First time using 5D MarkIII

B

Brian@202020

Veteran
I have a shoot this weekend and it will be my first time using the 5D3. It's been a while since I've even used any Canon DSLR of any kind. I have a few questions: First, what is a good flat color profile for the 5D3? Second, what are some big benefits that Magic Lantern can give me on the 5D3? is there any bump in bitrate in the ALL-I mode? Third, what are the corks and/or secrets I need to look out for or utilize? Thanks in advanced everybody.
 
Built-in profile: Faithful.
For low motion shots, use IPB, fast motion or 720p60, use ALL-I. Bitrate isn't important: resulting quality is (ALL-I has a higher bitrate, but is outperformed in terms of quality by IPB for low-motion shots).
Regardless of profile, turn in-camera sharpening off: sharpen in post. The amount of sharpening depends on lens sharpness, subject matter, and taste.
 
I like to use the usual ProLost flat settings: Neutral profile, with sharpening and contrast turned all the way down (4 notches to the left) and saturation at -2 (2 notches to the left). I also think the sRGB setting gives the best skin tones.

I always shoot with the All-I codec. It may fill up the cards faster since its a 90mbps (on average) codec, but holds way better in post than the other 35mbps codec.

Always try to shoot in ISOs that are multiples of 160. But I've never gone above 3200 and that too for an SD project. For HD, I haven't ventured above 1600, since Canon noise isn't particularly good.

One important thing with the Mark III (and Canon DSLRs in general) is too keep your eye on the highlights. I found out (the hard way) that a harsh source over 4 stops than the set exposure comes out as a block of white goo that is really hard to take care off in post. The shadow details however hold up great. A rule of thumb I try to follow is lighting my scene at nothing below 6 stops and nothing above 4 stops (which is pretty much the dynamic range of the sensor itself).

Hope this helps.
 
ectobuilder said:
Could you let us know if it can record video onto SD Card AND CF Card (relay recording and/or backup recording)?
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I'm pretty sure it doesn't. I tried but everytime I recorded video it would only record to one of the cards even if both slots where set to record.
 
da24MK said:
I always shoot with the All-I codec. It may fill up the cards faster since its a 90mbps (on average) codec, but holds way better in post than the other 35mbps codec.
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All-I fills up the cards 3x as fast with no discernible difference in quality. Unless you want to grade the footage to death IPB is fine.

da24MK said:
Always try to shoot in ISOs that are multiples of 160. But I've never gone above 3200 and that too for an SD project. For HD, I haven't ventured above 1600, since Canon noise isn't particularly good.
Click to expand...
Shooting ISO multiples of 160 is just some voodoo repeated from alleged performance of the 5D2. Don't worry about it. As long as the scene is properly exposed then whether you are at ISO160 or ISO200 it will make no difference. The critical thing is that your exposure is correct & if that means bumping the ISO then that's what you need to do. The 5D3 is remarkably noise free at high ISO but gets a little soft. It's better to add light but if you cannot then again provided that it's correctly exposed you can use ISO6400 or even ISO 12800 without worrying about noise.

To return to the OP's unanswered question re Magic Lantern there is no version available for the 5D3.
 
jcs said:
Built-in profile: Faithful.
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Here's another vote for Faithful despite Canon's claim that it gives more err faithful colour reproduction I think it's actually a warmer look & is especially flattering for skin tones. It's also decently contrasty so really doesn't need any mucking about with grading in post.
 
nigelbb said:
Here's another vote for Faithful despite Canon's claim that it gives more err faithful colour reproduction I think it's actually a warmer look & is especially flattering for skin tones. It's also decently contrasty so really doesn't need any mucking about with grading in post.
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Faithful is close to Portrait in that it has more pinkish skin tones and more green/cyan in the blues. Neutral has more beige in skin and is thus closer to most portrait film emulsions. Its blues are more towards magenta though. I actually like Neutral's skin and Faithful's blues.
 
So here is the result of the shoot:

I ended up shooting Technicolor CineStyle 1080 24p ALL-I. I used all Nikon primes. Oscar Oboza from Pixel Farm did the color correction. Oscar color corrected the infamous "A Verse Before Dying" short that was made with a Pre Production AF100 by several people on this forum.
 
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Brian@202020 said:
So here is the result of the shoot:

I ended up shooting Technicolor CineStyle 1080 24p ALL-I. I used all Nikon primes. Oscar Oboza from Pixel Farm did the color correction. Oscar color corrected the infamous "A Verse Before Dying" short that was made with a Pre Production AF100 by several people on this forum.
Click to expand...


Footage looks great, mind sharing what Nikon primes you used?

Thanks
 
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