Postcards from Lisbon: Canon C300 short

[Steve Mims]

This is a short I shot with the Canon C300 set at 24P/180º shutter/Standard EOS mode. I used two lenses: 16-35MM/f2.8 and 85MM/f1.2. Filmed over two days: Saturday, June 30 and Sunday July 1.

I edited the piece and did limited color correction in FCP7. (I chose standard mode because I knew I wouldn't have time for proper correction using Log C.)

This is my second outing with the C300 and I really love it.

Postcards From Lisbon on Vimeo

Thanks to Bazar Do Video in Lisbon for the loan of the gear for the shoot.

[Stuart OSteen]

Nice. Thanks. By "standard" mode, do you mean EOS standard?

[Erick Munari]

Ótimo!
That is a sweet video,well done, well edited. C300 is a dreammmm.
I too was in Lisbon last year, loved it.

[Steve Mims]

Stuart,

Yes, I shot in Standard EOS mode, not Log C.

Log C is terrific, but on this shoot I knew I wouldn't be able to get the files to a real colorist. I did minor adjustments to some shots in FCP7.

Thanks,

Steve

[Steve Mims]

Originally Posted by Erick Munari

Ótimo!
That is a sweet video,well done, well edited. C300 is a dreammmm.
I too was in Lisbon last year, loved it.

Thanks so much. Lisbon is photogenic place. The light is great and the hills and streets are gorgeous. Great people, too.

Steve

[Stuart OSteen]

Interesting. I watched it again (nice stuff in there) and saw that blue/green color fringing that's been talked about with this camera on the water at around 1:10. Some people seem to be able to reproduce it on the C300 and others can't, and it seems to happen only on hard edges when part of the image is completely blown out. I haven't tried it on my own C300 yet, but perhaps I should, just so I'll know the limitations.

[Steve Mims]

About the shot at 1:10...

I don't see the fringing you noticed there. Is it around an object.

The image itself is fraught with a number of things that make it a challenge to make without problems.

First, I was shooting directly into the setting sun (which is just barely out of frame.) I didn't have a matte box, so the whole lens is washed with flares. I also had no filters other than the built in NDs.

Second, all that moving water is a compression nightmare and you can see minor aberrations in the water.

Third, it is blown out on the water highlights.

Fourth, I did push the chroma slightly on the shot, so any color edges you see might be from that.

In any case, I had been longing to shoot with the c300 in natural light to see if it could deliver the latitude and saturation you'd expect from motion picture film, and I'm pretty happy with the results here, even in the Standard EOS mode.

[Stuart OSteen]

Oh, the shots are gorgeous. Once again, great job. I enjoyed it.

Take a look, again, at around 1:10 and take a look at the waves. If you look closely, I believe you'll see the blue/green fringing or aliasing or whatever it is around where the waves are breaking in the clipped portions. There's a discussion of it here: NextWaveDV – C300 Aliased Fringe – Not so Awesome? If you go to the bottom of that article, there's a picture you can click on of waves that are heavily backlighted and clipped, and the effect is roughly the same.

If you read enough message boards on the issue, it just gets more confusing ;-). Some people don't get the effect. Others get it only with certain lenses (the EF 24-70 seems to get a nod as, perhaps, being an older design that tends to show this effect more than some other lenses -- or is that the 24-105? I forget.).

Anyway, I wasn't criticizing. Just pointing out what appears to be a weakness of the C300 for some cameras using some lenses at some times. Personally, I like to know about these things so I can sidestep them in production as often as practicable. But sometimes, the shot is what it is, and you have to do your best. Like you did, here.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Steve Mims

In any case, I had been longing to shoot with the c300 in natural light to see if it could deliver the latitude and saturation you'd expect from motion picture film, and I'm pretty happy with the results here, even in the Standard EOS mode.

I was hoping that the Standard EOS Custom Picture would aid matching up footage with my 5D2/5D3 but find it unusable as it is too bright & luridly oversaturated. It's nothing at all like what I get out of the 5Ds using the Faithful Picture Style with default settings which I have settled on as my favourite.

[Stuart OSteen]

Nigel, would you attribute that to the C300's EOS mode being designed to match the EOS standard mode instead of the "faithful" mode? I haven't directly tried to match the C300's output in the EOS mode to the standard mode on my 60D, but to my naked eye, it looks close.

[Nigel Barker]

No serious videographer uses the Standard picture style on the 5D2/5D3 as it is far too lurid & oversaturated. The classic picture style used is Neutral with sharpness, contrast & saturation turned down. It would have made more sense for the C300 EOS setting to match Neutral on the 5D2/5D3. Faithful isn't that different from Neutral despite Canon's claim that colour reproduction is a bit more errr faithful I actually find the colours a little warmer & thus more flattering for skin tones in the wedding videos that are our usual bread & butter work.

[Stuart OSteen]

Nigel, I don't disagree with you about Standard on the EOS cameras, but my experience with my smaller corporate clients is that they LOVE that look, and often request it (or at least say, "I want you to use a 5D or 7D," because that's how they know to request that look). Luckily, my very large corporate clients tend not to make those sorts of specifications.

I'm not saying Canon was right or wrong to set the EOS setting to match EOS Standard, but if they did market research to determine where it should be set based on market demand, they may well have settled on the oversaturated look for that reason. I have no idea if they actually did this, of course.

As for "serious videographer," I guess "serious" is a matter of interpretation. I don't like the EOS Standard look all that much for most purposes, and do my best to avoid it when I can, but I know videographers who adore it and are making well into six figures primarily shooting with that look (and on AWB and setting and with their shutter speeds higher than 1/125, and a WHOLE lot of other things I would almost never do). I have a sneaking suspicion that the days of videographers who actually understand their equipment, optics, codecs, light and shadow, and other once-useful things may be coming to an end, serious or not.

Hope I'm wrong.

Anyway, my question wasn't about whether it was wise or unwise for Canon to match the C300's EOS mode to the standard mode on its DSLRs, but whether that was, in fact, the case. I'll do my own tests. Just checking to see if you knew off the top of your head.

Cheers!

[Steve Mims]

Stuart,

No offense taken about your notes on the noise in the 'boat' shot in the short. My thinking is that there is so much going on in that shot that 'technically' presents problems that it is hard to attribute any picture issue to a single cause. I put that shot in because, despite all that, I like the energy of it.

Nigel,

I'm crazy about Log C and I've used it. In Lisbon I didn't have access to my colorist, so I shot in the Standard mode as test of how it would work out. I like it. It doesn't concern me that you've found it 'too lurid and over-saturated'. That's an opinion. We all have those. I like water colors and acrylics in painting.

Anyway, thanks for taking a look.

Steve