Settings to mimic a Canon 5DmkII

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Alpha Beta Omega

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These settings are just based on what I see when comparing a Canon 5DmkII to the AF101. I tried to mimic the look of a 5D and figuring out what sets these cameras apart beside their obvious things like one being a still camera and the other one a video camera.

It seams Canon is always warmer, has crushed blacks and is softer than the AF101. So I compared how AWB behaved on both cameras and the AF101 is always cooler. I figure about 300-500 kelvin so to achieve about the same warmth I have to raise temperature somewhere between 300 and 500 kelvin to have the same warmth.

I can set the AF101 to crush the blacks a bit by lowering master pedal to about -5. Panasonic still has more detail in blacks but looks closer to the 5DmkII. I also used the contrasty Cinelike V gamma to give the image a Canon-like push.

Lowering detail and v detail to -6 or -7 makes it about even to the 5DmkII.

After doing this I'm close. Still not exactly the same but they could cut together and nobody would notice much except the AF101 is a bit cleaner.

The Canon 5DmkII is not the reference for how video should look but there are so many people that looks upon images from a 5DmkII and just love it so I had to try and mimic it. When having temperature 300-500 kelvin warmer on the AF101 it looks a bit awful on the LCD screen. It's not as bad in the VF but still much warmer than what the AF101 itself would like to set colour temperature at. But on a LCD/Plasma screen it looks good.

There is one artefact that starts to creep into the image and that's banding. Probably caused by lowering master pedal and turning down detail so much. But even the 5DmkII has this kind of banding when set to the cleanest ISO so it pretty much is mimicking the 5DmkII even in this respect.
 
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Why not try B. Press as your starting Gamma. Then lower the ped from there. Might get you what you are looking for without going to such extremes. And are you lookk at a waveform and vector for quantification?

Best,

Jan
 
I think the biggest thing that separates how a Canon DSLR looks to how the AF101 looks is mainly three things:

1: Warmth
2: Sharpness/detail
3: Shadows

The most contrasty gamma is Cinelike V and it has the lowest shadow area of all gammas as far as I've concluded. Warmth and sharpness/detail can't be done with gamma so a bit of tweaking has to be done with other parameters. Just had a look at my plasma and it looks smashing using my new 5DmkII scene file. I even named the scene file :)

View attachment 30799
 
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I like a warmer look as well. Other than eyeballing it do you have a consistent way to raise the degrees Kelvin?

One thing I wish the AF100 told you was how many Kelvin your manual white balance was. It would be easy to then go into VAR and tweek from there if one knew that.
 
Steve Kahn said:
I like a warmer look as well. Other than eyeballing it do you have a consistent way to raise the degrees Kelvin?

One thing I wish the AF100 told you was how many Kelvin your manual white balance was. It would be easy to then go into VAR and tweek from there if one knew that.
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How can an automatic white balance give you a temperature? Sometimes it's adding minus green or vice versa... There is no kelvin degree really for that.
 
As of now I'm also eyeballing. First setting the camera to AWB and then tweak VAR to get it warmer by looking and comparing how it looks with AWB. Not ideal but it works.
 
That's what I do too. I wish I knew exact color temp.


EDIT: I haven't played with "warm cards" but maybe that's the way to go if they consistently give you +300 or +500K
 
editman said:
The Canon 5DmkII is not the reference for how video should look but there are so many people that looks upon images from a 5DmkII and just love it so I had to try and mimic it....

Just had a look at my plasma and it looks smashing using my new 5DmkII scene file. I even named the scene file :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for doing this, EditMan! This is one of many things that I meant to try to get to before I got sick and was knocked useless for a couple of weeks. I agree exactly -- it's not that the 5D is some reference standard or something, but it is absolutely a known quantity with an aesthetic that many people do like, and the AF100 is quite "paintable" and as such I was going to undergo the process of getting in a 5D and using the scopes to match them as best as possible, to create a "5D Scene File." I appreciate you tackling the task, I'm sure it will be quite a popular scene file.
 
Steve Kahn said:
I like a warmer look as well. Other than eyeballing it do you have a consistent way to raise the degrees Kelvin?

One thing I wish the AF100 told you was how many Kelvin your manual white balance was. It would be easy to then go into VAR and tweek from there if one knew that.
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Use a Color Temp meter (so you know the source color temp) then adjust color temp on the camera using variable color temp settings ( write it down somewhere maybe)

In the "real world"..it wont work that way and you will eyeball it anyway ... so...get a great field monitor. Then post produce it... also with a great online monitor eg HP Dream Color.
 
Shooter said:
How does that setting relate to an unknown source color temp?

"possibly a hit and miss solution" instead of the precise solution you requested.
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It biases the camera's white balance, after performing one. So you balance on a white card, then it biases that answer towards warm or cool as you like. It seems to be pretty reliable and replicatable. Not quite as precise a fine control as the colour temp, but it isn't bad and it has the great advantage of being automatic so I can't forget it.

I've been using -1 for a few shoots and liking it, thinking about moving to -2... since my main priority is skin tones, I'd like to get them warmed up. I'd rather cool stuff in post and leave the skin tones alone than try to fiddle with skin tones in post.

I have got some warm/cool balance cards as well, which I will be experimenting with some more, but white balance on a white card and biasing in camera seems to be working.

I'm also using B. Press as the basis for my settings, also aiming at something like the Canon's colorimetry, but am not entirely happy with it, I seem to be getting banding quite often so was thinking of trying cine matrices instead...

Cheers, Hywel.
 
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Shooter said:
How does that setting relate to an unknown source color temp?

"possibly a hit and miss solution" instead of the precise solution you requested.
Click to expand...

Yes, I completely agree Shooter. The problem is much as I'd love to own one I don't have a color temp meter and have other gear I more urgently need.

I really wish this could be an in camera thing where when you do a manual white balance the camera tells you how many Kelvin you've just balanced for. Maybe a possible film ware update? Maybe not. But either case I'm going to try the color temp setting. Glad that route has been working for you Hywel!

(I've been using Cine-D and pretty much love it. Editman has recommended decreasing corning here to reduce banding and I may try that as well.
 
Steve Kahn said:
Yes, I completely agree Shooter. ...I really wish this could be an in camera thing where when you do a manual white balance the camera tells you how many Kelvin you've just balanced for. Maybe a possible film ware update? Maybe not. But either case I'm going to try the color temp setting. Glad that route has been working for you Hywel!

.... I may try that as well.
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Wonder if you maybe over complicating things here Steve.

If you do a white balance usual procedure with a white card...you have effectively matched and rendered your light source , no matter what they are ...to Neutral ( eg 3200).

Thats the simplicity and elegance of the Variable Function and the way we have been using it.

Next... Dial in variable color temp to taste.
 
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