A first test with the Canon EOS 7D
Canon and Technicolor released a preset for all EOS Digital DSLR cameras that allows to film with a flat look that should provide you more possibilites for grading and increase the quality of the poor H.264 encoding that all cameras from Canon have until today.
After hearing and watching podcasts from RC and FX-Guide-TV, I set up a series of tests. These are the first results:
This is all shot with a Canon 7D, EF 50mm 1.4 with a ND filter, f-stop 4 and 1/125 to reduce motionblur. I know that the shutter should be around 1/50 for a 180° shutter. The resolution is 1920×1080 25fps.
The first image is shot with the standard settings from the picture style menu. The next two images are shot with the CineStyle settings from Canon/Technicolor. The last image has a grading applied to match more or less the standard settings from Canon.
Check out fxguide.com for more information and where to download the stuff from Technicolor.
The first two clips showing the difference of the results on a freeze frame. Check out the shadow areas in the left/bottom corner. The brighter version has a gamma of 3.0 applied to see better the shadow areas. Click or download to see the clips in full res 1920×1080.
Flower_freeze_compare_1.mov
Flower_freeze_compare_2.mov
These two clips showing the difference of the results on a 50 frame sequence.
Flower_compare_1.mov
Flower_compare_2.mov
My first impression is – yes you gain a lot from the CineStyle settings. The film is a lot softer and the contrast is more even. Maybe on a fist look the standard looks better, because it has more contrast and sharpness. But exactly this makes the material look like video and not like a digital approach to a more filmic look.
Showin things about compression on JPG images and PHOTO-JPG compressed quicktimes is not the best thing to do. Here is one frame with three channels (Standard; Technocolor flat; Technocolor grade) as a mutlichannel EXR file.Note that the normal rgb is black.