C100: Need Opinions on EOS Neutral Scene Profile vs Wide DR

nedcam

nedcam

Well-known member
Just got my camera back from Canon Service from frying my main board so I lost ALL my settings. For the most part I had been using Wide DR with some tweaks to NR and Sharpness but here's my dilema: I do not edit my work, usually goes to the clients' post peeps. Often when I get a sample of the job weeks later I can tell that they did no color grading, and Wide DR tends to have a flat look when left ungraded.

I had experimented with EOS Standard, love the pop in the colors but it looks over saturated and high contrast, plus I am also baking in the look which does not bode well in case the media goes to a pro editor who will be color correcting.

So in my research, and I am running out of time (I have a two day shoot tomorrow at a giant auto show), I stumbled across a file by a guy named Weed called EOS Neutral and I think this look is perfect if the editor is not going to color correct, or if grading needs to be done it can be.

I don't have the time to rehash all my research and tweaks, I am concerned with NR & Sharpness as to how it relates to EOS Neutral. I do not do dramatic work, mainly docs and corporate to the internal codec.

Thanks for your insights.
 
Thanks but on location I toggled between Wide DR & Canon EOS Standard on my DP4 EVF and the client chose Standard for the "pop" of colors and warmth. I was shooting the auto show and every half hour or so a card would be whisked to the on site editor who had no time to grade, perhaps a little exposure mitigation due to sweeping spotlights on white cars but Wide DR has a native blahness if there's no color correcton. When I has some time I will dive deeper into the site you recommend and into the Neutral setting.

Thanks
 
nedcam said:
So in my research, and I am running out of time (I have a two day shoot tomorrow at a giant auto show), I stumbled across a file by a guy named Weed called EOS Neutral and I think this look is perfect if the editor is not going to color correct, or if grading needs to be done it can be.
Click to expand...

I guess that is Cowpunk52's real name.
May be we can have a separate thread as to why each person has choosen a particular alias/screen name.
 
That would indeed be me. Here's what I emailed Ned a few minutes ago, let me know if anyone has further questions:

I think the best thing you can do to create a profile that works for you is to adjust the GAIN setting (in Color Matrix) and the Black Pedestal. As the cameras have been updated over the past few years, I've found that the color matrices have gotten much better, so less minute tweaking is needed. The GAIN setting will adjust your saturation, and you can set that to taste. I use the black pedestal to make sure I'm getting nice true blacks right out of camera. Basically, I put a cap on the camera, then notch down the black pedestal setting until the bottom line in the waveform monitor is just kissing 0 IRE. With those settings adjusted, I can usually get a nice rich image out of camera without going to far in any direction.


To create a new profile, I go to one of my empty CP numbers and select "reset." This gives you the option to reset that particualr CP to nuetral, eos standard, wdr, or cinema. I pick my base CP that I want to adjust, turn off the lock protection, and make my adjustments.


I do use a modified WDR quite a bit that I've lowered the Black Pedestal a few notches and bumped up the gain. However, I find it gets a little too noisy for my tastes around 1600 ISO. Above that, I use either a Norm 4 gamma or Cine 1 gamma (with matching color matrix) and adjust the same above settings to taste. The cine and wdr gammas need to have black pedestals dropped in order to give true blacks right out of camera.


If you want to make more specific adjustments to color, the R-G, G-R, B-G, etc, settings can be used, but think of it like gravity. Each action on one color will have an equal and opposite reaction to the other. For instance, if you adjust R-G, notching up or down will adjust the saturation of red, but will also change the hue & the saturation of green. It becomes a fine balancing at, as you can probably see.

Bonus Edit: I've found that mixing gammas with a different color's matrix can lead to unexpected results, and even moreso with updates from the original firmware of the cameras, specifically the C300. If you want to mix, do plenty of testing.

Bonus Edit 2: If you don't want to take your global saturation levels too far in one direction, try adjusting the Low Key Saturation setting in conjunction with the color matrix's gain setting. Low key saturation lets you adjust the strength of colors in the shadow part of your image. Sometimes I'll gain down my global settings, but lift my low key saturation in to keep my highlights from getting too garish. This works particularly well with a custom EOS Standard profile. Don't go too far here, though, it's a subtle baance.

As for my handle, here's where it comes from (the 52 is just a random number, though):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpunk
 
Last edited:
Cowpunk....sounds like your not using your own custom profiles 709LOG, cineLOG and CINEMA.2 because of the color matrices have gotten much better after firmware updates on the C300?

I still find the 709log and cineLOG nice on my C100.

Are you now not recommending yr profiles and and to use gammas with a matching color matrix instead?
 
Last edited:
I found the Weed profiles to be a little weird in colors. But his advice right here is spot on. 709log resulted in some weird colors in a handful of situations, especially reds.
 
BeeHop said:
Cowpunk....sounds like your not using your own custom profiles 709LOG, cineLOG and CINEMA.2 because of the color matrices have gotten much better after firmware updates on the C300?

I still find the 709log and cineLOG nice on my C100.

Are you now not recommending yr profiles and and to use gammas with a matching color matrix instead?
Click to expand...

I would encourage a good amount of testing with various colors when using any of the older designed CP's that I posted. Canon tweaked their color matrices slightly to give more pleasing & accurate color in various firmware updates for their cameras, and while they improved the look straight out of the box, they caused the CP's to behave in unintended ways. I do much less color tweaking with my profiles now, and mainly work with the blacks, gain, knee, etc, when I need to create a look that works well straight out of camera.

Most of the CP's I created were done on early firmware of the C300, so they likely don't translate as intended to newer cameras and firmware. Canon themselves have stated that mixing gamma and matrix settings can have unexpected results, so I'd just make sure and test them thoroughly before using them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top