C300 Highlight Handling

Grug

Grug

Veteran
There has been a fair bit of discussion about the performance and limitations of the C300, and some fairly mixed commentary on how it handles highlights and the 'filmic-ness' of it's footage; so I had a look back over the 720p Vimeoed versions of the short films made on the C300 to see what they might tell us about the camera when it's under the toughest of conditions (namely the sort of high-contrast scenes that have always been one of video's greatest limitations compared to film).

First up, 'Max is Back':

Max 1.jpg
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What do you think guys? 'Sword' is obviously the roughest of the bunch highlight-wise, but the grade on it is so punchy and high-contrast, that it would be hard to expect much else.

The 'Max is Back' trailer looks really nice to me, it has a very naturalistic look that just seems to work, nothing particularly stands out as harsh, unattractive or problematic to my eyes.

'XXIT' seems to handle some very bright, daylight exteriors quite well. Lights in the nightime shots (as seen in the top screencap) do seem to blow out quite harshly, but perhaps that's to be expected in such low light situations.

'Mobius' is the obvious standout to me - the amount of detail that's held in the shadows of what must have been extremely bright daylight shooting conditions, is really quite remarkable.
 
I am really amazed at the images that I have seen, so far, from the C300. To me, the Achilles heel of video, even HD digital capture has been day light exteriors. They are just so hard to get right. Then, BAM, the C300 hits, and their premier films take on daylight exteriors, and kick its a**!!. "Mobius" is the obvious one, but the the ending of "XXIT" just blow me away.

"Max is Back" brought a tear to my eyes. It is an example of an aesthetic that I have an trying to develop. I am a child of the seventies cinema, and "Max is Back" looks to me to be a film that was made in that vein, but with modern tools. I can't wait until the film is released.
 
To me all the highlights look completely gone when the camera is actually outside. Most of the shots from inside looking out, look fairly nice; a few are blown out.




By the way, in the last picture of "XXIT", the mountains actually look like a digital set extension to me. Anybody know if it is or not? Can't really see them in the behind the scenes material.
 
Grug said:
What do you think guys? 'Sword' is obviously the roughest of the bunch highlight-wise, but the grade on it is so punchy and high-contrast, that it would be hard to expect much else.

The 'Max is Back' trailer looks really nice to me, it has a very naturalistic look that just seems to work, nothing particularly stands out as harsh, unattractive or problematic to my eyes.

'XXIT' seems to handle some very bright, daylight exteriors quite well. Lights in the nightime shots (as seen in the top screencap) do seem to blow out quite harshly, but perhaps that's to be expected in such low light situations.

'Mobius' is the obvious standout to me - the amount of detail that's held in the shadows of what must have been extremely bright daylight shooting conditions, is really quite remarkable.
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They seemed to be torture testing the C300 in that one. The behind the scenes suggests they were trying to push it to its limits. It would be unfair to judge the c300 based on the SWORD, but I am glad they pushed it.

Mobius, was really well shot. Shooting at high noon in a desert or a beach is NOT as hard as it would seem. There is a lot of light bouncing in every direction, filling in shadows naturally. The sand on the ground is a nice big bounce board.

The c300 performed admirably in those films.

Thanks, Grug for putting this together.
 
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This cam produces some extremely organic looking footage, even with the highlight burn outs. I don't no what canon is doing to get such filmic looking imagery out of it's line but My hat goes off to them.
 
Andrew McCarrick said:
By the way, in the last picture of "XXIT", the mountains actually look like a digital set extension to me. Anybody know if it is or not? Can't really see them in the behind the scenes material.
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I agree on that. If that shot was actually pulled off in-camera, Canon should get their hands on the camera-original MXF and release it. Because if that is real, it is the best selling point I've seen for the camera yet. BUT it was in a film put together by experts in digital set extensions. And it sure looks too controlled (tonally/exposure-wise) to be real. I am fully impressed if it's real. But I'm suspect. Anyone know someone from the production that can spy for us?
 
hemophilia said:
I agree on that. If that shot was actually pulled off in-camera, Canon should get their hands on the camera-original MXF and release it. Because if that is real, it is the best selling point I've seen for the camera yet. BUT it was in a film put together by experts in digital set extensions. And it sure looks too controlled (tonally/exposure-wise) to be real. I am fully impressed if it's real. But I'm suspect. Anyone know someone from the production that can spy for us?
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It's probably real. The BTS footage shows them on location at Yosemite. I know what you guys mean though, that last shot looks like an unreal HDR in the Vimeo version. But I saw the film on the 60 ft screen at Paramount and I don't remember thinking it looked abnormal or anything. Then I thought maybe they just used a graduated ND filter to balance the background exposure with the foreground, which was in shadow. But the BTS shows the camera in low mode on a Steadicam with no filters. Maybe it was another setup that used a grad filter.

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Hmmmm... good catch on the filterless behind-the-scenes. AND the behind the scenes also shows just how ridiculously blown-out the light rock faces getting direct sun are normally. So-- world's most amazing dynamic range and a killer grade? Or fake as ^%$#?

Not to be too pixel-peepingly-neurotic. But the screen on the steadicam in the BTS shows a darker exposure than what the BTS is getting, if that makes sense. The rock face in the BS shot is blown out, but on the monitor in the shot it looks like it's much darker. Hard to tell though. That would lean towards the in-camera-and-graded argument.

It's just such a picturesque shot though, and from Stargate friggin' Studios. How are we to have any confidence in that?
 
I think it's probably real, but maybe there was filtration or it was massaged during grading. It's the finale shot, after all!

But it could also be they just had good light. That last shot looks like it was done in the morning, so you get some of that alpenglow and the exposure range isn't as big. The BTS seems to have been shot by XF305 cameras so they might not have been able to cope with that exposure range. Check out the scenes below, which look like they were shot later that morning when the sun was higher. The mountains in the background are still holding up pretty well. The only problem I noticed was in the last picture, the highlights on her hair look a little harsh, but this could be due to Vimeo compression. Also, it's just one frame. If you step through the other frames where she moves, you see detail in her hair again.

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I look forward to trying one out. Flying these little cameras will be easier on the back, but really test the skill of an operator.
 
how can we judge from graded images?
It would be great if we could see a LOG frame from tha camera, ungraded. Then we would see the true dynamic range.
 
Hey Piolet--

Good points. Those other shots you posted look like they're holding up similarly. BUT they're also closer and they're definitely throwing some light in there to bring up the foreground range and compress the overall images dynamic a bit.

Curious stuff. Canon send us some MXF's!!! :)
 
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