Get it right in the camera
Tweak the white balance and other settings to suit the scene
Athough we photographers can record pictures as Raw files and freely adjust image processing settings such as white balance, sharpness and noise long after we’ve stepped away from the camera, the option to record video in Raw doesn’t exist in the eos Dslr line.
The EOS Movie file options – MOV, MP4 and MJPEG – are equivalent to JPEGS, in that they’re a ‘finished’ format with all the image processing settings compressed into them before they’re saved to a memory card or streamed from the camera’s HDMI port to a screen.
Naturally this means that getting the settings right in-camera is important, as it’ll be harder or impossible to make changes later. Picture Style is a good place to start as this can dramatically affect the whole look. The way you approach this depends on what you plan to do with the clips you’re recording. If you’re not bothered about editing them, then set whichever one matches the look you’re trying to create. If you’re going to be doing lots of ‘editing and ‘grading’ (colour correcting with bells on), aim to get the flattest-looking footage out of the camera by using the Neutral Picture Style. A flat profile setting like this presents a cleaner base to work from. Canon now offer a paid-for upgrade for the 5D Mark IV, which sees Canon Log gamma – a super-flat profile found in Canon’s professional video cameras – added as option.
White balance is another key setting you need to get totally right if you want to avoid colour casts in your films, and, of course, you’ll want to get the exposure spot on. In highcontrast lighting, it’s worth trying the HDR movie mode available on selected EOS cameras, as this can preserve more highlight detail in the recorded footage.