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Tips for getting the best out of the XC10?


kye
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Hi All,

Any XC10 (and maybe XC15) owners interested in sharing tips / techniques / settings for making the most of these cameras?

There has been lots of criticism (and bashing) of these cameras, and lots of testing that showed their weaknesses and what not to do, but avoiding mistakes isn't optimisation.

I've done some tests myself (inspired by thehurlblog testing the 1DC) but won't bother sharing unless there is interest and input from others.

Kye.

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EOSHD Pro Color 5 for Sony cameras EOSHD Z LOG for Nikon CamerasEOSHD C-LOG and Film Profiles for All Canon DSLRs

Did anyone do any tests of C-log vs WideDR or the custom preset that was hammered out in the 55 page "Canon XC10 4K camcorder" thread?

The reason I ask is that I did and it was interesting - the custom preset seemed to be more defined, with lower noise, etc.  I'm aware of the differences between sharpness and resolution, but tried applying sharpness to the C-Log footage to try and emulate the custom preset but couldn't manage it, either with the Resolve sliders or the Sharpness plugin.

One question I always had with this camera was how many people were using C-log for compatibility with other cameras, how many for ease of use with LUTs etc, and how many were labouring under the false assumption that the dynamic range was greater than in the standard profile.

@BenEricson Yes, the codec only has so much bandwidth (305Mbit is a lot, but it's still far from RAW) so if you're shooting in f16 then that bandwidth is being devoted across the whole image because everything will be in focus, if you shoot wide open then the out of focus areas will consume less bandwidth and leave more for the sharper areas.

One thing I never worked out was a good hand strap.  All the other cinema cameras have one that goes with the handgrip but this one doesn't for some reason.

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On the C300 and C100 at least I find Canon Log looks better than Wide DR. I'd expect the opposite, better tonality from Wide DR since it's an equal amount of dynamic range spread over a wider gamma (goes deeper into the blacks). Haven't found this to be the case. Canon Log consistently gives me the best image. Not sure why.

But try it yourself and see!

What were the settings in custom? You can choose your own gamma there pretty sure... so if something there works better for you, use it.

XC10 looks so cool! I know there are naysayers but I thought people ended up really liking it.

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The profile that the thread eventually decided on was EOS Standard, Sharpness +4, Contrast -4, Color Depth -4.  I think their logic was that it had the lower base ISO and therefore was further away from the temporal noise reduction (and ghosting) that it could cause.  
My rationale was that with both profiles having the same dynamic range, I'd prefer to allocate my 8 bits so they're more concentrated in the middle rather than giving lots of detail in the highlights and shadows at the expense of colour information in skin tones etc.

After making that decision I did a comparison with different profiles and didn't run into the normal problems that people talk about with 8-bit + log profiles such as banding or skin falling apart, etc, although I did notice more noise in some tests with C-Log than the modified standard profile.

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3 hours ago, kye said:

The profile that the thread eventually decided on was EOS Standard, Sharpness +4, Contrast -4, Color Depth -4.  I think their logic was that it had the lower base ISO and therefore was further away from the temporal noise reduction (and ghosting) that it could cause.  
My rationale was that with both profiles having the same dynamic range, I'd prefer to allocate my 8 bits so they're more concentrated in the middle rather than giving lots of detail in the highlights and shadows at the expense of colour information in skin tones etc.

After making that decision I did a comparison with different profiles and didn't run into the normal problems that people talk about with 8-bit + log profiles such as banding or skin falling apart, etc, although I did notice more noise in some tests with C-Log than the modified standard profile.

Wasn’t there an issue with lack of detail from noise reduction? 

Using a non log profile for the ability to shoot at the lower ISOs is really a huge bonus.

Baked in profiles are majorly under utilized these days - especially with the Canon cameras.

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9 hours ago, BenEricson said:

Wasn’t there an issue with lack of detail from noise reduction? 

Using a non log profile for the ability to shoot at the lower ISOs is really a huge bonus.

Baked in profiles are majorly under utilized these days - especially with the Canon cameras.

Yes, that was one of the problems that put people off the camera, and the lower base ISO (and therefore NR) of the standard profile guided the conversation to modifying the standard profile to get further away.

I've shot a bunch of things, but I'm not good enough at grading yet to be confident that any differences would be a result of the profiles and not me stuffing things up in post.  I'm planning on watching a bunch of tutorials on how to grade C-Log over the weekend.
My plan is to get good enough at grading C-Log so that I can duplicate the C-Log to Rec.709 preset, and also be able to duplicate various nice grades I find online.   Then I can grade my C-Log footage with confidence, then grade my modified EOS Standard profile to match, and then I can compare the profiles.

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