Mmmbeats

I think the C300iii RAW looks really nice. The C300iii is really the camera I want. It's well out of my price range, but maybe I should just pull out all the stops and aim for it. Apart from price (which I don't have too much complaint about, just can't afford) it ticks every box I can think of.

It's labelled as C70, but it might not be. Lots of people spoof early-release cameras for clicks.

Impressed by this:

I keep getting a bit worried/distracted/obsessed by the highlight rendition with this camera. The wedding film, above, doesn't look as nice overall as the previous stills. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice piece, and I'm sure the families will be delighted, but the highlights do look quite abruptly clipped in places, and it does lend it a bit of a DSLR-y feel. Am I being paranoid?

Well, you're not the only person saying it. I'm still a bit torn. I think it doesn't help much that most of the early films are by camera shops or YouTube types. No disrespect to either, because they both play an important role, but neither group produces the most stunning images. I notice the (really nice) C300ii footage you linked from is by also a rental house, but they seem to turn out quite superior visuals! 😅 I enjoyed some of their other clips too!

Some very encouraging grading demos here: (if you find the guy super annoying, jump to the very worthwhile grading stuff at 5:30 😉)

Some further C70 video vs C300iii RAW comparisons here.

Those post routes look very worthwhile. I still haven't taken a look at ACES, and don't even have a working understanding of it yet. Is there a benefit to reading the ground for exposure? I've not heard of that one before. I'm increasing seeing (from sources I trust) that 75 IRE zebra is the best clipping warning level for V-Log L because of the risk of individual channel clipping (at 80 IRE).

I think this is the best sequence so far for showing the camera in a variety of situations:

Yes, that's more or less the technique I used, though middle grey has a slightly different reference point for HLG (38 IRE is what I used). The way I usually do exposure is by looking at the talent and figuring out where I want their skintone relative to 'normal'. This is influenced by whether or not they are in shadow, whether it's a moody scene, the shade of their skin, etc. I rarely drop it more than a stop below 'normal'. Once that is established, I take a look at the highlights and whether they need protecting. If they do, I make some kind of compromise - either I allow some elements to blow out, or I allow the skin tone to drop further than I would like. This just depends on the aesthetic of the shot (for example I might let quite a big window blow out, but I would hardly ever let a big section of sky blow out). Finally, if I think there is important stuff going on in the shadows I might make an adjustment to try to help them a bit (while making sure to continue to protect the highlights). I very often skip this stage and just let the shadow area fall where it may. Sounds long winded written down, but all of that happens very quickly and automatically. I prefer to use false colour, but am happy to use zebras if that's all I have access to. As you say, spot metering is a really good alternative too (though you have to work out over/under values to make it work on most of the cameras I use). No way am I faffing about with a grey card - I want a technique that works the same across events, doc, fiction, etc. (obviously there are somewhat different approaches required for each). If the skintones are in the ballpark of where you want them in the final grade then I find the post route is a lot more straightforward. You're also less likely to damage them by pushing or pulling. That's another reason why I prefer them as a starting point for exposure than middle grey. Having said that, I do sometimes push my exposure up a bit if I have the headroom - a kind of ETTR-lite! (the coward's version 😉). I don't really think that 'exposing properly' means always providing end goal exposure levels in-camera. It's virtually impossible to preserve both highlight detail and ideal skin tone exposure in a large percentage of shots, unless you were to shoot on an Alexa or something (out of my budget range!).

That's the one I used. Its labelled as 40 - 50 IRE on the documentation I have.

Righto - so I've spent this evening doing some tests using my Colorchecker Video chart to try to hunt down some answers to this. Just in case anyone else is seeking this info, here are my findings. I monitored Natural, V-Log L, and HGL. Each white balanced custom, at f/2.8, 400 ISO, using shutter speed to vary exposure. I used reflective white as a reference point for each profile, and then used the middle grey chip as a second reference. I had to make a best guess as to which of the very similar light grey chips was 18% grey as it is not noted in any of the XRite documentation weirdly enough. So - The reference profiles gave readings similar to what was expected for lightest skin: Natural: 70 IRE V-Log L: 50 IRE The reading for HLG was: HLG: 57 IRE So, reassuringly close to Alister Chapman (60 IRE), and TL;DR Filmmaker (once you adjust for skin tone). The readings for darkest skin were much lower than expected: Natural: 19 IRE V-log L: 29 IRE HLG: 18 IRE This leads me to think that either: 1) The darkest skin tone chip on this chart is particularly dark 2) People have not calculated exposure to include darkest skin tones properly 3) I've made some kind of mistake Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the test results though. The lightest figures correspond well with how I understand each curve. I'm willing to believe that darker skin can fall along that part of the exposure range. I hope these are useful to someone else. I can post more about my methods (which admittedly weren't perfect), if anyone needs the info.

I want to know what the typical reference values are for skintone exposure in HLG for standard dynamic range delivery. I'm finding this information quite easy to source for linear and log curves, but a bit more murky when it comes to HLG. I am aware that - Skintone exposure is subjective, and can vary according to artistic intent, mood, lighting, contrast, etc. Skintone references are a bit out of date because camera sensors have a wider DR than when they were formulated The whole thing is a bit euro-centric and often doesn't consider the diversity of skin tones available However, I like having a set of values (ideally skin tone and skin highlight tone for lightest skin types, and the same for darkest skin types - I then guestimate for tones inbetween). It helps me to sanity check, and acts as a foundation for my subsequent choices. In other words, I'm not intending to slavishly expose every thing to the same skintone value - I just like to know where I stand! I'll be shooting HLG on GH5 and GH5S. For linear, I usually work to these values (for lit skin itself) : Lightest skin: 60 - 65 IRE Darkest skin: 45 - 50 IRE For V-Log-L I have found these values (which are for skin highlights) : Lightest skin: 55 IRE Darkest skin: 42 IRE For HLG the only info I've found is the following: Lightest skin at 1 stop over - 78 IRE This is as per Gerald Undone. I like the guy a lot, but I don't quite trust his workings on this one. He seemed to be using 18% grey at 50 IRE as his middle reference, but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to reference at 38 IRE for HLG. Asian skintone (slightly darker than lightest skin) - 50 – 55 IRE As per TL;DR Filmmaker. He's another youtuber I've got a lot of time for, but I'd classify him as an 'intelligent amateur' rather than a pro. It's pretty clear that his understanding of HLG generally was all over the place at the time of doing the tests. Having said that, the resulting skintones looked good. Lightest skin: 60 IRE This is per Alister Chapman, who I would definitely trust above the previous sources. Only thing is, it was just a fleeting mention in a video interview, so I'd like to see it confirmed, and have a way to elaborate other skintones and values. One thing I do notice is that the upper end of darkest skin values seem to coincide with the 18% grey reference point: Linear: 50 IRE V-Log-L: 42 IRE So for HLG this would be: 38 IRE (as per ITU-R report) Perhaps that could help in determining part of the range? Anyways, apologies in advance if I've mangled any of the concepts or values above. I'd like to know typical reference values for HLG, basically,

I might go wild in the country with this myself when it comes out.

It was the interiors that got me excited, but you are correct, it's hard to tell how hard the highlights are being pushed. Part of that was just my brain going -'Sunlight! Nice tones!'.

From the same set (Andrzej Fryda) :

These are the best I've seen the camera handle highlights so far. Shot on H.265, which as I've been saying, may turn out to be the best codec option. Also at only 135Mbps apparently. Very promising.

Question - how is the external video from the C70 likely to perform compared to the internal codecs? How does it work? Is the external signal uncompressed prior to encoding by the recorder? Is there likely to be an image-quality improvement? I realise that I don't really know how this all works. For example - what is the theoretical maximum bitrate? Is that even a well-worded question?

Some footage that is new to me (apologies if it's been posted before) : Looks nice enough, but doesn't really address any of my concerns / areas of interest.

Okay - I'm gonna say it... Can we please move this thread back on topic? 😉

The places where cinema cameras tend to differentiate themselves well from lower end cameras is dynamic range and highlight roll-off. Obviously these are somewhat related, but it occurs to me that while the C70 seems to have big advantages over say, the C200, in shadow detail, it seems (from the limited footage available so far) to be less capable in the highlights. That's what I'm seeing in the side-by-side tests (CVP and Giannis Saroukos tests). Also, the highlight rendition in the footage so far is not stellar. But it's hard to judge because most footage is either not very highlight rich, or has deliberate stylistic overexposure (Saroukos), which looks pretty but makes it hard for me to work out how well the camera is handling that range. There is also a significant (though probably not problematic) reduction in sharpness compared to the C200 RAW (and obviously the C300III RAW). I'll be watching this quite closely because if I'm going to be spending £5K on a camera, and at this point it still seems quite likely, then it needs to have an image that elevates above the mirrorless cameras below it. We'll see.

By the way, I wasn't being sarcastic, I really will take heed - particularly about unplugging the mini-XLR adapters. That's a useful heads-up.