7D - Technicolor CineStyle and S-Curves in FCPX

It's been a long time since I used my 7D for filmmaking. I still use it a lot for still photography, but my documentary work isn't about bokeh shots and cinematic beauty. The Canon xf305 offers hours of 4:2:2 recordings, my DPA shotgun or a lavalier radio setup hooks up easily, in other words, it's a fast setup. The 7D is not.

But recently, together with the v2.0 firmware, I realized that a Technicolor CineStyle preset exists that improves the filmic dynamic range of the DSLR by about 2 f-stops. In case anybody hasn't dl'd it yet, check it out here on the Technicolor webpage.

To enhance the digital film shooting capabilities of the 7D, the standard h264 color space is put into a log color space which requires a specific LUT applied to the clips within the NLE (provided with the download of the CineStyle preset).

So much for the good part. Unfortunately, plug-in solutions like Red Giant's LUT Buddy do not support Final Cut Pro X yet. Thus, the footage looks pretty stale when imported into that NLE, and one would have to play around with the grading possibilities of FCPX for quite a while to get to a proper look. Thus, it's a really cool thing that colorgradingcentral.com are offering a handy "S-Curve" plug-in for FCPX that closely imitates the Technicolor CineStyle LUT together with their cineLook for HDSLR's plugin.

After applying the firmware update and CineStyle preset to my HDSLR, I immediately went out and shot some footage of my brother Mike to test the possibilities of CineStyle. As already mentioned, it's been quite a while since I shot film with the 7D, and you can't imagine the joy I had going handheld via Redrock Micro's "Captain Stubling" rig.

Here's a couple of screenshots:

CineStyle without applied S-Curve

CineStyle with S-Curve and cineLook

CineStyle with S-Curve, cineLook and a bit of Mojo