C300: Canon Color science across the board?

G

Gene Sung

Veteran
I was wondering if all Canon cameras from the original 5D Mark II to the current C300 and everything in-between essentially share the same color science? Of course the C300 would have a better codec, C-Log, etc..., but the color science is pretty consistent across all the cameras right?
 
It depends on the color profiles used. There's a definite difference between the DSLRs and the C-line.
 
No, in my experience they look pretty different. There may be a way to match the c300 to a particular canon DSLR picture style using its extensive paint adjustments but I wouldn't expect an easy match out of the box. This is especially true since canon log is required to get the most out of the c-series as other gamma's clip DR and most DSLRs don't have Clog.
 
What if you are using Neutral on a 60D and also Neutral (if they have it on a C300) on the C300, will they look pretty similar if it's the same profile? Obviously, Neutral on 60D would look very different than C-Log on the C300.

But, would the same profile on the Canon DSLRs and the C-Series yield similar colors?

The reason I ask is because I've been shooting with the FS7 and there has been a fair mix of Canon DSLRs. Very surprisingly, with the new-ish CineEI color science on the FS7, the colors and skin tones are very easy to match with the Canon 60D even without hardly any color grading, just adjusting levels and adding saturation.
 
The chips are different....the C series has the 4K 10-bit chip and the DSLRs have different chips.....also, in the C300 (500,100), there is a gamma choice in the picture profiles that is a match to the Canon 5D standard look...not that you would want to dummy down the C300 to match a 5D.

Jim Martin
 
Erik Wittbusch said:
Are you saying that S-Gamut3.cine and the colours of the DSLRs are matching closely?
Really?
Click to expand...

Here's my tests (I'm the ugly Asian dude and the Hispanic / Black girl is my wife). I do feel like Canon has a nice color science that carries across all their cameras, so I'm hoping the C300 will have similar matching results with the 60D since I have to match it with the FS7 on an up-coming shoot.

Here's a bigger version since DVXUser only allows small-ish images

http://www.builtbyugene.com/images_client/SonyCanonTests_01.jpg

I did no color shifts in any of the images. The FS7 LC709a is straight-out-of-camera. The FS7 CineEI has no color shifts, only adjusted levels and added saturation since it's a flat S-Log3 image. I wanted to show the true colors from both cameras. Even with no color shifts, I feel the CineEI is pretty close to the Canon 60D. If I shifted some colors they would be a really, really close match.

For the 60D I used Neutral default on the bottom tests. and took Saturation down -3 in the top two tests. The default saturation of Neutral is a bit high for my tastes, so I went with -3 which I feel makes a nice out-of-box Canon image.

I'm not going to go into this whole "Camera X is more cinematic than camera Y." I will say this though. The MAIN thing I missed when I switched from Canon to the FS700 almost 3 years ago, is the nice out of box look that Canon has. I have to commend Sony for Cine EI and LC709a since they finally came up with a very nice out-of-the-box look. The FS7 is a huge improvement over the out-of-box looks from the FS700 and the F3, which could look like plasticy without grading.

I feel like CineEI can match pretty nicely with Canon color science, especially with some color shifts which I did not do. Sony tends to go a bit more blue while the Canon's are more focused on reds. Canon is a bit more punchy out of the box, while Sony is a little more subdued. Both cameras have a nice color science IMO, just different ways of presenting it.

SonyCanonTests_01.jpg

bigger version

http://www.builtbyugene.com/images_client/SonyCanonTests_01.jpg
 
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