Even though Canon DSLRs might not be getting a whole lot of love from filmmakers these days, the Cinema-EOS line of cameras from Canon, the C100 and C300 in particular, have been widely adopted in the professional video production world, especially for documentary-style work. Since these cameras are fairly ubiquitous at this point, it makes sense for us to know how to get the most out of them. A recent video from AbelCine helps us do just that by teaching us how to maximize dynamic range on the C100 and C300 by tweaking the internal gamma settings.
There are actually two different ways to maximize the dynamic range of these cameras, although which one you use depends entirely on your post-production workflow and how quickly you need to deliver your video. If tight delivery deadlines aren't an issue and you want to squeeze every last bit of dynamic range out of the sensor, you'll want to shoot with a Canon log (C-log) gamma profile as it preserves the most color and luminance data from the sensor. The caveat is that, like other log profiles, pulling an aesthetically pleasing image from C-log takes quite a bit of color correction.
For folks who need to deliver quickly, however, the Wide DR gamma setting on the C100 and C300 can provide fantastic results without the need for intensive post processing. Like the standard gamma profiles included on the cameras, what you see is what you get. But the Wide DR gamma adds roughly another stop of latitude in the highlights compared to those standard profiles, which depending on your shooting situation, might be the difference between highlights that are completely blown and highlights that are only beginning to clip.
Link: Using Wide DR Gamma with the Canon C100 and C300 -- AbelCine
