In a seemingly endless sequence of Canon-related news (sorry about that) – most of them dealing with the 1080p RAW hack for the Canon 5D Mark III – Canon has presented new picture styles for their DSLR cameras called “Camcorder X Series Look”, specifically targeted at video shooters.
This picture style is targeted at shooters that are looking for reduced contrast range and color saturation, which allows for more nuanced adjustments in post production and grading.
I say it sounds like Canon’s better-late-than-never reaction to people (and companies like Technicolor) tinkering with the picture profiles to achieve a maximum dynamic range. The quite popular “flat” picture style was basically an unsharpened and less contrasty, slightly undersaturated modification of the standard picture profile, pioneered by post production guru Stu Maschwitz and used by virtually anyone before Technicolor CineStyle came along (which has its own problems with noise, yet it’s much flatter than what we could record with Canon DSLRs before).
It’s nice to see Canon finally providing something by themselves, but it will be up for to the readers to decide if it’s better than the alternatives.
Expressiveness can be expanded using function-extension files. Original Picture Styles can be created by individually adjusting colors.
The Canon Camcorder X Series Look is available for download from here.
Press Release:
London, UK, 14 May 2013 – Canon today announces the release of a new in-camera Picture Style pre-set for its range of EOS DSLRs. Created following direct feedback from video enthusiasts, the new Picture Style, called Video Camera X–series-look, enables users to capture EOS Movie footage with lower contrast levels, allowing for easier colour grading during post production processes.
Similar to that available in Canon’s range of X-series camcorders, the new Picture Style works by lowering colour saturation levels and contrast during filming. This makes it ideal for videographers during post production grading processes, especially if complementing with pre-existing footage shot with Canon’s X-series models, or alternatively for those who instantly want to add atmosphere to Full HD movies. In addition, the new Picture Style can also be applied to still images captured in RAW or JPEG formats.
The new Picture Style can be downloaded now from:http://web.canon.jp/imaging/picturestyle/index.html
Push your camera's sensor to the limit, don't let it throw away ANY of that detail
What is picture style anyway? And how can it improve my video project?
Changing your picture style will make a massive difference to the final picture detail, colour and overall quality, if you're shooting on the likes of a C100 then you'll probably already know this as you will most likely be shooting in Wide Dynamic Range or C-Log. If you shoot on a Canon DSLR (5Dmkii, 5D mkiii, 60D, 70D 6D etc) then setting your picture style could be the most inexpensive way to improve your videos & films.
To understand why, you've simply got to understand that Canon camera sensors capture video in the most efficient way possible, this means crushing the shaded areas into black and raising the lighter areas into white. This is why the 'straight out the camera' look can be quite reminiscent of a video camera. There's nothing cinematic about it. Crushing those blacks and raising those whites means less information to throw through the sensor, the buffer and onto the card.
There's lots of pre-sets of picture style on your camera (standard, faithful, monochrome etc) all of whos settings you can tweak, but there will also normally be 1-3 user definable functions. Take one of these programmable slots and slap these settings on it:
It's slightly confusing because Sharpness is measured 0 - 7 and then Contrast, Saturation and Colour Tone all have a mid point from which you can go - or + 4 stops. Basically, Sharpness need to be 0, Contrast all the way down (-4), Saturation two stops down (-2) and leave colour tone where is it as this is generally controlled very well by the white balance.
Changing the picture style to this gives a much flatter, less contrasty image with fewer crushed blacks, less blown highlights and ultimately results in more information being passed to the card. Don't believe me? Check out the difference between these picture styles:
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I'm glad you've asked - Saving this pixel information that normally would have been thrown away means that you have more room to play in post production.. If you make any exposure or colour changes in FCPX, Premiere (or whatever you use) then if the shadows are already black, there's no information to raise from them, if the highlights are blown then there's no information to bring down. Also, if you colour grade your footage then the more information you have the better. If there's no colour information to change then what results can you possibly expect?
Take those same screen shots of footage as above and colour grade them and see the difference. Lumetri colour applied in Adobe Premiere Pro CC -
Zoom into the shadows and look at the difference in detail..
No detail on the left at all because it was thrown away before it even hit the card.
Normally, all you need to do in post is throw the contrast, saturation and sharpness back in, which is simple enough and will result in a much improved final product, and if you're planning on a substantial colour grade then this simple technique is a must.
Out,
Dan L