C100: Yeesh maaaan

[JustinBrown]

Just gonna be a decade late whiner for a minute.

Recently I purchased a C100mk2 as it was always my “dream camera” or whatever. Because I plan to use it in real world uncontrolled lighting scenarios for B-Roll as well as interviews I was curious to see how each of the stock profiles performed.

So, I go around the house and film under all the mixed lighting conditions to stress the AVCHD codec and see what kind of issues pop out.

Wew!

C-Log is a really nice idea but I’m not a colorist. So far it’s either too noisy, or too riddled with artifacts to be of much use to me and my current skills.

Wide DR is really cool in theory, but like c-log it doesn’t like any amount of underexposure at all and even the properly exposed areas are showing faint noise. And it’s not pretty “filmic noise” like I have seen people saying online for years.

I thought this was supposed to be the low light king back in the day! Apparently not so much.

Today I decided maybe what I need to do is dial in my own custom profile that balances out what Log and Wide Dr seem to have a hard time with and go from there…so I did.

Now I have a nice midrange that doesn’t band the light/shadow gradient or introduce blotchy artifacts(mostly) but I’m left wondering if maybe this camera does best with the old Standard profile that everyone hates on. I guess I’ll have to do a side by side it with my custom one.

I’m also wondering if this 850 native ISO is driving some of these issues? I get that this is supposed to be the sweet spot but so far it’s the only variable I haven’t messed with and I’m wondering if that might be what’s giving me some noisey blacks in an otherwise properly exposed scene.

Anywho blah blah blah. Thanks for listening

 

[DustinSchmidt]

C-Log is a really nice idea but I’m not a colorist. So far it’s either too noisy, or too riddled with artifacts to be of much use to me and my current skills.

Wide DR is really cool in theory, but like c-log it doesn’t like any amount of underexposure at all and even the properly exposed areas are showing faint noise. And it’s not pretty “filmic noise” like I have seen people saying online for years.

If you wanted to export an uncorrected tiff of the log image out of davinci resolve and upload for others to take a look at, that could be helpful to really get an idea of what you're talking about?

 

[JustinBrown]

If you wanted to export an uncorrected tiff of the log image out of davinci resolve and upload for others to take a look at, that could be helpful to really get an idea of what you're talking about?

Hi Dustin, I originally posted this to the Cafe because it’s more of a “woe is me” thing than an actual problem, but maybe I should grab a couple frames.

Mostly I’m just talking about mushy blacks, posterization/banding…etc. These are codec limitations I’m guessing and not really the fault of the camera so much as the user. Real edge case stuff.

I just like to know the lower/upper limit of what looks good, and now that I finally have the tool in hand I’m a little bummed that it’s beautiful image rendition can be ruined so easily.

 

[DustinSchmidt]

Hi Dustin, I originally posted this to the Cafe because it’s more of a “woe is me” thing than an actual problem, but maybe I should grab a couple frames.

Mostly I’m just talking about mushy blacks, posterization/banding…etc. These are codec limitations I’m guessing and not really the fault of the camera so much as the user. Real edge case stuff.

I just like to know the lower/upper limit of what looks good, and now that I finally have the tool in hand I’m a little bummed that it’s beautiful image rendition can be ruined so easily.

For sure! It could certainly be useful just to get some more eyeballs on the limitations.

Despite being a Canon shooter for many years myself, I never actually shot on the C100 II. I'd love to see how the image holds up...or doesn't maybe in this case?

 

[JustinBrown]

For sure! It could certainly be useful just to get some more eyeballs on the limitations.

Despite being a Canon shooter for many years myself, I never actually shot on the C100 II. I'd love to see how the image holds up...or doesn't maybe in this case?

Sounds good. I will put some stills together once I get done goofing around with my “tests”.

The next thing I want to try is just lowering the iso while using my custom profile and see if that reduces the noise. Seems obvious but everything I’ve read runs contrary to that. 850 just seems way too high if I can open up the iris and get there at a lower iso value.

 

[QuickHitRecord]

It's been a long time but I shot with the Mk1 almost exclusively for five years. It was always a little noisy at ISO 850 in WideDR (I concluded early on that the codec was not robust enough for C-Log). The Ninja Blade helped with the blotchy compression. Take a look:

I think I eventually moved over to a user profile called "NCTC" for low light scenarios. I seem to remember an improvement. I have no idea where I got it.

 

[JustinBrown]

It's been a long time but I shot with the Mk1 almost exclusively for five years. It was always a little noisy at ISO 850 in WideDR (I concluded early on that the codec was not robust enough for C-Log). The Ninja Blade helped with the blotchy compression. Take a look:

I think I eventually moved over to a user profile called "NCTC" for low light scenarios. I seem to remember an improvement. I have no idea where I got it.

Wild. My actual use case will be mostly daylight outdoors, and controlled lighting, so I'm hoping it works well with a standard interview set-up. I don't want to be lighting like it's a Hammer Film though.

Where I am seeing the most problems is in the transition from light to dark. Subject will be exposed properly, but it's like it can't resolve detail in background shadows without macroblocking the details/noise.

It also doesn't like pure black. I did one shot of a wall next to our front window. It was a bright sunny day, and I was filming against the wall with a matte black screen on the left side. Usiing the Zebra/WFM I brought it down to just under clipping, and despite it being wicked bright the slight reflections in the screen were turned to mush, I assume due to the slight matte texturing on the surface breaking up the light.

I did look at a Ninja, but I wanted to try this out first to see what kind of wiggle room I had. I also don't mind having to get it just right at the time of capture, but this camera is so far proving to be very specific with it's wants.

 

[NorBro]

Old cameras are notorious for being subpar in low-light (there are a few exceptions) and Canon had some of the noisiest.

Back-in-the-day, we realized quickly using the picture profiles produced better footage in many circumstances because not only was it not worth fighting C-Log - which can be brutal without the best exposure and limited DR (12 stops, likely 10.5) - and great coloring, but also because the camera had noise reduction working (it's off in C-Log, not sure about Wide DR).

I wouldn't be afraid to lower the ISO. You'll lose a little DR but it's moot because what good is the range if it's ruined by dancing particles (noise).

The camera does sing here and there but it can be really shy.

 

[JustinBrown]

Old cameras are notorious for being subpar in low-light (there are a few exceptions) and Canon had some of the noisiest.

Back-in-the-day, we realized quickly using the picture profiles produced better footage in many circumstances because not only was it not worth fighting C-Log - which can be brutal without the best exposure and limited DR (12 stops, likely 10.5) - and great coloring, but also because the camera had noise reduction working (it's off in C-Log, not sure about Wide DR).

I wouldn't be afraid to lower the ISO. You'll lose a little DR but it's moot because what good is the range if it's ruined by dancing particles (noise).

The camera does sing here and there but it can be really shy.

Yeah, the noise is kind of a puzzler. My previous experiences with using a similar camera(AF100) and my DSLR are not lining up with this. The AF100 was atrocious at night when we were filming a community festival but the daytime stuff looks beautifully clean and relatively crisp. Even the stuff I shot with the 7D was fairly clean up to around 1000iso and while it would occasionally produce the macro blocking it wasn’t nearly as noticeable. Maybe I just wasn’t looking as hard then.

Anywho. I’m determined!

 

[Peter C.]

A few things:

You can always use a good NR in editing that can work wonders (Neat Video). In the non Log profiles is basically doing that work for you in camera, even though its baked in it saves you the time of running such a power hungry filter and the expense to buy one, although many editing software include a basic one.

The other fast way to deal with noise is to crush the shadows a bit in editing. If you're doing you're job right with the lighting people should be watching the subject in the interview not the shadows behind them.

The full frame mirrorless cameras of today are low light kings. The Panasonics can be had for an astonishingly low cost, plus film in 4k if you need to re frame...

 

[JustinBrown]

A few things:

You can always use a good NR in editing that can work wonders (Neat Video). In the non Log profiles is basically doing that work for you in camera, even though its baked in it saves you the time of running such a power hungry filter and the expense to buy one, although many editing software include a basic one.

The other fast way to deal with noise is to crush the shadows a bit in editing. If you're doing you're job right with the lighting people should be watching the subject in the interview not the shadows behind them.

The full frame mirrorless cameras of today are low light kings. The Panasonics can be had for an astonishingly low cost, plus film in 4k if you need to re frame...

I just have Premiere, but I didn't see any NR in the effect menus. In the custom profile I created I dialed up the NR a little bit(2), but could probably go a little higher(5?). I also might try lowering the sharpness all the way instead of just half.

Background shadow artifacts I'll to try to mitigate with DOF?

I have some M43 lenses for my BMPCC, and thought about picking up a GH7 instead of the C100, but I would need to build a new computer to really take advantage of the 4k. Someday though...

 

[Peter C.]

You can download a free demo of Neat Denoiser and see if it gives you the results you’re looking for.

 

[JustinBrown]

Continued testing this morning and surprised myself. Previously I thought that 850iso was too noisy as a baseline, so this time I started at 320 in a torture test scenario of just my basement windows as a light source, looking to see if the reduced iso plus the adjustments I’d made to the custom profile would crush the noise in the shadows.

And of course it made it worse

Then I incrementally increased the iso all the way up to 3200 as my max. To my surprise the noise and posterization eventually dissipated in the previously darkened areas. Still there but fairly diminished, especially with a little in camera noise reduction.

I will never be shooting under this lighting in real life, but it kind of blew my mind that the sensor would handle the increase in noise better as the iso went up, as opposed to down.

At about 1250, and with the addition of some fluorescent overheads, it was basically clean. Maybe a little bit of mud in the shadows under the tables but nothing terrible.

I think with some careful lighting, and avoiding the deep blacks, I should be in order.

 

[Barry1908]

You have to black balance (ABB) anytime you change ISO or environment for the cleanest images, I shot on the mk1’s for 10 years and you’d be suprised how good they can log in C-log or the Shane Hurlburt inner circle slightly tweaked version.

 

[Barry1908]

I feel the interviews in the piece really shine

it’s all c100 apart from the drone and gopro

 

[Peter C.]

I’ve looked into purchasing one of the older Canon cinema cameras since they can be had for a fraction of their original price. I’ve seen many useful videos that explain the best settings to provide low noise. Many of these older cameras benefit from ETTR expose to the right when filming in log because they’re prone to noise in the shadows. For interviews in particular since you should have control of the location and lighting and generally there shouldn’t be highlight and dynamic range issues like when filming outdoors. The time and money you spend on lighting is one of the most valuable investments you can make. It’s kind of a waste filming with a cinema camera in existing indoor lights.

 

[JustinBrown]

You have to black balance (ABB) anytime you change ISO or environment for the cleanest images, I shot on the mk1’s for 10 years and you’d be suprised how good they can log in C-log or the Shane Hurlburt inner circle slightly tweaked version.

I have been doing ABB each time, but I haven’t done a side by side to see what difference it makes.

The main things I’m looking at are how the image holds up under low contrast conditions and uncontrolled lighting…just trying to get a mental map of where the bottom edge limit is when I find myself in less ideal conditions.

 

[JustinBrown]

I’ve looked into purchasing one of the older Canon cinema cameras since they can be had for a fraction of their original price. I’ve seen many useful videos that explain the best settings to provide low noise. Many of these older cameras benefit from ETTR expose to the right when filming in log because they’re prone to noise in the shadows. For interviews in particular since you should have control of the location and lighting and generally there shouldn’t be highlight and dynamic range issues like when filming outdoors. The time and money you spend on lighting is one of the most valuable investments you can make. It’s kind of a waste filming with a cinema camera in existing indoor lights.

Same boat here. The older models are pretty reasonable, and feature rich.

I’ve watched a lot of those tutorials, and they have been helpful. I’m just trying to see where things break in case I find myself in a situation where I can’t control the light. I’d like to have an idea of how to avoid these fidelity issues.

I think the image is pretty good… it’s just kind of a bummer that I can be in a well lit space and exposed to the right, and solid blacks, such as a television screen still show noise, that then gets compressed, resulting in macroblocking/posterization.

None this is new of course, just new to me. Late to the party as always.

 

[DustinSchmidt]

Same boat here. The older models are pretty reasonable, and feature rich.

I often wonder if I should sell all of my current cameras, just get two C300 II's, shoot the 1080 444 12 bit on those cameras, and call it a day.

Obviously there are better choices nowadays in terms of features. But does it get a WHOLE lot better than that? ^

 

[JustinBrown]

I often wonder if I should sell all of my current cameras, just get two C300 II's, shoot the 1080 444 12 bit on those cameras, and call it a day.

Obviously there are better choices nowadays in terms of features. But does it get a WHOLE lot better than that? ^

I’ve been wondering that too. Who doesn’t want to deal with 60gb per hour of footage The MK2 ticks all the boxes, and looks great to boot.

I like the file size of the c100 but it appears that this is also what’s causing my headache. The camera is great to use though. I don’t think I can ever go back.

Now that I have a pretty good idea of where it bottoms out, I think I’ll be okay.