“C Log is a profile reserved for Canon’s EOS Cinema cameras, right?”
Well up until 2 weeks ago, I would have said yes. Now I’d say, not anymore!
It’s no secret that Canon DSLR users feel like they’ve got a pretty rough deal in terms of video, especially next to Sony’s A7 line. One of the major downsides of this is no having a log profile or a built in flat picture profile.
So when I came across EOS HD’s Canon C Log profile, I parted with the $9.99 pretty quick. This is a third party profile, not an official canon one (just to cover myself)
Shooting with C Log
The biggest irritation that I have is shooting between my C100 and my 7D Mark II and matching them up. I can get it close, but not where I would like it to be.
Working with Log footage on the C100 I always expose two stops over to minimise shadow noise but still maintain the highlights. With C Log on the 7D Mark II, I found going just one stop over was enough.
This is because the 7D Mark II doesn’t process the highlights anywhere near as well.
With this Canon C Log for DSLR’S, I hoped that it would allow me to do a better job of matching them together. I shoot a lot in natural lighting or with available light so that’s how these tests were performed.
Below are two shots, side by side of my C100 and my 7D Mark II. Both are ungraded C Log shots.
And then this is a shot outside during the day.
And then the same shots but graded.
I would say that it is pretty damn close!
What are the benefits
Number one is the main benefit of log, capturing the widest dynamic range. I won’t lie, this is not a magic bullet but is much better than Cinestyle. Much better!
Take a look at the details brought back in this shot.
What are the drawbacks
Actually the log profile performs wonderfully, what let’s it down is the camera. This profile will work best on Full Frame DSLR’s but on my 7D Mark II at ISO 1600 it was performing very well and in the 7 dwarves shot there is no noise reduction applied.
This very nicely takes me to bitrate. This profile, while it mimics the effect of c log, can’t do anything about the internal codec of canon dslrs. I chose to film on my Ninja 2 because ProRes is easier to work with but also so I could get a comparable result between my two cameras.
Conclusion
I think its a real step up from Cinestyle or any other flat profile I’ve used before. You should be aware though, that you will benefit from the extra colour information in ProRes over h264.
This profile is more meant for the higher end Canon DSLR’S and those with 5D’s and 6D’s will notice a bigger difference, but will still yield decent results on the mid range models.
Look out for more videos with this profile.
To get the profile, click here.