C300 and C300 Mark II color matching

[Scott Stoneback]

The Mark II is now my main camera rig, and I am starting to really love it. I have had some growing pains with it, but it is a wonderful image, especially with the 17-120mm cine lens.

The old C300 is now my B-cam. Matching the two cameras is proving challenging. Today we did not shoot in C-LOG with either C300. Instead, I shot in a color preset within the cameras that I then tried to match the best I could with a decent monitor. I think they were close enough, but the matching wasn't perfect.

The color presets were EOS Standard for both cameras. It was pretty close with both the Mark II and Mark I, but the whites were a little off. The original C300 is warmer (more reds). Oddly, the new C300 Mark II was white balancing about 1000 degrees kelvin less than the Mark I... but the colors (besides white) were really close.

Has anyone developed a color preset for the Mark II that can mimic the original Mark I? Editors for one client can't be bothered with applying LUTs to C-Log footage, so I need to match in the field. Any help or ideas?

[Barry Goyette]

The issues you raise are definitely the dilemma with the new camera. As much as I loved the image off my old c300, it's really no match for the new camera. As you said the white balancing of the new camera is substantially "off" the numbers (daylight white balances around 4200 for me...but curiously the AWB reads it at 5200, but delivers an image that's not balanced. The presets are problematic in the same way...as the camera seems to be 1000k warmer than the numbers would indicate.

As for matching the two cameras, the only clue I found was in one of the white papers, it refers to the "original cinema eos" setting as being designed to match the C500 in a certain mode. (I think it was just Rec 709). In my color matrix test, I wrote off shooting in rec709 as I felt the skin tones were too red, but in my bt2020 matrix tests, it's obvious that the "original cinema eos" matrix is a little greener than the rest. It's possible that shooting in clog, rec 709 with the original cinema eos matrix would be a pretty good match. The Eos Standard method you described also makes sense, as it's supposedly the most accurate of the matrices on the original camera.

I spent this weekend going through a bunch of older projects and compiling them with some new things made on the Mark II. I have to admit it was hard looking at the older projects, as I've become so accustomed to the look of the new camera. I shoot people mostly...and comparing the skin tones between the two, and they way the cameras react to varying light sources....is night and day.

Curious if you see the one image bugaboo that I constantly find with the mark II: Blues leaning way purple most situations.

[Scott Stoneback]

I haven't noticed the blues going purple, but I will keep an eye out. I just found some footage of C300 from last year that was purple under full-blast Kino 400's... and the skin tones were way off on the broadcast image. What I had in the raw footage was a little red, but not way off like it ended up on TV. But that was a different situation.

As for the skin tones on the C300 Mark II... oh man! This camera is magic. I had a shoot with no opportunity to light and, still, the skin tones came out very nice. It was hard to make the image look bad once properly exposed. It just looks great.

It makes me realize that the extra cost (and hassle of new gear) is worth it. All you penny pinchers out there, realize that if you want to make your life easy on set, want the client to say "wow" right out of the box... the C300 Mark II is delivering. This is not a cheap camera like the FS7. It is built for an operator, it produces great images, it isn't plastic construction. It is a step up from the original C300... image, technical abilities, and usability.

[Barry Goyette]

I don't do it often, but on the occasions when I've shot in 12-bit, it's pretty amazing where you can take the skin tones. I'm usually starting out with a pretty perfect exposure, and a neutrally balanced color. In Post I'll start by just making a pretty grade, but soon I'm pushing the exposure up and down and sideways and the skin tones just hold together no matter where I go. It feels a lot like raw in photoshop...The original C300 was nothing like this. While you could push the image around a bit...it was usually pretty obvious when you did, as the 8 bits weren't enough. 10 bit is a nice improvement, but 12-bit is really something else.

[Mark Dobson]

I've just used both my new C300 Mark II and C300 on a shoot - both set to 5500k and Clog and whilst the C300 Mark II definitely produces the superior image I've not had too much problem matching the 2 cameras.

However these are both conference images and very different framings so that makes the job easier.

I had intended to sell the C300 but the potentially very low resale value and the fact that it is still an amazing camera has meant that I've hung onto it. I spent a lot of money replacing the monitor unit and card assembly a few months back and just can't bear to see it go really.

So like Scott it's now my B-cam. It now feels quite rudimentary, Clog being the only log mode. I use it stripped down without the handle whereas the C300 Mark II is girdled by the Zacuto Rig and Gratical set up which I'm still deciding how best to have it set up. If I'd waited a couple off months I would probably have chosen the Gratical Eye, which has less buttons to knock and is considerably lighter although you then need to provide a power source.

Zacuto have just launched their new battery system which looks pretty neat. It wouldn't surprise me if they came out with a camera someday.

[Scott Stoneback]

I don't have the link, but Able Cine just came out with some scene files for matching old c300 to new. It's on their blog. Thanks Abel Cine!

[Scott Stoneback]

Has anyone come up with a good set of standards for color matching? I haven't had the time lately to test the C-log3 against any of the other log settings, in respects to matching the Mark I against the Mark II.

A piece shot with my Mark II was not fully color graded (maybe not graded at all) and the difference is ugly. I am not sure why it was not fully graded (this was an agency piece that should of done more) but I was not working on the project personally. Just rented the camera for it.

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Scott Stoneback

A piece shot with my Mark II was not fully color graded (maybe not graded at all) and the difference is ugly...I was not working on the project personally. Just rented the camera for it.

Your ugly grading might be someone else's beautiful grading.

[Scott Stoneback]

Perhaps I was unclear... but this is in the context of both Mark I and mark II matching. The colors between the two are different and ugly is in reference to that difference between cameras.

I couldn't care less how they wanted the overall color to look. That's their call when they decided to shoot log.