Canon EOS R C-Log 8bit vs 5D mk III Magic Lantern RAW 4k

Started by bigW, January 03, 2020, 03:04:31 PM

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bigW

Been craving for AF in video for a while and once I saw what firmware 1.4 for EOS R can do and recent discounts I made a jump. I got quite good with manual focus but filming running kids with aperture lower than f4 was really hard. I couldn't find any video quality comparison of clog to raw footage from 5d mk III, so now that I got it I made one.

My observations are CLog does not match Raw but can get close. EOS R colors are cooler and require adding more magenta. Overall CLog can look pretty good in its own way but matching to RAW requires playing with quite a few dials.
Not regretting getting EOS R but cant get myself to sell my 5Dmk3 either. At least not yet. The price point is so low that I might just keep it. Raw is Raw :)
Btw. 4K crop is actually not a bad thing. I used ML 3x crop mode a lot and EOS R 4K cropped plus center 1080p crop gives me the same result. This is when I use a single prime for events and can record a scene from a distance to get two different views with lightweight setup and high aperture for low light situations, e.g. using 50mm f1.8 or 35mm f2.

Hope you find this informative.



Dmytro_ua

Very good comparison. It looks very close.
I'm sure every shot is very usable
5d3 1.2.3 | Canon 16-35 4.0L | Canon 50 1.4 | Canon 100mm 2.8 macro
Ronin-S | Feelworld F6 PLUS

IDA_ML

Quote from: bigW on January 03, 2020, 03:04:31 PM
Not regretting getting EOS R but cant get myself to sell my 5Dmk3 either. At least not yet. The price point is so low that I might just keep it. Raw is Raw :)

Oh, absolutely!

This is the reason why I kept my 7D and never regreted!

Nice comparison by the way, thanks a lot.  You may want to consider a comparison between both cameras at more difficult light situations - high-contrast scenes, low light, etc. where the full sensor's dynamic range is required and the cameras will have to be pushed to their limits.  I expect that in such sitiations, the advantages of RAW will be much more obvious.

Skinny

But what about all this "stop shooting log"?



I think this makes some sense..
At least I see no reason to use log in low-contrast scenes where nothing is lost and doesn't clip anyway.

I don't have a real log-capable camera, but from all the experiments with lowering the contrast and cinestyle-log presets, I got only one thing - terrible midtones.
99% of people then throw LUT on top and get more or less something, but it turns out to be very flat and lifeless.. and this is because the color information is already irretrievably lost, because we use only 8 bits and also h264. Midtones that contain all the juice in the picture actually lose half their color resolution.

Well, these are just my discoveries from personal experience. There are entire articles on this subject, but I'm not really worried about the slightly clipped dark areas or something, but the colors especially the skintones makes a big difference.


I can be completely wrong by the way, I'm not a professional  :)
The comparison is nevertheless quite interesting, and the views are very beautiful. It would be interesting to compare on something with smoother gradients or people in the frame.

bigW

Re: Log vs No-Log
The test scenes I used in the video do benefit from CLog (over std profile). I shot a couple of clips with log and non-log next to each other and so far prefer log much more (when edited). This including people. However I am yet to experiment more with faithful or natural profiles for run and gun (handy C3 EOS R profile). Even when the scene fits the histogram without clipping, when shooting CLog I can get much nicer results in the end by playing with highlights and reducing contract from shadows/people faces. At least so far- just a few weeks of use.
I know many people get beautiful results with non-log footage but at least I would use natural profile. You may be right with the midtones but this often comes at the cost of shadows and highlights. The video of the guys arguing not to use log is very contrasty. Not my style. See typical footage from Alexa or RED and here is your reference point. At least for me. Also Canon is not GH5 for Log.
Coming from everything RAW (magic lantern) I am used to longer workflow but its like with RAW photos, the benefits are higher than effort.
Need to do more tests to decide what works for me.

P.S. to me RAW footage when exposed properly so far is still superior, in a way colors are represented, lower contrast that I can do a lot with. I do acknowledge that many test videos I saw on the web either people overuse grading or butcher skin tones do not give justice to actual potential the RAW video has. For 5d3 not using RAW always got me very soft image and since there was Magic Lantern option I found no reason not to use it. My learning curve with RAW took a bit to get where I wanted to be so giving myself a bit of time to work out log and non-log options and decide when to use which one.

bigW

Re: Higher contract scenes.
I was thinking of doing part two with more lab-like\extreme tests but for a start the choice I made is more or less the type of scenario I use the camera for.
Honestly not sure what the result might be compared to RAW. To get full DR EOS R must be at ISO 400. Since log does not apply noise reduction this would mean more noise than 5d3 at ISO 100. On the other hand EOS R is a better sensor (at least when using for photos), hence I expect If I pull shadows EOS R might be way better.
I also tried NeatVideo and results where amazing. Will post when I have some time to put a video with it (I am not a youtuber, but a hobbyist so time is limited).

Skinny

QuoteThe video of the guys arguing not to use log is very contrasty. Not my style. See typical footage from Alexa or RED and here is your reference point. At least for me.
I understand what you mean. I also don't really like too contrasty video.. The point is to get what you want right in the camera. If this means less contrast, or neutral profiles - so be it. The less adjustments in post - the more natural the result will be... at least it seems so.

On the other hand, EOS R uses a very high bit rate, as far as I know. Maybe they even adjusted the settings for shooting in LOG, so maybe everything is completely ok..

bigW

Canon CLOG seems to respond well to color corrections (as per my video above). The bit rates are indeed high:

  • 4K @ 23.976 fps - 489,811 kbps
  • HD @ 59.94 fps - 185,304 kbps
  • HD @ 23.976 fps - 95,104 kbps

Kharak

Could you post the files? I'd like to compare myself.


If you could share your post process of the raw aswell.
once you go raw you never go back

nikki

I shoot commercials on super 16mm film camera it's fantastic and a cheap way to have high end excellence


5d3ml ranks high as a digital video image compared to everything else out there in the video camera realm and much better than the cameras it's being compared to


Everything depends on what your doing and up to you to decide


bigW

I agree with you nikki.
EOS R is very practical with it autofocus. But then again iphone is even more practical and has IQ is great for video (hdr).
Been shooting quite a bit with EOS R over the last month and it is indeed nice, but the sharpness in HD compared to Raw is not the same (worse). 4k looks great, especially if you use log. Colors are also not a match, but are not bad at all. Its just once you use raw, its hard to get back.
Also worth to note timelapse, while R offers built in timelapse movie, the image SOOC is what you get. There is no intervalometer available for normal timelapse photos. While 5d3 with ML has it and images I used to get after pp were amazing.
I will most likely keep using 5d3 raw for special projects but for most of my personal candids R seems much easier to capture the moment.

bigW

@Kharak
Sample source files can be downloaded from here
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/u6hjofao0ifivsz/AADcIriohIsG2OPp7f4wN569a?dl=0

5dmk mlv provided only as as cdng as the mlv file were too big. EOS R C-Log original files.

enjoy.

JADURCA

Hi everyone!!! Color graduated EOS R one! I love grading!  :D

Thanks for sharing!

Download it instead of playing for better quality!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FIXltadrYGLkhrjCLUCGpLDguTfSznFw