Canon XC10 4K camcorder

[tugela]

4 hours ago, kidzrevil said:

Hmm maybe it's how the ghosting we are seeing is some type of delay the autofocus uses to lock on to areas of high contrast. Thats how contrast AF works right ?  maybe thats why the ghosting is more prevalent on high contrast objects...

I used a heavy grade diffusion filter the other day and there was less ghosting...I think you are onto something 

It can't have anything to do with autofocus. The doubled image is the result of two exposures in the same frame. So it has to be something that the camera is doing to combine different frames. Since it is apparently ISO related I would guess that they are combining data from adjacent frames to "bump" up apparent sensitivity. That would work for a static image, but anything that moved between frames would appear doubled, hence your ghosting.

[jpfilmz]

30 minutes ago, hyalinejim said:

Thanks @jpfilmz for your test footage.

I can confirm that ghosting exists at ISO500 with everything switched off. Here's a CLog frame grab with contrast expanded:

Look at the curved handle on the RHS - there's a ghost image. This is affecting motion cadence at all ISOs.

@jpfilmz @Lintelfilm @mercer @HugoS316 and all other XC10 owners:

It's time to contact Canon! Send them your ghosting footage and/or  links to the threads here and ask them to resolve the issue.

I'll test again with less light and see what happens.

[tugela]

1 hour ago, UHDjohn said:

How do you know there is a firmware update in the pipeline - it would be normal commercial practice for Canon to abandon the XC10 and push sales of the XC15.

Unfortunately that is what they tend to do with products that have rapid turnover cycles. The issue is fixed, but only in next year's camera.

[mercer]

@tomsemiterrific can you confirm all of your settings and redo your test with nothing initialized in C-Log?

[mercer]

On another note, I have been watching some XC10 videos on YouTube and there is some great footage out there. I am amazed how many people are using all auto and getting some incredible results out of this camera. I may be on a a mission to shoot a completely auto, run and gun feature with the XC10.

[kidzrevil]

it is a phenomenal camera @mercer but it makes no sense to have an intra frame codec if there is going to be ghosting in between frames. That totally defeats the purpose. I am either going to wait for Canon's response or sell my xc10 and get the xc15. Its a shame the reviewers haven't caught this because I would have just gotten the xc15 to begin with. 

Where is @Andrew Reid with his review of this anyway ? It would be nice if he made a post about this to raise awareness of it, if anyone can bring attention to this its him. 

oh btw the Cinema EOS Standard profile is a complete joy to shoot with. The skintones are perfect !

[jpfilmz]

I retested Pikachu with less light and was able to get alittle more ghosting to appear with Clog.  It happens with horizontal movement with hard pans.  Vertical only doesn't seem produce it but horizontal + vertical movement does. EOS Standard and Cinema EOS Standard have the least ghosting artifacts.  

*ISO is set to 6400 in these test.
Clog Ghosting Horizontal


Clog Ghosting Vertical


Cinema EOS Standard Ghosting Horizontal

Cinema EOS Standard Ghosting Vertical


With this level of lighting I would not be shooting with the XC10 anyway....but if i did i would not use clog.  Normal panning with Cinema EOS Standard was usable with very little ghosting.  Wide Dynamic range also had better performance than Clog.
 

[mercer]

10 minutes ago, kidzrevil said:

it is a phenomenal camera @mercer but it makes no sense to have an intra frame codec if there is going to be ghosting in between frames. That totally defeats the purpose. I am either going to wait for Canon's response or sell my xc10 and get the xc15. Its a shame the reviewers haven't caught this because I would have just gotten the xc15 to begin with. 

Where is @Andrew Reid with his review of this anyway ? It would be nice if he made a post about this to raise awareness of it, if anyone can bring attention to this its him. 

oh btw the Cinema EOS Standard profile is a complete joy to shoot with. The skintones are perfect !

I'd wait to sell it until we confirm that Tom is having the same results with ALL of the same parameters.

Honestly, I'm not too concerned about it because I will rarely shoot over ISO 500, I know it can still rear it's ugly head, but I never noticed it any of my footage until I bumped it up to ISO 20,000. If Tom's XC15 footage showed it, I would have chalked it to... Don't use any camera at 20,000 ISO. Lol.

[kidzrevil]

copy @mercer 

I think we should all create a dropbox or google drive or something and compile all of the footage in one place. A couple of untouched clips with the ghosting and all the screen grabs etc.

this way instead of sending Canon links to this forum like I did people can just individually open up support requests and send them the files. The more data Canon gets on this the better right ?

[mercer]

Yeah, and we should post it here as well. We want them to see there are a lot of eyes on this issue. 

[Lintelfilm]

8 minutes ago, jpfilmz said:

I retested Pikachu with less light and was able to get alittle more ghosting to appear with Clog.  It happens with horizontal movement with hard pans.  Vertical only doesn't seem produce it but horizontal + vertical movement does. EOS Standard and Cinema EOS Standard have the least ghosting artifacts.  

With this level of lighting I would not be shooting with the XC10 anyway....but if i did i would not use clog.  Normal panning with Cinema EOS Standard was usable with very little ghosting.  Wide Dynamic range also had better performance than Clog.
 

Thanks JP. I too got much less ghosting with everything off but it is there.

Personally I think the XC10 is still an awesome camera and although this ghosting issue should be acknowledged by Canon it's not keeping me awake at night. The camera uses a lot of digital fandangledness we really know little about to create a very sturdy and overall great image in most situations (esp. for the sensor size). I can live with this ghosting, because in motion it is only very noticeable in quite extreme circumstances. I'd guess that whatever is causing it is doing a job that is contributing a lot to the image quality so as with any camera I'll pay the price of compromise. 

The XC10 is really aimed at VJ's and other run+gun filmmakers who require versatility, speed and generally clean-out-of-camera images over "image perfection" (whereas a narrative filmmaker in contrast may prioritise the latter).

I'll contact CPS too but I'm not going to send the camera to them. Personally I'm more than happy using it as-is.

 

[Mattias Burling]

3 hours ago, UHDjohn said:

How do you know there is a firmware update in the pipeline - it would be normal commercial practice for Canon to abandon the XC10 and push sales of the XC15.

How would it be normal when they never done that before?
The XA20/25, XA30/35, XF100/105 and XF200/205 have all been available together as the exact same models with only one connection separating them.
For Canon to all of a sudden abandon this practice and starting to promote an XX5-Sibling over another would be a first.

[hyalinejim]

Incidentally, while testing Mercer's suggestion of switching to gain rather than ISO (it made no difference) I discovered that gain lets you get a lower exposure. If you're on 500 in CLog or WideDr, switch to gain and select fine adjustment. When you get back you'll see you're at 10.5db. You can bring this down to 8.5db.

[kidzrevil]

@Mattias Burling yeah I doubt Canon has "abandoned" their hardware. This is literally the fastest tech support I have ever experienced from a camera manufacturer. They were patient,responsive and didn't give me some copy and paste answer 

I remember contacting Samsung customer support asking if its true that they discontinued the NX1 and received the most vague answer and we all know what was the end result of that lol

I am satisfied with Canon's support.

[hyalinejim]

12 minutes ago, Lintelfilm said:

 

Personally I think the XC10 is still an awesome camera and although this ghosting issue should be acknowledged by Canon it's not keeping me awake at night.

 

I think this is a very sensible point of view - you can great footage from the cam as is. Nevertheless, if it is a NR issue I'd prefer to have the option of using Canon's NR processing in camera, or using my own in post if I could avoid ghosting. Or having it fixed somehow.

Sometimes people talk about motion cadence and its importance and even if you can't point out ghosting with normally exposed footage at base ISO without looking at individual frame grabs, it nevertheless is there and is performing a streaking of motion that affects our perception of movement. And, for me, the premise of this camera is that it is a camera that moves - small, light, handheld, image stabilisation, on the run, on a gimbal. So its rendering of movement should be good. And that is compromised at the moment.

[Lintelfilm]

5 minutes ago, hyalinejim said:

Incidentally, while testing Mercer's suggestion of switching to gain rather than ISO (it made no difference) I discovered that gain lets you get a lower exposure. If you're on 500 in CLog or WideDr, switch to gain and select fine adjustment. When you get back you'll see you're at 10.5db. You can bring this down to 8.5db.

Any idea what 8.5 equates to in ISO on the XC10?

Oh and do we know what the base ISO is? I've assumed it's 500 as that's the lowest C-log can go but I really have no idea. The C100MkII can go down to 320 in CLog (850 is base)

[kidzrevil]

Would be great if someone could translate the EBU findings into ISO I want to know the exact point in terms of ISO does the NR start affecting resolution. I have a couple theories I want to put to the test to alleviate some of the cameras shortcomings 

[hyalinejim]

22 minutes ago, Lintelfilm said:

Any idea what 8.5 equates to in ISO on the XC10?

From flicking back and forth between ISO and (fine) gain in a non-Log picture style, ISO 400 = 7.5db  and ISO 500 = 10.5db.

Going down from 10.5db to 8.5 using fine gain controls is -2db, so that's a 1/3 of a stop. It seems to only make a difference in WideDR and CLog. Could be useful for another little bit of exposure latitude when shooting outdoors.

[Lintelfilm]

To backtrack a little, where is this new "Blur" slider for Super 8/S16 in the new Film Convert version? I can't see a blur option anywhere.

[kidzrevil]

5 minutes ago, Lintelfilm said:

To backtrack a little, where is this new "Blur" slider for Super 8/S16 in the new Film Convert version? I can't see a blur option anywhere.

Im using a windows version of filmconvert in premiere and it is the slider above color and curves