C300: C300 Mark II or Sony FS7? Need help to pick one out, Will be buying either one

On the colour argument it is important to split between shooting 'baked' and footage 'ready for post'

I would say any of the Standard and Hypergammas are pretty horrid in the Sony - shooting 'baked' is hard - The C300 shone shooting baked and we can assume the C300ii will too.

Shooting baked one will want decent contrast in camera which will compress the DR - the C300i is a pretty camera shooting baked and for HD delivery is there any point upgrading.

Now assume you are upgrading that will be because you want to take your images further.. bend them in post.

Once you hit the world where post starts with the application of a LUT, well basically the 'look' of the camera falls to the wayside.

FS7 Slog+LUT will basically have any look you want - a good start point is the 'LC709' LUT being an 'Alexa rip off' made be Sony and given away.

There are many reasons to want a C300ii - but I dont see colour as one of them.
 
I halfway agree.

If someone's purchasing a camera I would assume they want a camera that can deliver on set/baked in and in post. Every job is different. I doubt every high end FS7 owner has a great colorist on every job.

As a DP's we don't always have full control or say on final color passes. I like the fact that the canon's get me halfway there before post steps in. Does it make sense to own a camera that you fight it's color science on every job?
 
You dont need a good colourist, you need any muppet to apply the LUT you have specified.

Getting 'half way there' is no good because that relies on skill to get the rest of the way,

Application of a lut is consistent and with modern NLEs does not add more than a single click to the workflow.

So application of a LUT is your first step and doing that should make the footage as pretty as anything you could bake - but the file retains a bunch more should the job have a budget to let a skilled colourist take the image even further.

I really don't understand the world that has multi thousand dollar high DR cameras and the post workflow that is so stone age you cannot get someone to apply a LUT.

I do understand that going live is different and you need a ready feed.

S
 
Good comedy - but you used the word 'fix' - which implies broken.

Well shot log material doesnt need fixing it just needs someone to tell the NLE which lut is needed, doubtless that will automate in metadata in the near future.

Of course if you use a C300ii to it's full potential you will be using Clog.. which of course looks like garbage until someone applies a LUT too.

S
 
Yeah the talk of color differences seems a bit silly given both cameras have the ability to apply a LUT in camera and therefore have whatever color you want or match each others color in camera without any post work with just a little work.

I am sure the C300II will be successful just as the C300 is/was. That doesn't mean it's the right camera for everyone to buy or the camera every operator will want to use given the choice. Personally I don't mind shooting on the C300 and often do for productions that are own them or are otherwise tied to them but I wouldn't want to buy one. The C300 is a business camera, good for people who get there jobs by what camera they own and production companies that want to own a camera more people are familiar with. As an owner I usually have preferred Sony lately since by comparison they seem to consistently have fewer limitations at half the price and find them just a bit more operator friendly (dedicated buttons for iso/shutter/wb, useable AF when needed, etc) and have better DR and upgradeability which all make them easier economic decisions. To some degree the C300II seems to narrow the gap a bit, but actually for the most part the comparison is still true from what I can tell.

The C300 always sort of struck me not as an owner/operator camera and more of a producer friendly camera since it is very popular and as a result the rental rate is very low and it does most of the things a lot of productions need but none of the cooler more technical things an DP/operator/owner might want like overcranking or LUTs or higher DR or quick access to exposure controls and smooth exposure adjustments. It's just a solid workhorse camera that does everything you need but not all the things you want. For an owner/operator, a camera is a much bigger investment so we want a camera that does everything and not embarrassed on set that I can't do something the director wants and Sony generally does that and at half the price which is a much easier proposition for an individual owner/operator.
 
morgan_moore said:
Good comedy - but you used the word 'fix' - which implies broken.
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If you actually read my post, I didn't use the word "fix" anywhere. As far as your assumption goes, I don't think it's broke, more like handicapped. Much in the same way Canon doesn't give up high resolution and fps without buying into their high end. I feel like sony does something similar with Color/fps in its consumer line(fs700/fs7/a7s).

The fact is that each camera has its own color science and INESCAPABLE look. Implying that if you shoot in slog3 you can achieve any look you want in post, is pure fiction. Sony/Canon/Panasonic/Arri have a look and applying adjustments via LUT/Gamma/Hue/Saturation adjustments does not change the foundational color science of the camera.
 
I see future like this. We will be shooting in S/C/V-log and by choosing a profile in your camera it'll be embedding a LUT to the file. But it won't be permanently recorded to the footage, just saved as a metadata in file (or like ISO in CineEI). By ingesting it in your NLE it will be there as default - "muppetized", so most of the people will be happy to work with it as it is not even noticing what is happening BTS. On the other hand colourists and other knowledgable people will be able at any time to "unmappetize" it in post and swap or remove that LUT. That's the future.

And with FS7 we're almost there, just this one last step have to be sorted (embedding LUT's to files).
 
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Leo. Sorry- take care.

indeed each cam does have a color science but imo those differences are fast becoming marginal.

i come from raw stills and am completely happy shooting canon or nikon even together on the same job - the cams - I can't tell the difference- the look is really all the colour engine of the converter - capture one for me in stills.

The main way to make cameras pop is a good converter - for example Resolve eats Catalyst Browse.

--
Alo - indeed that is the close future - CatBrowse already reads that stuff
 
alohype said:
I see future like this. We will be shooting in S/C/V-log and by choosing a profile in your camera it'll be embedding a LUT to the file. But it won't be permanently recorded to the footage, just saved as a metadata in file (or like ISO in CineEI). By ingesting it in your NLE it will be there as default - "muppetized", so most of the people will be happy to work with it as it is not even noticing what is happening BTS. On the other hand colourists and other knowledgable people will be able at any time to "unmappetize" it in post and swap or remove that LUT. That's the future.

And with FS7 we're almost there, just this one last step have to be sorted (embedding LUT's to files).
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This is the biggest advantage of shooting Red IMO. Looks are metadata and footage is 12 bit.
 
Im a bit confused by the way people are interpreting LUTS. LUTS aren't a magic button, hit it and - yay its graded!

The only real way to apply a LUT in this manner is if there's an on set colourist who is applying LUTS scene to scene for a post base.

A LUT, sony / canon / some guy on the forum or anyone else puts out will not work for every shot and likely not work for any shots in some pieces. I feel like a parrot as I've been posting this in a few places lately.

An on set LUT is only likely to be used as a reference point. Every piece is lit differently. A LUT has no way of knowing that. A LUT has no way of knowing anything unless its told what comes prior. High / Low key shots - a LUT doesn't know that. Subtle lighting in the shadow on this shot and not in that, a LUT doesn't know.

LUTS are great because they can be made in a test to get a look you want for the final piece. Theyre great on set to show a director / producer an unlogged / unraw preview. Cinematographers can work with an onset colourist when they know they're not getting post time to create the base look - an interpretation of how it should look. LUTS where never intended and shouldn't be used as click and grade.

Forget onset colourist etc for the moment and assume that's all being done back end. Each camera has input values, those values need to be interpreted for the shoot which includes mood / look / theme - if a LUT is to be applied that needs to be done manually so the LUTS output values match the intention, so a pre LUT grade would be needed. This is also why we shoot chip charts for every set up so we have a reference point for the intended look.

In the world of shoot on your own, grade on your own - most of that's in your head anyway. But factoring in slight variances in exposure shot to shot, especially if your shooting fast - dropping a LUT as the grade simply doesn't work accurately either.

To grade LOG / RAW, you need to understand how to do it, there's no magic button.
 
Noel is right ... to an extent. At some point, there'll be a given LUT - or sub-LUT, as it were ... perhaps custom - for a given lighting setup also. A 2:1 key-to-fill, use LUT F MKI. A 3:1 - LUT F MK II. A 5:1 - LUT G MKIII. After a while, an experienced DP/colorist will have his favorite lighting setups/LUT combos committed to memory and most are unlikely to deploy more than a dozen anyway.

A high end pro footage will still be graded by a specialist but the overall workflow in general will tend toward "faster = better" concept rather than toward "cost = quality".
 
Noel, I feel like you are doing that thing people do where they forget about the practicalities of filmmaking. Like how people always say the camera doesn't matter, the shooter does, or the shooter doesnt matter the content does when in actually they all matter and play a role and really what people mean is that don't get too caught up in one technical aspect when in fact they are just getting caught up in thinking people are getting caught up in some technical aspect that is only a portion of the whole thing.

Of course LUTs don't replace colorists and never will, I don't think there is anyone here that understands what a colorist does that would believe they would. But what about people who can't deliver log footage for whatever reason who shoot straight to air or have no control over how their footage is handled in post or just don't have time to mess with color much or want to know that the images they are delivering already look 95-100% how they want?

LUTs are a lifesaver for people who need to create images that are ready for viewing and are fed up with the 1 or 2 useable-but-still-extremely-limited non-log gamma curves that most cameras come with out of the box and really do go a long way toward evening out any inherent "look" that people believe cameras from one manufacturer has. Of course cameras will have different gamuts, but most of them are so wide now that most people will never see the difference and LUT support and workflows are becoming so common now that people will get better and better with them as everyone is creating them and sharing them. Yes 709TypeA on Sony doesn't look exactly like Alexa Rec709 but it looks pretty darn close and could look even closer, and I have no doubt that most of the cameras in this range will be able to be matched easily with correctly designed LUTs.

What will become more interesting is once cameras are easier to match we will really start to see exactly how different the cameras are in noise and DR and which cameras are truly limited in terms of being able to match because of limited DR.
 
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LeoGrey said:
If you actually read my post, I didn't use the word "fix" anywhere. As far as your assumption goes, I don't think it's broke, more like handicapped. Much in the same way Canon doesn't give up high resolution and fps without buying into their high end. I feel like sony does something similar with Color/fps in its consumer line(fs700/fs7/a7s).

The fact is that each camera has its own color science and INESCAPABLE look. Implying that if you shoot in slog3 you can achieve any look you want in post, is pure fiction. Sony/Canon/Panasonic/Arri have a look and applying adjustments via LUT/Gamma/Hue/Saturation adjustments does not change the foundational color science of the camera.
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The functional color space is much larger than most of the corrections people make. It is much larger than a "look". Only when approaching the edges of the spectrum are the differences visible. I can guarantee you that no one would know the difference between an FS7, F55, Arri Alexa, Red Dragon or any other 14 stop DR cameras today when looking at a film cut together or most images in typical shooting environments. I do a lot of grading for myself and others, and I know this from experience. A Sony "look", or a Canon "look" is largely mythology today if you have an S-LOG or C-LOG image. Where it does matter is if the look is baked in, on the many gammas, profiles, or even REC709 from one camera to the next. In those cases your working methodology and personal preferences make a large difference.
 
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