When we learned that the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III would be one of the most capable stills and video hybrid cameras around, we knew we wanted to do some shooting and see for ourselves what it's capable of. So we made some calls and wound up at Lawless Forge, a blacksmith shop in south Seattle, and got to work.
All footage was shot on a pre-production camera in Canon Log using the full width of the sensor at 4K/60p or 4K/24p, using IPB compression (CFexpress cards don't yet grow on trees). Aperture and shutter speed were controlled manually, with Auto ISO gaining up or down as necessary, and ISO values varying from 800 to 6400.
Footage was compiled and edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, using a Canon-supplied Lut and minor tweaking beyond that. Lighting in the space was a mix of cool flickering fluorescents and tungsten (in other words, not good), so keep that in mind as you watch.
Also, if you don't like guitars, I personally apologize for the music.
You can check out a ton of out-of-camera JPEG still images from this same shoot if you scroll a little ways through our pre-production sample gallery below.
While the MkIII specs are very impressive, it is essentially crippled for video without IBIS or an OLED viewfinder. Canon are arrogant and refuse to learn lessons; their 1Dc was also a very impressive camera, 7 years ago, and exceeded cameras like the Sony F55 for quality (I owned both), but was limited by codec (motion jpeg) and a lack of development. It was EOL within 18months of release.
With products like the Panasonic S1H and the Sony FX9, Canon are going to regret their mistakes.
Reference the video, you will easily match this with a GH5 and the Leica kit lens ($1500)
One idea about this reviews. You can bring few cameras on-site and shoot in parallel so we can really see difference or lack of it between them. Like if they all will band, and how they will handle poor lighting, things like this. Does not really matter models. Lets say you can get one GH5 and M50, or a6100. And upload some parts of RAW files like you do with photo galleries. Of course do not shoot the whole video with all of them but few samples here and there.
It's primarily due to lighting in the venue. On the small rear screen, it was really difficult to see while filming, I'd only spotted it when I was reviewing footage for editing. Manipulating the shutter speed a bit may have solved it, but as I say, it was subtle enough (to me, anyway) that I didn't see it while shooting, nor did I think it really compromised the overall video.
The banding also maybe be due to the way premiere decodes Canon files. I know that premiere can't decode C300 Mark II footage without banding. It's really subtle but it's there. The best workflow for Canon footage is to string out your footage in resolve because it decodes it properly, then output a ProRes or DNX stringout that you import into Premiere.
A class room is a poor place to show forging. The colors of heated metal look better in a dark environment. A classroom is what it is.
Close-ups work better than long shots (but do you want to use a loaner-camera/lenses to do them?).
The editing is workman-like, as is the color correction.
Here's a short film from YouTuber Tim Dyck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB8HQ9HZDNs Shot in a working forge, not a classroom. Red-hot colors in darkness, and close-ups make all the difference.
Shouldn't that be "educated people?" All the carpenters, mechanics, and firemen I know, know how to hold a hammer. The dropping of wood-shop and home-economics in middle school is the culprit—these classes forced nerds to use their hands as well as their minds. C'est la vie.
No, I have over the years seen many of all educational levels strangle hammers by holding them by the neck, this causes long term strain injuries on the hands and wrist. You are right that they need to be taught how to hold them.
Nope...you teach *good control* first, when teaching hammer-work, then power later. Choking-up on the handle gives better control. Repetitive-stress injuries are from poor-technique (and repetitive stress), not where on the handle you hold it. I only saw one person with bad-technique -which will, no doubt, be corrected as the class progresses. 45 years as a carpenter and I only hold a hammer near the end of the handle when rough-framing, and then only part of the time.
The Poor technique IS choking the handle, They all had bad technique Holding the hammer by the neck is generally out of fear that you will hit your hand holding the nail, centre pop etc, it does not give better control I have 48 years as a plater and the first thing I was taught as a apprentice was to hold the hammer correctly and not strangle it. As a plater Which includes large aspects of smithing we use a bigger range of hammers than you would as a carpenter. and driving a wedge between two pieces of steel or hammering metal heavily with great force will give pain and stress from using it
Can you imagine launching a generation of filmmakers with the 5D Mark II and then abandoning your massive market lead and goodwill for generation upon generation thereafter? It's really been something to watch. We know they have the tech, because their cinema line is capable of beautiful images. They just are the kings of segmentation, just conscientiously withholding features from the low end to protect the upper.
Completely opposite from Sony's approach during that time, and we've all seen Sony explode as a result. Sony had inferior color science throughout the period, but succeeded by loading their cameras with key functionality. And then Blackmagic offers the image quality and resolution of the C500 II in their $2500 BMPCC 6K with fewer caveats as far as codecs. You know what they say. You reap what you sow.
And the Nikon Z6 offers much lusher video with very smooth highlight roll-off (ex-Sony A6300/A73 shooter, currently shoot a brace of Nikon Z6). Excellent semi-log options available for more flexibility in post but neutral colours on video are very good as well.
For in-body RAW, the Blackmagic cameras are astonishing tools.
I agree with all your points, except the colour science. If you test (and I mean really test, ie measure) a Sony camera carefully, especially on video, the colour is very neutral, but bland. Canon 'looks' nicer.
Thank you for the effort! This was surely a difficult and dangerous shoot with sparks and metal bits and grinder dust flying around. How did Carey manage? Did you wear goggles and would that influence your shooting style? I am not really impressed by the flat contrast. There are great sequences of happy newbie blacksmiths, but I miss some innovative perspectives, up close to the red hot iron, frog perspective with the hammer coming down from the sky. Admittedly not easy and maybe dangerous with 15 people hammering away. Did Carey wear ear buds for protection? There must have been a din of hammering - and with the angle grinder!
I hope he was also using a filter on his lenses, the sparks will burn into glass destroying the front element. The safety guard looks like it has been removed from the grinder as well as all the other safety related problems.
I remain completely perplexed by all talk of video quality. It's all just video to me. I guess I can tell if its in focus or shaky or poorly exposed. Other than that - no idea what I should be appreciating or finding wanting.
No offense taken, I'm still learning. Any more specific tips on grading (see some of the earliest comments in this thread, they're a good example) are welcome. Unfortunately, the lighting made for a bit of a white balance nightmare, so I dialed in a manually tweaked kelvin value as best I could.
Gray cards can only help so much when your subjects move around a room with different parts lit by different types of lighting. Of course, I could have shot all Raw video if I had about $10k in CFexpress cards ;)
@Carey Rose I find it quite difficult to do proper grading consistently. I am sure that if I put enough good will and possibly getting some formal training.... At this time I resolved myself with setting the white balance right at the time of the shoot and not using any log but just setting the contrast to minimum setting and apply a bit of a curve in post. I do not do crazy cinematic luts, so that just works for me. Crude but effective. Not that I necessarily recommend to others. Additionally, I find that this bypasses for me , for the most part, the other headache of monitor calibration and how the picture looks on other screens.
I keep forgetting that I now have 30+ years of video production experience (shoot, edit, grade, Vfx) and keep thinking i'm still a newcomer!
Sooo now....just so you know, on ALL Canon footage shot with CLOG, during grading, boost the shadows by 10% to 15%, then boot the luminance mid-tones by between 5% to 10%, then REDUCE the bright highlights by between 5% to 10% (sometimes more!)
After that, boost the overall SATURATION level by anywhere between 5% to as much as 15% depending upon your tastes! I also tend to add some BLUE or ORANGE colour temperature. If your video tends to look really Blue or is otherwise "Cold Looking", I tend to add some orange colour temperature to make my video look "warm" and if the video is too "Warm" or Orange looking, I will add more "Blue" (aka Daylight) to the image to make it more natural looking.
Within any scene you look for clouds which SHOULD be white and at Sky which should be BLUE!
And for your talent, make sure the skin tones look natural AND that you can see "texture" on their faces (i.e. pores on their skin) and that you can see the weave of the fabric of their clothes.
In terms of scenes with clouds, you SHOULD be able to see puffy texture and grey streaks and wispiness within a cloud. It SHOULD NOT be blasted out to bright white blobs! You NEED to see texture in a cloud to ensure you have GREAT light and contrast levels.
After I do my initial shadows, mid-tones and bright hightlights luminance level adjustment, I tend to INCREASE my contrast ratio if my image is too greyish and low contrast looking by about 5% to about 8% on most Canon CLOG footage and if it is already too contrasty, (i.e. you cannot see the textures of dark clothes or dark wood or road pavement in a scene) I reduce the contrast until the textures come out.
FINALLY, I add an UNSHARP MASK (1.5 to 3 pixel radius) to get my object edges and talent face/hair looking sharp and clear!
In your scenes, you SHOULD ALWAYS adjust your luminance levels, contrast levels and sharpness levels UNTIL you can actually see the fine details in hair, clouds, roadways, furniture, clothes, plants, trees, etc. When you see those fine details clearly it means you have made a proper LUMINANCE/BRIGHTNESS grade.
NOW you can adjust colour tones (i.e. more WARM orange or more COOL blue) to your image to have your film make a MOOD STATEMENT to your final audience. The colour tone you add is dependent upon the script where action scenes TEND to be more COOL BLUE or pure real-world natural colour while slower parts and close-ups or actor-centric scenes TEND to be warm orange.
For documentaries, I tend to grade to a more natural or cooler look for things like workplaces or industrial settings while for outdoor scenes and landscapes or outside of personal homes, I make them look more like a warm sunset.
With Canon CLOG, you NEED to boost your shadows and reduce highlights with precision. .
AND you also need to add some UNSHARP MASK to fix the tendency of Canon shooters to have a soft-look to their footage because the on-set display monitor tends to be quite overly sharp and contrasty making people THINK their Canon 4K footage is SHARP when in reality when blown up to 65 inch TV size or shown on a movie screen size, it will be "too soft" looking. The "Unsharp Mask" just affects fine object edges fine details.
. If you shoot CLOG, it ALWAYS NEEDS a fairly aggressive colour grade (I like Blackmagic Resolve!) !!! You just cannot expect that a simple overall video brightness and contrast boost will make it look good. IT WON'T !!!
Always grade the shadows, midtones and highlights FIRST! Then add the colour saturation and a FINE-TUNED contrast ratio adjustment so as to see fine details and textures in clothes, faces, furniture, clouds and roadways AND FINALLY add the UnSharp Mask to make your image POP and look SHARP!
Which parts are looking choppy? Everything shot at 24p used a 1/50 sec shutter speed, everything shot at 60p and slowed down to 24p used a 1/125 sec shutter speed. I'm not seeing much in the way of chop either on the edit machine or in playback.
Are you sure your not confusing 'choppy' with handheld without a gimbal? Sure there are the occasional bumps with handheld but I dont see any choppy footage. Choppy usually means the video is skipping frames.
As for your comment about not knowing which shots are 24p/60p, it sounds like you dont know what this means. 24p footage is real time and 60p is the slow motion footage which is shot 60p and retimed on the premiere timeline.
Basically, nothing is shown at 60p. Everything is either native 24p, or 60p re-interpreted in Premiere down to 24p. Can't say I'm seeing any sort of choppiness of the type you describe. There also aren't any 60p clips dragged onto the 24p timeline that were left at 60p, which likely would result in very noticeable chop.
At 0:15, I see what you mean, there's a slight jump in the movement in the last quarter of the movement trajectory. Question remains if it is the recording, the downsampling of Adobe Premiere as Carey indicates, or something youtube did to the video.
Whatever the reason, it is there. Not just where I said. Not limited to this camera, BTW.
Try 60fps some day or even carefully done 24fps, there is a big difference. People are obsessed with 4K and higher and do not care about low temporal resolution which is more disturbing, to me at least.
Hey there! Our pre-production 1D X III showed very few bugs, but one of them was unfortunately that I couldn't get the image stabilizer on the 85 to engage, no matter what I tried. Not even in stills. So I used it a fair bit for 60p footage, where handshake can be smoothed out by slowing down the clips, but I didn't use it much for 24p footage with autofocus once I realized that the clips were pretty shaky. On the first clips I shot though, before I noticed the lack of stabilization, the AF seemed pretty solid.
I wonder if Canon need to update the firmware in the lens, or the 1Dx mk3 or both.
I personally had IS issues with the 85LIS on 2 5Dmk3s a while back, it was as though it was out of synch and added circular blur at 160th! Haven't heard others with issues so I guess I was unlucky. Thanks for the reviews and reply, much appreciated.
You're most welcome. I haven't had a chance yet, but I do plan on passing my observations with the 85 IS on to Canon - I'll update you if they get back to me and I can make a public comment.
I forget thinking about video quality, because video is so nice, i actually slightly miss my own past on factory where i worked with metal . There was not so clean and "cool", and salary very low, but it was fun sometimes.
I've done plenty of video editing in the past, but very little of it in Log. So I applied the Lut and did a bit of tweaking, but I'm sure I could have done further tweaks with a bit more time. Onwards and upwards.
Hey Carey, may I suggest just using a color transform from Log to Rec 709. That way you get the DR of Log but be in a proper spec. It takes like three clicks in Resolve to transform.
Hm I'll give that a try! Unfortunately I had just started playing around with Resolve after I had done the bulk of work in Premiere on this project.
Do you happen to know if there's something similar in Premiere? I used one of the Luts that Canon provides (they provide many, so I had to do some Googling to figure out which ones to try) in the Lumetri color panel.
Naw, Premiere is actually super inaccurate when it comes to reading color. I know they recently implemented some color management for projects, but it's still nowhere where it needs to be for proper color correction. These are the limits to PP color management. https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/color-management.html
In Resolve you can do it in your project settings or use the OFX color transform plugin. I usually use the plugin. Set your source gamma and gamut, then your output which is typically Rec709 2.4 then you're good to correct.
Gotcha, that's a shame about Premiere. I'll definitely be giving Resolve a go for my next video project then. Thanks for the suggestion and for taking the time to clarify for me, I really appreciate it.
Carey, just a friendly opinion: If you are somewhat inexperienced with grading LOG footage, for a new camera demo it might be best to stay with a profile to show the capabilities. Not to comment on your video but some of the worst grades/videos I have seen have been from LOG footage that was not handled well. This can misrepresent the new camera's quality. LOG is tricky because it starts so gray. It can trick your eyes into thinking it is normal the longer you stare at it! I have come to dislike it even though it offer some more flexibility.
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