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Canon XC10 4K camcorder


Andrew Reid
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7 hours ago, kidzrevil said:

 

IF YOU CAN DO IT IN CAMERA THEN DO IT IN CAMERA!!!! :-D

Not sure if you meant that reply for me or HelsinkiZim who asked about digital filters, but the ones I have -HDTVFX and UltraCon - are physical filters. 

I cant comment on Tiffens digital filters as I've never used them. I do always add some level of grain though, even if I want a clean digital look, just to dither a bit.

As an aside, I also built my own FCPX "lens character" plugin that is pretty cool if I do say so myself. FCPX users can download it free from my site. It's been very popular actually - Mike Matzdorf the guy who edited the Will Smith film Focus in FCPX has it and sent me a couple of tweets about it...

If you google Dawg Pu (yes it's a stupid name ripping off Dog Schidt Optics in a jokey way) you'll end up on my blog post about it. Richard Gale even gave his approval!

Of course I'd rather get Richard to build me a full customised set of DSO primes but getting effects optically is not always practical.

 

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@Lintelfilm??? there is nothing you can do in post to match what can be done optically. The transmission of physical light has infinite variables that just cant be simulated digitally. If your fcpx plugin is giving you an image that fits your personal taste thats fine but it can never touch the benefits of getting the image you want naturally through physical components i.e. lens & filter combination versus doing it through digital manipulation. 

If that was the case we can create plugins that can make a cheap Nikon E series lens look like Zeiss Otus glass in post

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6 hours ago, Lintelfilm said:

Not sure if you meant that reply for me or HelsinkiZim who asked about digital filters, but the ones I have -HDTVFX and UltraCon - are physical filters. 

I cant comment on Tiffens digital filters as I've never used them. I do always add some level of grain though, even if I want a clean digital look, just to dither a bit.

As an aside, I also built my own FCPX "lens character" plugin that is pretty cool if I do say so myself. FCPX users can download it free from my site. It's been very popular actually - Mike Matzdorf the guy who edited the Will Smith film Focus in FCPX has it and sent me a couple of tweets about it...

If you google Dawg Pu (yes it's a stupid name ripping off Dog Schidt Optics in a jokey way) you'll end up on my blog post about it. Richard Gale even gave his approval!

Of course I'd rather get Richard to build me a full customised set of DSO primes but getting effects optically is not always practical.

 

Just watched the demo... Really cool plug in. The inverted mask really helped the final look, but I wasn't so sure it would because the flaring creeping into the center of the frame looked pretty realistic as well, but keeping the effect at the edges, it left just an impression which was subtle. Good job. And thanks for making it. 

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Speaking of putting bits of glass in front of the lens, here's a frame grab with a pre-Isco 36 on the XC10. I shot at f5.6 and got an image more or less free from vignetting at around the 80mm mark. So not a lot of bokeh to give away the anamorphic look. But it's maybe just discernible on the figure entering the frame on the bottom left:

Comp_3_0_00_04_15.jpg

White vignetting occurs, however, when the light source is going fairly directly into the lens, faintly discernible here on the right (and easier to see against a black background):

Comp_3_0_00_04_15.jpg

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3 hours ago, kidzrevil said:

@Lintelfilm??? there is nothing you can do in post to match what can be done optically. The transmission of physical light has infinite variables that just cant be simulated digitally. If your fcpx plugin is giving you an image that fits your personal taste thats fine but it can never touch the benefits of getting the image you want naturally through physical components i.e. lens & filter combination versus doing it through digital manipulation. 

I think we're talking at cross purposes here. I agree with you entirely and if you re-read my post I *think* you can see that. :)

I just brought up my plugin because the subject of "digital optical character effects" came up but I'm not making a case for them doing the same job ...

 

3 hours ago, kidzrevil said:

If that was the case we can create plugins that can make a cheap Nikon E series lens look like Zeiss Otus glass in post

This I do actually take issue with though ;) because we are talking about degrading images, not improving them. You can make an Otus look pretty close to a beaten up old Helios with my plugin (yes not perfectly, but reasonably and certainly believably with casual inspection). However you would have a very hard job - as you say - making an old Helios look like an Otus.

There is another school of thought in cinema that it is always better to capture it as clean and high-quality as possible and then degrade it later if you need to, because you can't do it the other way around. Of course you know this because you do this very thing yourself when adding FilmConvert to your XC10 4K footage! :P

 

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oh I thought you were insinuating that doing it in post will give you the same characteristics. I do agree that you can add some digital optical characteristics, my favorite to add is vignetting and it works really well in post...diffusion however is an entirely different beast ! I wish I had fcpx so I can try out your plugin, unfortunately im a PC user lol 

Also my initial point is in fact that when you do things before post production using filtration you do NOT degrade the image. The less you have to do in post the better. Yes you degrade in post production but the point isn't to degrade to the point where its noticeable. The more effects you add it becomes very noticeable like when people think they can underexpose an 8 bit log image and complain about the camera. Not saying you do this but I see this happen entirely too often. :-)

1 hour ago, hyalinejim said:

Speaking of putting bits of glass in front of the lens, here's a frame grab with a pre-Isco 36 on the XC10. I shot at f5.6 and got an image more or less free from vignetting at around the 80mm mark. So not a lot of bokeh to give away the anamorphic look. But it's maybe just discernible on the figure entering the frame on the bottom left:

Comp_3_0_00_04_15.jpg

White vignetting occurs, however, when the light source is going fairly directly into the lens, faintly discernible here on the right (and easier to see against a black background):

Comp_3_0_00_04_15.jpg

looks REALLY good ! is it too heavy on the lens ? 

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It is a bit heavy on the lens for sure and causes a bit of droop when the XC10 is at the telephoto end. I'm not sure that I'd ever use it for anything in particular because there's not a whole lot of bokeh to make it worthwhile. You still get flare, vignetting and slight barrel distortion but for me anamorphic bokeh is no.1!

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25 minutes ago, hyalinejim said:

It is a bit heavy on the lens for sure and causes a bit of droop when the XC10 is at the telephoto end. I'm not sure that I'd ever use it for anything in particular because there's not a whole lot of bokeh to make it worthwhile. You still get flare, vignetting and slight barrel distortion but for me anamorphic bokeh is no.1!

I'm not very versed with anamorphic, but I was wondering if a Yashica Scope or VM Anamorphic would be a good lightweight pairing with the XC10?

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I'm a bit rusty myself, but if the Isco can only go to about 80mm wide before vignetting is introduced it doesn't bode well for other anamorphics. On full frame, I remember that the Isco could do 50mm and the Kowas and Sankors of this world would do about 85 - but you have to remember they have differing crop factors, ostensibly 1.5x and 2x respectively although this open to interpretation (my isco is probably more like 1.4x).

I'm not familiar with the two models you mention.

Today I did a quick test regarding exposure methods for WideDR. I fed a +1, 0 and -1 exposure (using the camera's metering and an eye on the zebras for reference) into FilmConvert. When overexposed shots are brought back into range they become more contrasty. The opposite is true for underexposure. Nevertheless, I was able to match all three:

triptych.jpg

Looks similar right? Now look at the lower midtones / shadows:

vert.jpg

It's clear to me how I'm going to go about exposing WideDR.

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I think so - I had read that perfect exposure was really important with CLog and WideDR and that if you overexpose then highlight colours get washed out. But it seems fine to me to ETTR based on my tests so far. And 500 ISO does have noisy shadows so it's a good way to avoid that. Remember that the signal goes to 109 IRE so when you see 100 zebras there's still info there in the superwhites.

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Some great work here. So I'm really trying to like and use this camera. I just got a contract to document a language class. It includes some event shooting, interviews and classroom shoots.  They want to keep the shoots as low profile as possible which means no lighting. The xc10 would be perfect except I have a feeling I'll need to crank the iso in some situations and I'm seeing strong ghosting even at iso 800. What do you think the chances are that canon does something within the next few weeks? I know probably not good. So I'm thinking it might be time to upgrade. I'm thinking a original c100 would be all I'd need for this project as it's just documenting. I'm curious if people think the auto focus upgrade is worth it? I'm also seeing some c300's with the duel pixel upgrades for about $4k. 

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32 minutes ago, Amook said:

What do you think the chances are that canon does something within the next few weeks?

Contact them and ask them. Say exactly what you've said here - that you find the image compromised and are reluctant to use it for professional work.

It's in their pro line of camcorders and is touted by them for its good low light performance. They will fix it, I think, but the more people contact them, the better chance it becomes a priority - and sooner rather than later.

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I've already contacted then and sent samples showing the ghosting. At first they said they weren't aware of the problem and then after seeing a couple examples said they would pass it along to the engineering program. That was a week ago so haven't heard anything back. I know they are well aware of the issue as well as the thread on this website. I don't have huge expectations I'd like to be able to confidently shoot people at 1600iso.  

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They told me this last week:

"We have passed your request onto our European Product Specialists for further investigation and they will analyse the video files you provided to see if there is an issue.

We will contact you again shortly after the video has been analysed."

So I'm expecting feedback on this from Canon. I'll be shocked if they say there isn't a problem. We think the XC15 is clean, from Tom's footage, so I believe the problem is fixable - isn't the XC15 essentially an XC10 with slightly different firmware?

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Im not waiting on Canon their tech support seems very dismissive of the problem.They would like me to send my unit in but my gut is telling me the only real solution is to  just upgrade to the xc15 and avoid the drama. I see our tests are catching on with other filmmakers so its only a matter of time before they have to address it. I love the handling of the camera so if I must then I am going to upgrade it to an xc15.

The other option is to wait a month or so in hopes that people start bombarding the web with these high iso tests 

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