C100: Matching the C100 to an 80D or vice versa?

puredrifting

puredrifting

Major Contributor
Hi all:

Doing a shoot this week with an 80D on a gimbal. I have never even seen an 80D in person, but I assume the colors are similar to the 7D and 5D? I have some home brewed color settings on my C100 and the Abel Cine presents. Should I adjust the C100 to try to match the 80D or vice versa? For those of you who have done this type of shoot, can you recommend some good color profiles to get the two in the same neighborhood color and contrast-wise? I suspect the C100 will be a lot more detailed but also trying to decide which shots to capture with which camera. Stand up hand held interview and some couples dancing footage, it's for a big show on network that has dancing, wonder which one it could be? ;-) I will have 17-55 2.8 IS and 70-200 2.8 IS II for the C100, 28mm 1.8 and 10-18 STM IS for the gimbal. I'd like to assign the 10-18 to the gimbal and stay tighter with the C100 but I have not seen location pictures yet and have no idea of light levels. It's going to be shot at a "dance studio" not at the show's stages, we are not allowed to light at all, it's a quick, get in, shoot for 30 minutes and get out type of gig.

Any thoughts on color matching or getting close? No time to shoot tests and a lot of charts.

Thanks!
 
I did a shoot a couple months ago where I used the C100mkII as my A cam on a set of sticks and handheld a 60D in natural mode. The C100 was set to CLog. In post I used the Canon CLog to Rec709 3d cube LUT used for the C300. It seemed to be pretty good. But admittedly the 60D footage was closeup b-roll of food/package labels so I didn't have to worry much about matched skin tones or anything like that.
 
The client is doing the edit and it's a brand new client so I am probably not going to shoot and send them C-Log, I don't know how post savvy they are. Probably better for me to ship them footage with a decent baked-in look. But thanks for your suggestions. Anyone with advice on baked in look for the two that will be close?
 
There's a couple new C-log profiles for Canon DSLRs, one from James Miller and another from Andrew Reid. You could transcode both cameras with EditReady using the same LUT to spit out baked-in looks. But you'd want to test them out to see how much the LUT differs from true Clog on the C100 to the faux Clog on the 80D.
 
Much appreciated Slavikb, but this is on a deadline, like "do the shoot, transfer the media to a drive in the parking lot and drop it off at FedEx overnight" to make it to the east coast, won't be possible.
 
I do have a 80D as backup for stills and video for some extra angles if required. I haven't used it in any assignments yet. It is primarily for my partner to use. I tested the 80D in video and have decided that I will use it mostly for closeups. The level of details from my C300 and 1DxII (4k MJPEG) are much more than the 80D files.
 
I do the C100 & 70D combo, I use Wide DR on the C100 and Technicolor profile on the 70D, and always use the 70D as the tighter camera. Being tight it's less noticeable if the color matching is off. After bars I roll on a color chart for both cameras. That helps ballpark it.

However...like you are doing, I usually pass the media onto editors unknown, so I will interface with them ahead of time, ask about settings, etc., but mainly I try to figure out if they're kids or real editors and if they have a crush deadline. If they do have a killer deadline, even the pros get pissed if they need to take time to grade every shot, in which case we will agree to go baked in. After all, missing the deadline trumps everything matching, plus quick cut style who's to notice? In sum, since they are looking like they are in a hurry, I would get permission to shoot flat from them because they often get ticked they had to slow down the edit. Since you are shooting under the same light in a studio, you don't need to fret about matching that much.

Bring your old star filter!
 
slavikb said:
There's a couple new C-log profiles for Canon DSLRs, one from James Miller and another from Andrew Reid. You could transcode both cameras with EditReady using the same LUT to spit out baked-in looks. But you'd want to test them out to see how much the LUT differs from true Clog on the C100 to the faux Clog on the 80D.
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I've found the James Miller DELUTS which are camera profiles that are said to create C-LOG like looks (paid ones). From Andrew Reid I found only LUT for Canon 5D MK III RAW.
 
After having done many tests with the 1DX II and my own CLog emulation (as well as CineStyle), for skintones I found just using one of the builtin profiles with contrast turned all the way down was better for skintones and less post work. The problem is with custom S-curves, color for skin can be tricky to grade in variable color temp lighting conditions. Matching the 1DX II to the C300 II (and A7S II) wasn't too hard (only spent a few minutes for this test- A7S II could be matched better): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYmrhWl8wmM . The 1DX II was 1080p for this test (sharpened in post), so should look similar to the 80D in resolution & color. C300 II was also 1080p (much more detail) and the A7S II was 4K downscaled to 1080p. Here is the 1DX II (all the location interviews; studio and skits were C300 II) using a custom S-curve/CLog emulation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mIVRphxFHU . The Bigfoot Museum skintones (starts at 2 minutes in) were very hard to make look good in post: daylight and interior lights were different color temps. The 1DX II (and perhaps 80D?) has very clean shadows and S-curves don't help with highlights, so the extra work in post isn't worth it.
 
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I used to work with a 1DC and C100. By adding some saturation, changing the knee, and dropping the black level with a Wide DR starting point, the C100 matched the 1DC perfectly with Neutral and the contrast turned down to 0. The Clog on the 1DC and C100 did not match, though. Now that I have a C100 II and XC10, I've realized that Canon changes their color science with each new chip set. Therefore, trying to compare any random Canon DSLR color profile and camera to any random Cinema camera and hoping that the profiles will match any other combination isn't of much use. In all cases, though, it is easier to match the cinema camera to a stock color profile on a DSLR than to try matching a DSLR to Clog on a cinema camera.
 
Good tips Cpreston. Amazon just dropped off the 80D, have to mess with it a bit now. But everyone seems to recommend Neutral with the contrast down all of the way down, sharpness all of the way down, saturation down two notches, that this should be a good starting point to match with Wide DR.
 
puredrifting said:
Good tips Cpreston. Amazon just dropped off the 80D, have to mess with it a bit now. But everyone seems to recommend Neutral with the contrast down all of the way down, sharpness all of the way down, saturation down two notches, that this should be a good starting point to match with Wide DR.
Click to expand...

That's good ole "Prolost Flat" right?
 
drummondb said:
That's good ole "Prolost Flat" right?
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I think so. Going to shoot and take a look at some footage today to compare to wide DR on the C100.

*Update - shot some tests and WDR on the C100 and the Prolost on the 80D to get within the neighborhood of each other with color. No an exact match, the C100 still seems to have more contrast and slightly more saturated colors but looking at the shots, I would definitely add a touch of contrast and saturation to the 80D footage and would be a happy camper. The Zhiyun Crane is a trip, just balanced it out, have to learn it's a modes a bit better but I think this will work for this shoot I am doing this afternoon.
 
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