C200: Some good C200 footage appearing now!

Whats' up with all that noise that they're seeing?

They didn't black balance the camera. They said something along the lines of "the camera has a black balance function". I was kinda surprised by that because I black balance according to how Canon says to, and that means fairly often (after ISO changes). It was one of the first things I put on my custom menu...
 
I black balance all Canon C series cameras every shoot and for temp/environment changes as well as after ISO changes. I've seen some crazy weird colors from people who don't BB. Don't know why you have to BB Canons so often, I rarely BB'd my Panasonic and Sonys but that just seems to be a Canon thing.
 
So the next question is does doing a black balance solve the problem of all that noise jumping around in the shadows? If you use noise reduction in post, then you're giving up resolution. The noise tests of cameras like the Ursa Mini pro don't seem to have all that shadow noise dancing around. But they can have their own issues like hot pixels, and fixed pattern noise.

Is it typical to see this much shadow noise at relatively low ISOs?
 
Noise is in RAW because there is no NR, you are giving up minimal amount of res, but you are starting at RAW, so your base is very high to begin with. Wether you add NR or the camera does it internal, the result would have been the same, with a slight hit to video quality. I would much rather deal with the noise myself, than have the camera apply NR for me, without any control. I don't like in camera noise reduction, just like I hate in camera sharpening. Also, we are dealing with RAW here and coming from a RED, you NEED to black balance. It is a very important step not discussed enough on this forum. Wether black balance solves noise or not, it sure as hell does not hurt it. Black balance, adding noise reduction in post, and exposing to the right are just parts of the RAW workflow that people need to follow for the cleanest image possible.

If all of that is too much, then folks should stick with the compressed codec, as it is very good as well.
 
I used to have a pile of 4x4 Black Promists and a matte box back on the F900/Tape Varicam days since that was before the mania for everything having a "film look", we just wanted to tone down the video look. I also recall that I had thousands of dollars in filtration tied up with full sets of the black and white Promists and the Tiffen Black Diffusion FX filters, while in reality, for shooting people at least, I typically only used a 1/4 or 1.8 as I like subtle. For the Blackmaginc or Black Satin, what strengths do you find yourself using most of the time to photograph people? I also recall that at least the Promists were terrible for wide, deep DOF shots, the sensor would actually record all of the millions of little black dots on the glass, it was like looking through a smudged windshield, and I recall for landscape or outdoor shots, they looked terrible, even 1/8th. Would like to hear about your experience so far shooting CRL with the C200 with these filters, which strengths you mostly utilize and if there are any gotchas. Also, are you using a matte box or just screw on versions?

I'm using screw on because I also use them for stills (which I never see anyone doing). The Black Satin I have is in the full 1 strength, and I find its too much for some shots (especially backlit mediums or tighter). I misspoke when I said I had the Blackmagic; the second go-to filter I have is actually a Tiffen Soft FX in 1/2 strength and that's the one I use almost always. It just removes the digital edge and adds a slight halation and seems to look great all the time. Much more subtle IMO.
 
The only worthwhile shot here is at ~ 33 sec. And it looks pretty darn good. Otherwise, it's "artistically" overexposed and NSFW.
 
They didn't black balance the camera. They said something along the lines of "the camera has a black balance function". I was kinda surprised by that because I black balance according to how Canon says to, and that means fairly often (after ISO changes). It was one of the first things I put on my custom menu...

I commented on the review that they should have done a black balance and they actually responded:

"Yeah, I've never heard anyone say anything about black balancing EOS cameras, and it wasn't until too late that I read the manual on the C200 where it recommended doing it! I feel pretty dumb now, but sometimes you have to learn things the hard way :P"

I'm surprised they hadn't heard of doing a BB considering how it's so prominent in the manual for all three cinema EOS cameras I've used heavily, but they now seem to be aware of it. Hopefully they'll add an annotation to the vid or re-test with the right settings.
 
That video answers your question...it's usually done with major temperature and exposure changes, and even certain swings in framerate and shutter speed (RED).

Many users make it a habit to black balance the camera before every shoot in the morning (or whenever the production starts).
 
That video answers your question...it's usually done with major temperature and exposure changes, and even certain swings in framerate and shutter speed (RED).

Many users make it a habit to black balance the camera before every shoot in the morning (or whenever the production starts).

I do this ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
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