Andrew Reid

No the A7S II raw file. Skintones in the 1D C's JPEG are better, no matter what you do to the Sony RAW file in Adobe Camera Raw. Maybe Sony's A/D converters are bad, or something else is up. A7R II and RX1R II seem improved but the white balance system is always up in the air, I am never confident it is doing the right thing.

Well I did say "Coming along soon", so unless you count having to wait nearly 2 years as "soon", I rest my case. And what we got wasn't worthy of a 5D camera, as it isn't full frame 4K.

Although obviously I don't have access to Canon's trade secrets with regards to colour re-mapping for a LOG curve, I did make some nice adjustments to colour in C-LOG using hue, saturation and luminosity values on a six colour axis, and am very pleased with the results. On the 1D C in some situations I actually find I prefer the colour from EOSHD C-LOG over official Canon LOG.

Thanks for the insights Luke. Impressive. That is correct but I found when creating EOSHD C-LOG that we're talking rather subtle differences in the highlight roll off and colour compared to the real thing. Seeing the results from C-LOG on the 1D C and how nicely my custom film styles have come out with skintones vs my A7S II (there really is no contest) is convincing me that the lack of real Canon LOG on the 1D X Mark II might not be quite so big an issue. Sorry Sony but the A7S II does not flatter the people I put in front of it - and I'm starting to think it is a fundamental sensor or hardware issue because even the raw stills don't come out as nicely as the 1D C JPEG does out of the box - and that is after a lot of messing in post, valuable time wasted making up for Sony's dodgy colour science How long does it take to conform and write the final file after you stop recording slow-mo? Or is it instant and you can quickly start the next take?

Thanks a lot DBounce. Would be interesting to see the same shot in both 24p and 120fps. Does compression hold up ok at the higher frame rate with motion blur (try a whip pan)... What is the minimum shutter speed you can use at 120fps? Is it a continuous 120fps like the RX100 IV or is conformed in-camera to a standard frame rate?

My C-LOG is a tad more saturated than the Canon LOG but I like it that way. It can be dialled down in post, you don't need to dial it down in-camera.

So in Luke's test - 1D X II full frame 1080p is the same quality in 24,60,120fps. 1D C full frame 1080p is the same quality as the 1D X Mark II at 24p but softer in 60p and it doesn't do 120fps. 1D C Super 35mm 1080p is better than all of the above. 1D C 4K seems very slightly less noisy at ISO 12,800, otherwise the same. 1D C Canon LOG has a View Assist. When shooting C-LOG on the 1D X Mark II you shoot from the flat image. They are quite similar but the full frame 120fps and Dual Pixel AF of the 1D X Mark II are the main selling points (and of course 4K 60fps also handy for a moderate slow-mo although not so much for me, would rather shoot 120fps and keep the file sizes down).

I see. You should try and get the peaks in the middle of the histogram on a shot like this where about 50% of the frame is over exposed.

In 24p is rolling shutter skew the same as in 60p or more? That's a bit of a concern / question mark for me. The 1D C does very good 1080p. The full frame 1080/24p is very nice - not as soft as the 5D Mark III. The Super 35mm 1080p is high level and the HDMI 1080p when set to 4K is oversampled from the 4K sensor output, so even better. Does the 1D X Mark II do all of this and more? Any samples of the 1080/24p full frame to upload so I can take a look at them? Doesn't have to be anything special just a few seconds of a shot at infinity. Good to hear! How many hours of 4K 24p can you shoot on one battery? How are the focus racks during a shot when you touch the screen and the AF is set to rack on the slowest / most natural setting - do they look human or do they look a bit stiff and robot like?

The grass shot still looks buggered... I would have exposed it very differently and the white balance is clearly wrong for daylight. Ah I see what you mean! Good idea about one-shot push focus.

I'm thinking of getting a 1D X Mark II, just because of Dual Pixel AF and slow-mo. Anybody want to swap for my 1D C? Interested to see what existing owners think. How is rolling shutter in 4K? How is the full frame 1080p quality with sharpness dialled all the way down? Audio-pre-amp quality for ext. mic? Battery run times in 4K? The 4K crop doesn't seem as harsh compared to the 1D C as I expected (from full frame).

Some friendly advice: The bright patch of grass isn't green because it is overexposed. Since C-LOG raises the shadows, you should have exposed for the highlights and the dark areas would have been recoverable in post. Once the grass is burnt it's gone. I don't agree you got the better results with the standard picture profile - the grass is fucked on that too. Have fun! It's definitely worth trying on the 80D. It won't be a noisy mess if you expose correctly and keep the ISO under control - i.e. 100 for a high dynamic range scene (bright light) and no higher than 1600 in low light. No the image won't be as good as 4K but, hey, it is the 80D we're talking about not a 1D X Mark II. If anyone would like to post the original files for me to grade, I can show you the best way to grade each camera. Thanks for the kind remarks. Did you mean 1D X Mark II with auto-focus though? You're replacing your 1D C with a 1D X Mark II right? Yes ETTR (expose to the right), but you have the choice to protect the highlights - don't go so far to the right that you blow out important areas of the frame. If you under expose a LOG image it looks crap (as we see from so much of the Sony S-LOG 2 footage out there).

CineStyle is a very old profile now and dates back to before Cinema EOS and most critically before Canon LOG on the 1D C. CineStyle does not match the curve of Canon LOG - if you install both C-LOG and CineStyle on the same camera you will see a big difference in the image, contrast and colour, mine brings the highlights into safe territory and gives you more headroom all else being equal. The blacks meanwhile look far more like Canon LOG and are raised up past the 0-16 muddy compression danger zone. If you have spent money on a LUT for Canon LOG, then applying it to CineStyle would waste a lot of the hard work the creator of that LUT did in creating the look in the first place, it would look different or off completely. I have direct experience of this myself. With EOSHD C-LOG it would be fully compatible. With CineStyle it would need adjustment or just look wonky / different. Sure of course you've got some nice results. But Canon LOG it just isn't.

VERY similar dynamic range benefit to Canon LOG. Did a test today on the 1D C, a very contrasty scene, the white building was extremely brightly lit in the midday sun. Ungraded frame grabs from DCI 4K... Official Canon LOG: C-LOG: Looks like I will be getting a 1D X Mark II after all!!

No I'm afraid not.

The EOS-M should do! If you like, try it and if it doesn't install I'll give you the $10 back. Not sure about the XC10. The XC10 already has Canon LOG anyway. I don't think it has the compatibility with Canon EOS Utility to pass the picture profile data over USB to the camera. Great. Looking forward to seeing what your results are like.

It's just Canon PictureStyle Editor, but the real work is shooting an endless amount of subjects in all kinds of light, mixed light, day and night whilst you refine the critical gamma curve for LOG and also the remapping of colour. If you get it a hair out, you don't have a reliable LOG profile. It may sound a bit pretentious but there's an artistry to it too, it isn't an exact science especially when it comes to the Rec.709 Film Profiles like EOSHD Vivid SkinTones. I am over the moon with the results they are creating and have them on my 1D C. It was very useful having invested £5000 in the 1D C to get access to Canon LOG as well - so that I could see the benchmark, the mother of all light LOG profiles, to put mine in the same ballpark. It is much easier to grade as a result, than others, had I based it on S-LOG and copied the Sony colour mapping for example it wouldn't have been as good. So thank you 1D C. And huge thanks to Julia, my actress for the pictures you see in the article!

Custom picture profiles - C-LOG, Cinema 1, 2, etc. Obviously C-LOG is for grading. I provide some LUTs in the download to get you started. Cinema 1, Scarlett, Vivid SkinTone, etc. don't need any grading. Straight out of camera styles. No need for a LUT on those! You load my picture profile file onto the camera via USB. Instructions provided in the guide. It is easy to do. They are not just tweaks of the existing Canon profiles (i.e. dialling contrast, tone, etc.) C-LOG is loaded onto the camera via USB and you select it in the picture profiles menu on your DSLR.

Download now for just $19.99 ($29.99 usual price) The EOSHD C-LOG and Film Profiles Pack is now available and works in both video and stills mode - on all Canon DSLRs. Crafted using my Canon 1D C as a development camera, the EOSHD Film Profiles pack installs "Canon LOG" to cameras previously without it, plus a range of film simulation modes to DSLRs such as the 5D Mark IV, 5D Mark III, 1D X Mark II and T2i, etc. Read the full article

All hail the democratising C700! Read the full article

That is correct. However the main point of C-LOG for me is the LUT workflow. If you can get a custom LOG-style profile that is as close to the real LOG curve as possible it gives you that. Very big advantage and would make me trade my 1D C for the 1D X Mark II. I really want the Dual Pixel AF.

I am working on one of these as well. The 1D C is a great test bed as it as the real thing, Canon LOG The dynamic range won't be as good as real C-LOG but the main reason I like LOG is for the colour grading and LUT possibilities it gives you in post, whereas standard pic profiles are baked in. If you're going to have a faux LOG profile it has to give good colour and work with most LUTs already out there for Canon LOG - even if that means going less flat and sacrificing some dynamic range.

Yes I agree it's interesting to look at the signal to noise ratio improvements. The problem I have is when these are hyped as making a 'dramatic' creative difference to images, which is what the DPReview piece implies all the way through.

Pixel peeping is sometimes relevant, sometimes not. But important creative differences can be very subtle, look at Shane Hurlbut's comparison of the Leica Summilux vs Cooke cinema lenses. They do add up to a big difference creatively. How dramatically the low light advantage over the 5D Mark III translates into video mode remains to be seen. A 1:1 pixel crop in 4K does not leave any room for the clever noise reduction or oversampling that the A7R II Super 35mm benefits from. I do hope for a nice 2K image out of the 5D MK IV but only if Magic Lantern can give us raw, otherwise I'd rather stick to the Mk III even if it is a tiny bit softer. Again this applies to stills. No Canon LOG or RAW on the 5D MK IV as it stands so don't expect much improvement to video DR. Sigma 18-35mm is a beautiful lens, the crop is still a huge shame though as I love full frame and am heavily invested in FF lenses. Sigma 50-100mm F1.8 would be great on the 5D Mk IV for punched in shots - the crop won't matter then, it would even be an advantage for telephoto shots. The UK price is even worse - £3600? May as well get a 1D X Mark II! Only if Magic Lantern bring raw to the 5D Mk IV will I consider it, and even then it is highly unlikely to be 4K raw with the lack of CFast 2.0 slots. But I agree with you overall... Magic Lantern 14bit full frame raw in 1080p with dual pixel AF? I'll take 10!

No you wouldn't do it with any camera so why are we even considering the DPReview studio test as a true dynamic range test? It's more a technical measure of the sensor than a useful real-world test.