# Best picture style for video recording?



## AndersBorg (Mar 15, 2015)

I own a canon 6d which I use mostly for still photography, but as I want to get more into filmmaking I was wondering what kind of picture style you would recommend for videoshooting?

Up until now I've been using the very flat cinestyle which has been okay, but I find that the sharpness of the video suffers greatly. Are there any better options for getting a sharper image while retaining a relatively flat look?

Thanks in advance for any inputs and suggestions!


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## sjschall (Mar 15, 2015)

You're going to get a wide variety of responses since picture style is very much up to the opinion of the user... It sounds like you might want to try creating your own picture style - for example turning sharpness up but keeping your colors more flat. All of the picture styles are editable by clicking 'Info'.

I have always use Standard and I like it, I would rather get all my colors how I want in-camera and avoid color-correcting in post.


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## canon_cowboy (Mar 24, 2015)

I also shoot on the 6D. I swear by the Technicolor Cinestyle profile for all my video work. I love the latitude it gives me and the extra possibilities in post for color grading. But, to each their own. I do my sharpening in post.


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## ReggieABrown (Mar 24, 2015)

There are several picture profiles you can download and add to your camera. You can also tweek the factory picture profiles to your own personal taste. I have Marvel HiC, LowC, and Technicolor Cine Style profiles on my 60d and 7d mark ii. I like Technicolor Cine Style picture profile the best. I also use Neutral profile with the Prolost Flat settings. BUT, on the same token, I use the profile that best fits the turn-around time. If it's just a quick shot that I would not mess around with in post I'll use the Standard profile, if I'm going to take my time and color correct/grade I'll use Technicolor or Prolost Flat.

Philip Bloom and Shane Hurlburt also use Neutral profile with the Prolost Flat settings. The settings to create Prolost Flat are - Start with the Neutral Picture Profile...Set Sharpness to zero—all the way to the left...Set Contrast all the way to the left...Set Saturation two notches to the left. That's it! Shane Hurlburt used this profile when he shot the movie Act of Valor (which was shot completely using 5d mark ii's).

Hope that helped!!


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## AndersBorg (Mar 27, 2015)

Thanks a lot for your replies! 

I'll try messing around with some of your suggestions, and see if I can improve my sharpening in post


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## Ebrahim Saadawi (Mar 28, 2015)

Turn up the internal sharpening one notch or two. Makes a great difference. That's what I use, Cinestyle for lowest contrast, I turn the sharpness to +1, and keep saturation at middle, it's a lovely look and needs only contrast adjustment in post.


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## Khnnielsen (Mar 29, 2015)

I have never been a fan of Cinestyle - it's a cool picture profile, but the weak codec of a Canon dslr doesn't do it justice.

Instead I have tweaked the neutral profile to my liking. Low contrast, low saturation, and a bit of sharpening. I guessn some people really need that extremely flat picture for some project, but my version of the neutral profile is more of an all purpose picture profile, where you don't have to spend a ton of time in colour correction afterwards, if the project doesn't allow it.


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## SPG (Mar 30, 2015)

There's going to be endless debate on what's best as it's really a question of personal preference, but there are some facts you should be aware of. Namely that no picture profile is going to increase dynamic range. Just can't be done. What you can do is remap the highlights and shadows within the curve to give you the ability to better manage them in the color grading process. Secondly, H264 from a DSLR is not the optimal codec for color grading. It's okay, but not great and has limitations. With this in mind, I greatly prefer the VisionColor and VisionTech profiles over the flat ones. It gets you pretty close to a final grade while taking advantage of the curves. The result is that you don't have to be nearly as aggressive in the grade to get a good looking final grade. If you take a challenging shot that used a true flat profile, you can have a hard time getting it to that final grade without it falling apart. 
http://www.vision-color.com/visioncolor-for-canon-eos/


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## asmundma (Mar 30, 2015)

RickSpringfield said:


> PROLOST and check out Bloom and Hurlburt.
> 
> Also, no panning. Sliders or cut scenes.



Mr. Bloom has probably moved on to better cameras for video then Canon (Sony), except maybe 1DC where is possible to use log profile.


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## Hector1970 (Apr 15, 2015)

Great replies an interesting topic. I must experiment.


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## Kristofgss (Apr 15, 2015)

I've been using the cineplus styles for a while.
http://www.cineplus.ch/cinema.html
Quite nice to shoot jpeg pictures in too.


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## Tinky (Apr 15, 2015)

If you are going to spend time grading then a flat picture profile can be helpful. If you don't know an LUT from your knee circuit then don't bother. And just want nice easy to use video out of the can then...

Use standard as a starting point, turn sharpness down a notch from centre, especially on the 6d. This really helps with aliasing.

Select sRGB mode rather than adobe rgb (this WILL have a negative effect on printed images, but is a better gamut for screens)

Keep on top of your white balance. This is more critical than superflats, or what philip Bloom had for his dinner.
set a new manual wb in each lighting environment using a grey card. Not white paper. Bleached white paper does funny things with UV spectrum, and is rarely white in any case. 

I have an a5 greyscale card from calumet, pwhich gives me a black grey and white reference point. Get 5s of this at the head of your first clip in each lifhting environment, it will really help your colour correction.

If manual wb is a headache for you then use the closest preset, but again, use a card for reference on location and at post.

NEVER USE AWB

switch off hdr modes, lighting optimisers, lens correction modes etc. 

I don't do an awful lot in the way of grading, not really required for my type of shooting, 3 way Cc and occassionally a bit of magic bullet mojo or looks, both depend on a colour corrected source image to work, somthe above advice, beyond picture profile applies.


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## mackguyver (Apr 15, 2015)

RickSpringfield said:


> PROLOST and check out Bloom and Hurlburt.
> 
> Also, no panning. Sliders or cut scenes.


+1, that's given me the best results: http://prolost.com/blog/2012/4/10/prolost-flat.html


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