Various examples of Technicolor Cinestyle for Canon DSLRs

The new Technicolor Cinestyle has taken the DSLR world by storm. Fore more info click here!

Here are a few of my readers tests for you to look at. I have 20+ shooters footage from the Brussels workshop to cut into a short. All shot cinestyle. They all match. it’s heaven!

Very interesting to read the comments below as there seems to be hesitation if what the picture profile is doing is a good or a bad thing…and try it out for yourself to see!

Check out these tests…

Technicolor Cinestyle Profile Test on Canon 5D MKII from Martin Whittier on Vimeo.

60D Cinestyle Profile Comparison from Aidan Metcalfe on Vimeo.

Technicolor Cinestyle Picture Style on 550D – Split screen from Gareth Edwards on Vimeo.

Technicolor CineStyle 5D Mark II test from Joran Maaswinkel on Vimeo.

Testing: Technicolor Cinestyle Picture Profile from 31Films on Vimeo.

Technicolor CineStyle vs Marvels Cine Style Test with S-curve LUT from Mike@Indieshorts on Vimeo.

87 comments

      1. …and to assess color.

        I find myself liking less and less this picture style.

        In the words of Shane Hurlbut :

        “So, I have to say this about picture styles in general.
        They can bury you if you do not choose the right one for your project, but your ability to know how to light and understand exposures comes with experience – film experience”.

        Most of us (myself included) simply don’t have enough experience dealing with the meanings of using this picture style.

        I was thinking (and I guess most of us did) that we found the (almost) ultimate weapon for “do-it-yourself” high quality videography. that the limits were stretched once again.
        Truth is that we’re back to square one. It’s just that once again, we were fooled into thinking that anything and everything is possible – for anybody and everybody.

        I really don’t think so in this particular case. There’s just too many “And” ; “If” ; “But” and “Providing that…”.

        Canon just bought another week or month before people will start asking where’s 5D mk III…

      2. Shane Hurlbutt makes an excellent suggestion, as you would also be prone to underexposing more when using Technicolor “…have a picture style that you want your film to look like dialed into your camera. This is what you light and expose with, then before rolling you slide over to Cine Style and record flat to get some wiggle room”

        1. ///”have a picture style that you want your film to look like dialed into your camera. This is what you light and expose with, then before rolling you slide over to Cine Style and record flat to get some wiggle room”///

          Can you imagine yourself switching Styles back and forth between EACH AND EVERY shot you make ?

          I can’t 🙂
          (Imagine myself working like that)

          Shane also worth :
          ///”With this format I feel that there are way too many choices, this is good and bad all at the same time, their needs to be a set of standards,
          oooohhhh standards”///

          As I’ve said… having too many “IFs” and “BUTs” does not make a good workflow…

          1. I would agree with Ec0_bach on switching back and forth picture style… Cine Style makes it difficult for me to do the “right” exposure and to focus… or maybe use a light meter (probably a good tool when you have more time). Personally, when I have to shoot without much time to prepare (documenting an event for example), I prefer using the neutral in-camera profile with contrast all the way down and saturation -2. When I have more time, Cine Style sounds great. Also I found that sometimes Cine Style also might work great with live dance performances (often very high contrast); I’m definitely going to try…

  1. Anyone had trouble getting this onto the 60d?

    Works in the photo mode no problem but refuses to show up in the profile option in the video mode. Very frustrating. Greyed out in the eos utility too.

    Thanks!

    1. It’s strangely tricky to get on the 60D. You need to be in stills mode to even be able to add it to the camera, but even then you can’t then switch to video mode and see cinestyle visible in the profiles like on the other cameras. You have to go to one of your user defined profiles, click info, then select the name “standard” (or whatever shows at the top of the info details) and scroll through. Cinestyle will then appear there, and you just click menu twice to save it from that point.

      1. Thanks Aaron. on T2i you press the Disp. Button to select the User profile and then hold Disp. And press set to make the user profile scrollable. Scroll to cinestyle and boohya! You are cooking with Technicolor. Thanks to all.

    2. I had the same issue. But unfortunately I don’t remember how I fixed it. It’s on your camera already. You just have to put it in video mode and choose it somehow in the menu. It will say Cinestyle… Sorry I can’t be more help than that. Just wanted to offer some words of encouragement. IT IS POSSIBLE! (If my camera were with me I would be more specific)

  2. Great, now what do you do with it?

    I really don’t understand the flat/neutral craze. Why flatten something in order to bring it back to pretty much what “standard” picture style gives you anyways? Is it just to get that iota of detail in the lights and shadows? In my experience, the average viewer couldn’t care less, that is, if they can even notice the difference. Sounds like a lot of post work for a minimal result. Granted, the big guys don’t do their own post, but to the small one-man-band production companies, these picture styles seem like a waste of time. Any one have any constructive caveat for me?

    1. Duane, the information is captured. All the detail int the shadows and highlights. YOU decide how much to see in the grade rather than be stuck with a 8 or 9 stop latitude backed in standard picture profile that is contrast hell!

      1. really like the concept of creating more dynamic range, which will increase grading options, but isn’t this still just playing around with the cameras settings anyway,
        low contrast etc…or does the technicolor/marvels cinestyles profiles when loaded unlock more options in the camera (5dmk2 for example).

        my workflow is 5dmk2 footage converted via neoscene, giving 422 10 bit color space,then cs5, this resulting footage is worlds apart from neutral(plus adjustments) in camera settings,way more dynamic range, wonderful to grade, more acceptable (visually) image for broadcast networks.
        I would never go back to in camera settings, have done comparisons.
        chalk and cheese really, maybe pro res for macs doesnt convert as well as cineforms neo scene…. actually another thing I rarely have noticed moire or aliasing issues either, I have used neoscene virtually from day one.

    2. I wish I had this option on my last shoot, even shooting with Canon Neutral to help flatten things out, I had an issue with my actor’s black shirt crushing into the dark background. Extra time for lighting or wardrobe changes probably would have taken longer than a simple color grade applied to the whole movie. If I had the extra latitude I could have better defined him from his environment. Just my two cents, it just gives you options.

    3. Well, this is actually a really big thing, because this makes proper color grading much easier with Canon SLR footage. Beyond the home video segment, there is a large and growing number of video professionals that use SLRs for filming. This makes giving the “movie-look” touch to your recordings that much easier. Just try color grading for yourself and be amazed. Cheers.

  3. Is posterisation an issue with these flat styles for 8-bit cameras? I don’t know how the camera allocates those 8 bits to the full range it captures. One could see that it might be able to do a more detailed job in the mid tones by using most of its 8-bit range there (and clipping the highlights and crushing the blacks) rather than devote precious bits to fine details in bit of the picture that might enough up getting squashed together in post.

    In theory I think doing things in log space should increase dynamic range, but does it come at the expense of lack of precision in the mid tones?

    1. I think this picture style is actually smoke and mirrors.

      I’ve done some pixel peeping and found the following:
      there is no extra information in either the shadows or the highlights in these Technicolor settings compared to, say, Stu Maschwitz flat settings or even the overly saturated Kodachrome II picture style.
      It’s even worse, because of a few reasons:

      The zero blacks have been lifted to a 8% grey, so the lowest bits aren’t used at all, throwing away precious space in the 8-bit container. So there is no extra information down there. Check it yourself: even with the lenscap on the image is still grey.

      You are essentially lowering the bit depth of your camera to about 6 or 7 bits, because the S-curve will squash together a lot of the shadows on the highlights and consequently leave a lot of gaps in the middle of the histogram.

      During shooting it’s harder to imagine what the final image is going to look like and it’s harder to focus, due to the low contrast. Also the ungraded image is awful to look at, you need an extra grading step in post to even judge the image.

      To me this feels like the emperor’s clothes. The image looks like ungraded telecine, but it isn’t. At all.

      1. Thats exactly what I’m talking about 😉
        Everyone is so excited about this new picture style, but if you know how to check your waveform monitor and examine the results, you will not get more, but less on information for the video!
        Maybe there is something I dont understand on this topic, but I rather think that people are so exciting about new things, that they simply dont see if there are possibly down sides or simply wrong things going on here!
        Nevertheless it’s good that there is development about different picture-styles from big-name-companies, but I think there is a lot of promotion-fuzz behind it, because they know that the most people using DSLRs are just having fun making video with their cams and now they can shoot TECHNICOLOR! WOW 😉
        But I’m sure that helps growing the DSLR sector a bit again – which is’nt gererally a bad thing – especially for DSLR makers like Canon 😉

      2. Floris, I think you’re very right. QT is the culprit, it squeezes the luma upto 16 so if anyone captures shadows below 16 they crush and any highlights down to 235, because that’s the ‘typical’ conversion range to RGB which NLE’s do to color correct even the 1D LUT is applied to the video as RGB data. So video black 16 is mapped to 0 RGB and 235 white is mapped 255 RGB. Squeezing that luma artificially induces contrast which a camera profile then has to try and undo.

        Technicolor profile massages those squeezed levels to lift the QT crush and makes it look like it’s recovering lost shadow detail, the details already there in the movs, if only it wasn’t squeezed, Tech profile is partly trying to undo the alterations QT has done.

        Then as shadows are getting lifted and therefore noise may become more prominent, Tech profile squews a bit to the blue channel to try to minimise the visibility of the noise.

        I see very little difference in desaturated look using Neutral and decompressing video with ffmpeg codec that doesn’t squeeze, compared to a Technicolor profile decompressed with QT.

        Except with ffmpeg my luma levels stay as captured on camera so wider levels range than 16 – 235 more steps finer gradients, reduced banding, more data, ie as they are in the source mov files.

        Trouble is so many NLE’s are working by converting 16 video black to RGB 0 and video max white 235 to RGB 255 because the emphasis is on trying to reproduce to BT709 restircted levels range, rather than what the camera actually captures, which is BT709 full luma range.

        This is unhelpful when we are looking for desaturated neutral results to edit and grade so work arounds like flat profiles not only have to fight QT crush but also provide neutral results, only way to do that within those reduced number of 8bit levels and desaturate further.

        If one shoots strictly 16 – 235 then yes Technicolor profile appears to be giving you more, ie detail in the shadows etc, although any one shooting 16 – 235 is robbing themselves of useable DR simply by not using the full luma range the Canons provide, then thinking they’re gaining it with some super duper camera curve.

        1. Yellow I do agree with you, but what you say is theory, not real life, as whatever you start your workflow with (ffmpeg), you’ll end in QT in the NLE … Or am I missing a point ? what is the codec you use in ffmepg ?

          1. Floris, re theory depends on NLE and codecs used. ffmpeg was just an example. CoreAVC allows 0 – 255 too I think, so to Cineform.

            Cineform uses whole 0 – 255 range into NLE, the up conversion to 10bit enables greater amount of your source mov YCbCr data to be converted to RGB in the NLE and with far better interpolation, it’s not uncommon for only 25-30% of your original mov YCbCr data to get converted to RGB in the NLE if working at 8bit.

            The old adage about can’t get more data out of 8bit by converting to 10 or 16bit does not apply when going between color models/spaces.

            32bit project + Cineform more, data to ‘grade’. 🙂

          1. Patrick, true, Canons like many vid cams capture to 255. Technicolor profile is not stopping that at 235, QT decompression does on ingest into the NLE.

            You won’t see that in the waveform of a NLE necessarily as it is looking at the data QT gives it, not what’s in the mov file. Your raised blacks are visible on your NLE waveform as they are at or have beenn raised above 16.

            QT also upsamples the chroma from 4:2:0 to 4:2:2, but not particularly nicely, giving poor edges at strong colour boundary differences, even with desaturated images.

      3. Floris – I have some pretty different experience with the footage when testing under/over exposed clips. There was significantly more latitude in the Technicolor profile than in the others. I could push it much harder before it would even begin to break up.

      4. I thought so too, till I shot with it and saw results like Joran’s video above. The profile is somehow affecting the data pre-compression and in effect saving the shadow detail that would be otherwise lost. Remember, with the compression you may not have had as many stops as you thought.

        For exposure and focus check out Shane Hurlbut’s guide on his blog http://hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/

        ~D

        1. Don’t use the standard profile, it blows out highlights. I’d go for something like Stu Maschwitz’s flat settings or something like that.

      5. Floris, from my limited understanding of applying s curves to H.264 data I don’t think you are ‘throwing away precious space’ but perhaps someone with a better technical grasp than myself can chime in.
        Also read elsewhere a criticism that suggest because you need to ‘crush blacks’ more than with other Picture styles you are adding more noise…again I think this is incorrect

        1. That is incorrect indeed: you’re not adding noise, you are posterizing your data. Gradients (like skies) will show more banding than without this use of this S-curve.
          And not using the lowest 16 levels because of the h.264 is beyond me.
          h.264 is 8-bit and uses all 256 levels, I don’t see any reason for Technicolor to avoid the darkest 16.

          1. 16 – 235 is due to the conversion to RGB in the NLE 16 YCC is mapped to RGB 0, 235 YCC mapped to 235 max black and white. To BT601/709 specification is only the 16 – 235 luma and 16 – 240 chroma. Canons don’t capture chroma beyond 16 – 240 as that would be xvYCC extended gamut, but they do capture luma 0 – 255 depending on scene.

            No problem with using full range luma though, that’s the way the camera captured and encoded it to the mov file, you end up with a brighter less contrasty image with nicer gradients and in more levels. This is my point why much of the discussion about ‘more shadow detail, more DR is solely because Technicolor profile is raising black levels further to compensate for QT squeeze. User think they are getting more infact it’s less, the data is being remapped within 16 – 235 to show the shadows but this is all based on what QT and the RGB view in the NLE is showing them not what is actually in the mov file.

            Not so long ago many codecs would simply cut off below 16 and above 235 luma, these days some such as QT squeeze below 16 and above 235 into that range for the conversion RGB, so they call it ‘protection of theoverbrights’ but this is misleading why squeeze just leads to confusion about crushed blacks and clipped highlights when really you can find the real levels in the movs are no where as bad, if only decompress without squeeze.

  4. Hi Philip,

    A question about sharpness: is it really better to shoot at sharpness 0??
    Even if the end product is for online?

    I’ve been doing some tests (talking head CU’s) at sharpness 0 and they just look soft to me. I seem to be getting better results pushing sharpness to around 5.

    I’m shooting on a 5d.

    Do you know if most DOPs working in broadcast shoot at sharpness 0?

    Should one differentiate between online and broadcast end product?

    Many thanks for your work.

  5. Hi Philip,

    is it possible to quantify how many extra stops of latitude you get with Technicolor Cinestyle? On the Zacuto shoot out (2010) I think the 5D had 10 1/2 stops of latitude but I’m not sure which profile was used for that test.

    Cheers

    P

    1. Patrick,

      Read your review. So you’re saying Technicolor took away some color information to expand the latitude and created potential banding issues (?) or is it that you just prefer the Marvel approach which like super flat protects latitude as much as possible without sacrificing color range? Wasn’t sure if you’re saying Technicolor is introducing artifacts/problems or that you just don’t like sacrificing color for latitude. Thanks for the info.

      1. Hey Matt!
        Technicolor CineStyle does not really “expand” the lattitude, it creates a different distrubution of luminance with a rised black and a lowered white level in the form of a inverted S-Curve applied while recording. You can experiment with Luma Curves and create a Picture Profile by yourself with Canon’s Picture Profile Editor where all these nifty picture profiles out there are made with.
        And yes I prefer Marvels more because it preserves the complete 0-255 rgb color and luminance range and gives you great shadow details too in a more film-stock like gradiation.
        And yes you will definately loose colors with the Technicolor PicStyle – no doubt about it.

  6. Hello,
    This all seems wonderful but I wonder about post (color grading).
    Mostly, all there is to do is to apply the S Curve LUT ? Or do we always have to manually tune the results ?
    I imagine that to get a perfect image a fine tuning would be necessary, but maybe the LUT was enough most of the times…

  7. Hi Phill,

    Do recommend lighting for the flat style, or the intended end (punchy) result?

    My experience so far has been based on filming with the Cinestyle, and lighting to make that look correct on the back of the camera. However if i apply the supplied LUT it’s far to overpowering. Using manual corrections is better but i can’t help thinking I’m doing something wrong?

  8. This is AWESOME! I had given up on the flat curves out there, just didn’t seem to give much more detail or latitude, so we’ve been shooting for the final look. I was seriously skeptical when I first heard about the Technicolor profile, but the results I’ve seen are amazing.

    Even more impressive is that it has totally made a convert of Shane Hurlbut! Who had typically shot for the final look, but now is using the Technicolor profile.

    You should check out Shane’s method for setting exposure with the new profile http://hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/

    ~D

  9. Shane Hurlbut made the point that you could potentially under/over expose with this picture style. He recommends to expose using Neutral pic style and the flick over to Technicolor before you hit record.

    I guess that should also help with focus issues as well. Can’t wait to try it!

  10. A friend and I just shot a quick project with the Technicolor Cinestyle this weekend on his 7D and my 5DII – http://vimeo.com/23504810 .

    General consensus was that, with no tweaking aside from the LUT, we were able to match both cameras together exactly and increase the perceived quality of the footage without any phony-baloney upping of the contrast. Maybe it was just a fluke, but moire issues (particularly on one actress’s dress) also appeared to minimize. On some shots we even found it appropriate to leave the LUT off in the final grade for a low-con, Nestor Almendros type of look.

    While I understand that people miss the extra points of black, I think the results are worth it. Cinematographers long before us had to use film with less dynamic range than this and were able to get amazing results. Personally, I think that the pure black registered by DSLRs is fairly unattractive and don’t miss it (just so my biases are clear, in my mind the most well shot digital film is still Zodiac- it wasn’t attempting to look like film, but avoided what we typically identify as ‘digital’).

  11. well besides the fact its a real PITA to get the cinestyle loaded, I’m going to agree that in flat lighting, its easy to make 7 bit pictures with TC cinestyle. You can also do this shooting super flat with the built in camera styles. I did a pretty extensive set of tests looking at the 60D dynamic range and camera adjustments using several picture styles. to muddy the waters further, I also used a real scope on the camera to find out that video out of the camera DOESN”T match what it records, they are different.

    its a 4 part series with the last showing camera video out on a hardware scope, software waveform showing whats been recorded in the mov clip, the actual image and output to a CRT ! it was a lot of work, but it will open your eyes.

    http://www.steveoakley.net/template_permalink.asp?id=172

    so far what I see with cinestyle is that its boosting the blacks to around 8 IRE as others have noted, and its stretching the dark areas like crazy. in some respects it makes shooting near screw up proof – you can’t crush the blacks to nothing, and its not bad for low light shooting. for everything else I think I’d rather stick with a style that gives me all 8bits rather then 7.

  12. We’ve shot a few sitdown interview tests with the TC CineStyle and then graded in Colorista. At this point we’re not so sure that it’s the best choice for skin tones — anyone else have thoughts or experiences or ideas about CineStyle and skin tones?

  13. So how do you all go about the color correction ? First apply the LUT and correcting that or not ? Or should I see the LUT as a ‘default’ color correcting tool to be used if you do not wish to further color correct the images. The LUT extends the rendering by a lot !

      1. The 1D LUT is described as a View Lut it’s to help you visualise the final output, that goes on the top layer, your other corrections below it over your mov’s.

  14. Lots of great observations here. I’m probably getting in over my head here, but Patrick, maybe you can help me out in understanding. If you were to shoot in Cinestyle and then convert directly to 10-bit HQ ProRes or ProRes444 and then apply the LUT, would you gain a wider distribution of color within the expanded color range of the 10-bit HQ ProRes codec if you apply the Technicolor LUT? I haven’t tested this, but I’m just curious – would that give you more bandwidth overall to then color correct? Does the LUT make use of that extended range when applied to the ProRes 10 bit file? Does any of this make sense to anyone other than me?

    1. Hey Bill!

      Well, would you take a 50×50 pixel heavy compressed jpeg and scale it up to 1000×1000 pixel? I think that should answer your question. To be more precise, the problem is the limited 8-bit codec – which when using the CineStyle PicStyle is even more lowered to apx. 7-bit … even when you convert it to a 10-bit ProRes codec you only have your 8, or 7-bit colors in your 10-bit “container” the missing colors will – in the worst case – produce you banding effects in sky’s and the like and the codec will you not bring back that missing colors inbetween – that kind of algorythm of filling in missing colors is not being invented yet 😉 sadly! … so it just produces you a lot bigger files to deal with 😉
      A better workflow would be to choose a Picture Profile with the best color and luminance distribution of the full extend luminance of the codec without clipping or rising any image information!

      I’m working on such a Picture Profile right now, but i need a little time (not a year though 😉

      It will be available later on this page:
      http://ntown.at/NTRev_CanonPicStyles.html

  15. Hi all.. please anyone could help me? I can’t download the profile from the technicolor website ’cause it doesn’t work but i need the profile for a work tomorrow… anyone could send me the file? It’s important please… my mail is: luigi.montebello@gmail.com

  16. It’s interesting and quite a bit bewildering to read the discussions around the new picture profile. It’s from Technicolor, so you expect years and years of experience and high volumes of experiments in order to only put the Technicolor name on the best stuff. But…

    Superflats has always bothered me because of them filling up the top and bottom with dead space. Then I read that Technicolor lifted the blacks because of the crushing that’s done at recording. But now I read that the crushing is actually done in the NLE. So transcoding to something other than h264 quicktime would make that issue moot.

    But again. Surely Technicolor would know this? So why not make a profile that does some TC-magick without the lifted blacks?

    I then wonder when technicolor will correct us all and show us the reasoning behind their choices.

    Also, for what it’s worth. I don’t think that the LUT they provide is supposed to be actually used for grading. If I understood it correct, it’s in order to be able to view the files in somewhat of a good light when editing in NLE’s.

    And if I also aren’t mistaken they have released a 3D LUT after they released the simple 1D LUT. I’ll have to look that one up though.

  17. I shot a Short over the weekend using the Technicolour .pf
    I had a PP in camera that I used to flick to when I needed to see the picture ‘graded’ I was happy knowing that I was capturing a bit more though with technicolour .pf.

    Footage in in edit at the mo, so looking forward to seeing the grade results.

  18. Hello Philip,

    I don’t know if I do this incorrectly but to me, seems like an Apple to Apple comparison is the only proper way to test and compare this fella.

    So I have done a lot of shots with my 5D neutral setting configured with same settings:
    – 5D Neutral with Sharpness: 0 Contrast: -4 Saturation: -2 Color Tone: 0
    – Technicolor picture profile with same, Sharpness: 0 Contrast: -4 Saturation: -2 Color Tone: 0
    – Then I apply the LUT Curve to all Technicolor shots
    – Lens used Carl Zeiss ZE Prime 1,4 50 mm

    (I also have all settings in my body according to your Episode 1 from http://www.hdslrhub.com when I do this comparison)

    In many cases, the technicolor profle does not open up shadows but in fact darkens the picture and leave less room for details compared to the Neutral Native setting. If I increase the brightness and contrast, on both profiles to keep the Apple to Apple comparison, yes then I can see more details in the shadows, but the picture gets noisier compared to the Neutral Native Profile.

    Can you or anyone please let me know what is the proper procedure to get to experience what you guys seem to see, assuming ya’ll compare Apple to Apple. Needless to say, I understand that using the Default Neutral Native Profle with its Manufacture Default Contrast and Saturation in Netural, gets a big difference, but then it is an Apple to Pears comparison right?

    Please let me know.

  19. There seem to be so many recommendations on picturestyles but none on how to then work with em. After shooting with a “flat” setting, getting a big dynamic range I have problems finding tutorials on how to get the best out of that material in postproduction. Any suggestions on good settings and workflow in Final Cut Pro? As soon as I start to tweak the saturation and blacks, the exported movie really lacks the quality from the original shots… And I haven’t even dared to touch Unsharp Mask.

    1. Thought i’d reply here……I am by no means one of the experts, but as someone who is learning i’ll share a couple things i’ve recently discovered.

      The first is a simple but really great video tutorial i found on vimeo on “establishing the tonal range”…..specifically about how to correct footage shot neutral/flat. Not as complex as some of the pro’s/semi-pros out here can get, but i thought it really narrowed down the process for simpletons like me….lol.

      http://vimeo.com/24334195

      Second, and this is where i get so stuck with my footage…..color grading. Now for people again like myself that are still trying to understand the finer points of this process……it can get quite long and frustrating.

      The guy in this video also sells his “vegas” presets 25/$20. Now i know you said final cut so if these aren’t an option i also found neumannfilms.com.

      He sells packs of about 30 presets for 15-30 bucks for any nle.

      Check it out……i don’t ever promote other people but its worth it as you learn about cc/grading…the presets are completely modifiable.

      anyways, that’s my 2 cents….best of luck.

  20. Hey Philip,

    I was just wondering if you have incorporated any of these into your projects (technicolor, marvels, etc) or if you still prefer your original Neutral settings?

    Am coming from a t2i/550 btw.

  21. Hello Philip, Great comparison videos. I’ll try to keep it short, maybe I don’t see it or I’m not educated enough in the field of colour correction, anyways, why is it important or in other words preferable to have flat images such as the cine style ones…. I know its a bit of a general question but would really appreciate it if you can give me a general answer on the theory it self.. or not

    Cheers

    1. I’m super late to this conversation but,

      you would shoot with a “flat” picture because you want to capture the most color information possible, so you have more options in post-production.

      For example, if you shoot with tons of contrast (ex. canon’s default picture style, “normal”) then it is hard-impossible to “bring back” any information from the “crushed” black shadows that the contrast created.

      simple test: look at your viewfinder, and view a scene with “normal” picture style, then click over to “cinestyle”, and you will notice you gain the equivalent of about 1 whole stop of light coming in. the pitch black shadows have become “grey” and show some more details in the object/subject.

      For this reason alone I use cinestyle.

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