Canon XF400 - rendering settings for C3 profile on Vegas PRO 18.

[nserov]

Hello!

I was not able to get good results for rendering XF400 C3 profile video using Vegas PRO 18 for BenQ TK850 projector. The video has visible layering of blue sky and "frost" artifacts around thin objects like trees branches even if sharpen is not applayed. I used LUT file BT709_CanonLog3-to-BT709_WideDR_65_FF_Ver2.0.cube - it  didn't help. Source is MFX files 160 Mbit, 4K. Thank you in advance for help.

[Nick2020]

Hi nserov,
Thanks for checking in with us!

There could be a couple of factors that are affecting your results, so let's try to isolate the issue.

To help us get a better sense of what you're facing, go ahead and attach a screenshot of the distortion you are seeing.

• How does the footage look when reviewing it on your camera?
• Are you seeing the distortion in your editing program when you disable the LUT?
• Do other LUTs produce similar results?

[nserov]

Hello!
Thank you for the message.

I was able to get good results for C1-C3 profiles in Vegas PRO 18 with the following settings:
C1
Color space: Canon - Canon-Log - Rec. 709 Daylight
Color range: full

C2
Color space: Canon - Canon-Log - Rec. 709 Daylight
Color range: full

C3
Color space: Canon - Canon-Log3 - Rec. 2020 Daylight
Color range: full

Project settings - same for all profiles:
ACES version: 1.2
ACES color space Default (ACES2065-1)
View transform: Rec.2020 ST2084 1000 nits (ACES)

Rendering settings - same for all profiles:
Color space: Rec.2020 ST2084 (1000 nits)
Color range (YCbCr output): Full

I like result with profile C2 for the most.

As for compresion artifacts on BenQ TK-850, I need some more time to play with different equipment/parameters - I will post my results later.

I have another 4K camera GoPro Hero 9. In it's user manual cleary told that the camera has profile without initial sharpening. I will use it for testing - because for now - I might be wrong - my guess is that XF-400 silently applays some sharpening, the source file from the camera is rendered by Vegas HEVC codeck and even without editor sharpening the result comes with compression artifacts affecting how my BenQ TK850 plays the video.

For now what I would like to do: copy C2 to user profile C5, reduce sharpening to no sharpening. I not very familiar with the camera so far - please advice for this exact action.
Thank, you,
Nikolay.

[nserov]

My long investigation came to end. In my humble opinion there are two options. The first is to use C2 profile for HDR workflow. I tested Look2 - but didn't get good results with sharpening in the editor. It is in controversy with the opinion that you should take from the camera as raw as possible footage and do all you need in editor. But right after I did my experiments, I found opposite opinion that this is good for the case when you get uncompressed video from your camera. In case of high compression rate you need to take the most close to your needs footage using camera settings. And according to my results it is true for XF400.  So, for HDR use C2 (C3 does not works for me) and very low sharpening in Vegas PRO sharpen plugin - I got best results with 0.025 only. Other option is to use Boris FX Magic Sharp with Standard Reduce Grit preset. Boris FX slow down processing by 5 times but gives a little better results.

The second option is to use C1 profile for SDR workflow - also with small Vegas Pro Sharpen or with Boris FX. Trying to get HDR video from 8-bit camera comes with a price. In case of C1 profile and SDR video noise is close to invisible - much less then in case of C2/HDR. But the procedure above let me get appropriate for me results. So for now I decided to stay with C2.

Also I did comparison of different aperture values. The most sharp for minimal zoom is 5.6 and 8. 11 has some visible diffraction effects. I would say that 5.6 a little better then 8 - but they are very close.

Conclusion. I like the camera, I would recommend it - but would like somehow to get less noise in case of HDR workflow.