasty with lifted shadows like you mentioned before. I think I might use EOS Standard for low contrast scenes and Cinema EOS for high contrast or highlight protection. I've pulled the sky exposure on a few of these, emulating a graduated ND in post. The 422 codec holds up really well.

We all know that with the XC10 the image gets softer as ISO increases due to increasing levels of noise reduction applied by the camera. My point above is that I can retain more detail while getting a similar exposure using the method described. Whether C-Log applies more NR at the same ISO, leading to a mushier image is another issue and I suspect it might. FWIW, sharpness was at 0 in the samples above for EOS standard although of course Canon might apply a default level of sharpness.

Yes, ghosting is less pronounced in the 3 contrasty profiles than in WideDR, and C-Log is the worst.

@Lintelfilm has a CXXX series camera I think. He might be able to take a look.

I think it will vary by ISO @kidzrevil as the black dots will start to appear as ISO and sharpening increase. So you might get away with one or two notches of sharpening at low ISO. The black dots are worst in Standard picture profile (Look 1) as @nikos has seen. They might not be so bad in EOS Standard. But do you think that in-camera sharpening makes such a big difference versus sharpening in post? Last night I tested C-Log versus EOS Standard for ghosting at ISO 6400. It's hard to quantify but it looks like C-Log gives 4 ghost images that get progressively fainter whereas EOS Standard fades out after 2 ghost images. Camera is moving up and I used curves to match tonality. There should be no horizontal lines in the brown band. What look like guitar strings are ghost images of the black border between the brown and the green. C-Log at 6400, four ghost images: EOS Standard at 6400, two or three ghost images: EOS Standard at 2000 (gives same dynamic range as C-Log at 6400), two ghost images that are much fainter than C-Logs four heavy traces at 6400. Noise looks similar: From what I understand so far, the key to exposing with EOS Standard is trusting the meter and keeping note of 100% highlight clipping - it needs to be exposed 1 and 2/3 stops lower than C-Log to get the same tonal range. But it has an ugly chroma highlight rolloff so desaturate your highlights, or check out my LUT which does that for you while matching the tonal range to the equivalent C-Log exposure at which highlights clip at 109. Just bring down superwhites first. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1exEpCRAfgFS21ZZy11M2ZxS2M

Hi nikos. That illustrates C-Log's softening quite well. I wish I'd seen your post before now as you had also spotted the black dots that are exacerbated by in-camera sharpening. It's barely noticeable at base ISO, but as ISO increases C-Log gets progressively softer. My guess is that it underexposes by 1.66 stops, pulls up the shadows and then goes to town on the noise reduction. This, then, is the cause of the image softening and ghosting. I went out and took a series of clips in daylight, alternating C-Log at 500 and EOS Standard at 160. I fed both in to FilmConvert and, with a contrast and saturation adjustment the results are almost identical. There are slight colour shifts but I think EOS Standard is closest to C-Log. Full gallery is here https://postimg.org/gallery/2agvnxize/ Sample comparison: The implication of this is huge for me, as it gives me the confidence to use EOS Standard in low light and get better results than C-Log. I'll test low light stuff with movement later this evening.

I agree, but what about 3200? How about 1600? Even at 1000 C-Log starts to turn into mush. It's fine at base ISO - I'm looking for ways that I can use it at something higher. So far, so good. Will post more samples in a while.

@Lintelfilm I think with my new workaround I've found a way to shoot in moderately low light, avoid ghosting and mush as much as possible while still keeping nice colours. Check it out (this one old weird trick... Canon hates him!)

OK, this might be a minor breakthrough in image quality. See you if you can swallow this load: Don't shoot in C-Log, shoot in EOS Standard instead! Am I insane? Hopefully not! I was messing about with picture styles as we all know that ghosting is dreadful in CLog but not as bad in the other styles. The problem is, many luts are designed to work with C-Log and it's just so nice in terms of delivering a range of tonality. And while the other profiles may be less mushy and have less ghosting they tend to be too contrasty with nasty highlight roll offs and the colours are different to C-Log. But, I think I've found a way to fairly closely match EOS Standard with C-Log by shooting 5 clicks down in ISO and dialling down contrast and saturation and sharpness (remember that?). Then, by messing around with the contrast a bit in post you get an image with similar colours and tonality to C-Log but it has LESS GHOSTING and a SHARPER IMAGE. First of all here's a wide shot so you can see how they look similar: C-Log, 1/25s, f4, ISO5000, Canon LUT..... EOS Standard, (-4, -4, -4) 1/25s, f4, ISO1600, contrast and saturation adjustment, Canon LUT..... Now, let's look at 100% views, C-Log on left EOS Standard on right: Amazing right? Much more detail in the EOS Standard at 5 ISO clicks down (1.66 stops), as you'd expect. And the noise looks roughly similar (except for the subtle emergence of those fuckers, the little black dots) But the real advantage is in the effect on ghosting. We all know that the contrasty profiles have substantially better ghosting than C-Log even at the same ISO. Imagine how much better the ghosting is at a much lower ISO. Example: According to my theory if I'm shooting an interview in a dimly lit interior and the meter tells me that C-Log wants to expose at ISO 5000 I would throw my hands up in despair as I know that the person's face will turn to mush and when they move I'll get lots of ghosting. However, I should be able to switch over to EOS Standard with sharpness, saturation and contrast turned down, knock the ISO back down to 1600 and, using my contrast adjustment, still get a comparable image to the C-Log but much sharper and much, much less ghosting. I'm heading out now to get some more comparisons of the two picture styles. If you want to try this for yourself in the meantime, here's a work in progress LUT to get EOS Standard close-ish to C-Log. Just shoot EOS Standard 5 ISO clicks down, and bring down your superwhites before this lut: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1exEpCRAfgFNGF0dUUtb2NjSTA

It was really high ISO maybe 6400. Camera was static, she was moving. Lens towards the tele end, subject distance around 3m.

I just checked and it's exactly the same on my 5D3. Aperture in Av, shutter in Tv and nothing in P or A.

Yes, that's true. You can only see aperture in AV mode, and shutter speed in TV mode. In P and Auto modes there is no info.

Gotcha. It looks a lot worse in a frame grab than in motion.

Regarding ghosting, Canon say it's due to noise reduction and (I guess) that we must all bite the bullet: I mean, does this footage look usable? That's not a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely wondering if people think you could use shots like this without the general viewer thinking wtf is that?

@mercer You're right. The best way to use this camera at the moment is at base ISO and in good light. And C-Log would totally give the most wonderful image and I would never look twice at any of the others but for the fact that it's far and away the worst for ghosting. WideDR is next best for retaining tonality, but it is much noiser for sure as kidzrevil says - that really jumped out at me today in my 5 profile comparison.. and the ghosting is moderately bad. The other profiles are cleaner in terms of noise and ghosting, but obviously you're not gonna get a nice highlight roll off there by any means. It seems there are a lot of flaws to work around. I've used the camera on 3 jobs so far, as a B-cam, and it's been fine because I've been aware of its limitations. And it's an amazing street camera. I love holding it and wandering around it with - just wish the image would give some love back when something moves at ISO500+. Maybe I'm naive, but I think that if Canon can fix the ghosting with a firmware update, then they will do it. In the same way that they added 4k RS reduction and "better" noise performace in HD. Although, now that you mention it... if they were looking at noise performance why didn't they spot the ghosting? Maybe they were testing it on static scenes, shooting charts and the like. It's a great camera for shooting charts with, just don't move anything! EDIT: Fuck that, this just in from Canon