Canon M50 Picture Profile Showdown! Does it even matter? Yes, yes it does.

[@JeepTJWheelin]

This is by far the most informative, detail explanation of the Canon M50 picture profiles. I have been shooting real estate with the M50 and the Laowa 9mm f/2.8, which has been the best lens available on the market for this camera working professionally in real estate. The cinestyle profile is not a very good option for the M50 since it performs poorly in already low light situations. I still have not perfected a good enough profile for shooting real estate with the M50. However, the Laowa 9mm has been phenomenal as a 13.5mm full frame equivalent in getting excellent photos and great wide angle footage. One thing I'm having trouble with is getting the hdr set to where the windows aren't blown out, and seeing great detail in all the corners of the home, especially where the walls meet. There are no defined lines there. The 1080p @60fps looks very good since I increased the sharpness a bit on the neutral profile. But still looks flat to me. Real estate video needs to look cinematic but just as important, it has to pop. The cinematic part is relatively easy in shooting 1080p @60fps slowing it down in post to 30fps. My goal is the make it sharp with a slight bit of saturation. The 4k, even with the Laowa 9mm is better, but is no where as wide as the uncropped 1080p. I will eventually be moving on from the M50 in favor of the 10 bit, uncropped 4k @30fps - Canon R50. And will couple it with the Laowa 9mm f/2.8 RF mount lens by early spring when the real estate market picks up again. Any advice would be greatly appreciated getting the M50 picture profile to look as clear and professional as possible.

[@patrickfitzgerald2861]

Thanks for this. I detest all editing, so tweaking Canon's picture profiles is a must for me. This is a good starting point, but I think most people will need to experiment quite a bit to determine what they like. And yes, be sure to avoid that over-sharpened, digitized look. 😎

[@TheFtzen]

You're welcome :) It's always nice to have a great starting point, whether you colorgrade or not :)

[@ankittanwar5069]

Never saw someone explaining this deep so accurately. Great job!! Also what picture profile you think suits best to you while taking stills or doing portrait photography

[@TheFtzen]

Standard is plenty fine as a on camera preview :) BUT I recently had to do a livestream using my EOS R and M50 and found I preferred the Landscape profile with minor tweaks. M50 Landscape Profile, -1 sharpness and +1 in contrast. Works great for photos too :) Just remember, if you shoot RAW, then the picture profile does not matter. You can even shoot in black and white, but edit in colors once you bring it into, let's say, lightroom :) If you shoot JPG, only then is the picture profile and your settings in it burned into the file :)

[@timothykieper]

RAW

[@TheAlphaFX]

I never seen such a detailed analysis of the m50 profile pictures. Thank you!

[@TheFtzen]

I'm glad you found it helpful :)

[@latenightreflections_]

Your videos are great. Keep at it. Thank you very much for this informative video.

[@continentalgin]

Thank you for this video! I like Landscape. Cinestyle has always looked a bit too 'washed out' for my taste.

[@TheFtzen]

You're welcome :) yea cinestyle has its place and I would say that is extreme lowlight... like candlelight or a small campfire where content is more worth than the quality :)

[@LEUNN_]

Great video, liked and subbed. Thanks for the content.

[@nikovelikov]

I'll give the fine detail a shot for my next video. I feel like many Sony cameras are using a similar picture style.

[@TheFtzen]

Haven't really thought of that, but I do think Sony Mirrorless tends to be a bit sharper, so maybe that's why?

[@themateoo]

Great job! Thank you for that video!

[@futurebrilliantteam8851]

Good job Claus. Everyone asks about my (canon m50) picture profile and I'm thinking of doing a video on it... if I do I'll mention this because you've got some good comparisons.

[@TheFtzen]

Hi Future Brilliant Team, thanks a lot for the comment :D I'm so glad you found it helpful!

[@nevtug]

I can't understand how this video got nearly 7000 view with this fantastic edit!

[@TheFtzen]

I guess I answered a question that many m50 users had :) Thanks for watching :D

[@nevtug]

@@TheFtzen You're welcome it's fun for me :D. By the way I'm a Mark IV user :D.

[@adamsterling4946]

A very good piece of work, supported by excellent presentation!

[@TheFtzen]

Thanks Adam, that's very kind of you to say ! :D

[@FerdiCildiz]

Nice video, you got a subscriber from Turkey! Keep up the good work man!

[@TheFtzen]

Thanks :) It may take a while before the next series of videos appear, but I haven't given up yet :)

[@dhruvsaha3459]

Amazing work, learned a lot! Keep the video coming 👍

[@TheFtzen]

Thanks Dhruv ! :D I'm truly amazed by all these supporting comments and so glad that people find them helpful as well, it means a lot. Thanks again

[@MrSTravelQuest]

Great information, thanks for taking the time to show each profile.

[@TheFtzen]

Glad you found it useful :D The video ended up way denser than first anticipated but when it comes to cameras there is never a simple yes or no answer :D

[@MrSTravelQuest]

@@TheFtzen Your information was clear and helpful. I went over the weekend and tried all the profiles thanks to you. I like the lighting and color card that you had in place. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge and experience.

[@davedesigning]

Thanks for the great explanation! And it’s great to see the profiles on a person instead of landscape. I was wondering, do you have an opinion in the vision color profiles?

[@TheFtzen]

Hi Dave, I'm glad you liked it :) Unfortunately I have not used the picture profile from Vision Color so I can't say if it's good or not :)

[@davedesigning]

​@@TheFtzen Thanks for the reply! I'm going to try making my own profile. (Just discovered that.) IDK if that would work for everyone, but I'm fairly comfortable with color theory.

[@dami4944]

Great video this was eye-opening for me as a new m50 user

[@TheFtzen]

Hi Dami, I'm so glad you think so :D Let me know if you have any m50 related questions :)

[@waeladel8918]

Thanks for the valuable information

[@TheFtzen]

You're welcome :) Feel free to ask if you have any questions or if I forgot to mention something important :D

[@studioprairie]

Hey, thanks for doing this, very useful! I’m shooting video on the 250d (also called rebel sl3), and it’s pretty much the same beast as the m50 as far as I know. I’ll try your custom neutral today :)

[@TheFtzen]

Hey, that's what I love the most about Canon. All their picture profiles are pretty much the same across different models :) The neutral is great if you intend to add contrast in post, but I've actually moved on to a custom Landscape profile, simply because I found the skin tones a bit more pleasing. For straight out of camera stuff (Such as streaming) Landscape Sharpness at +4 Contrast at +1 Saturation at 0 Color tone at 0 If I want to edit and increase the dynamic range a tiny bit, I decrease the contrast and get similar results as the Neutral profile, but with nicer colors (in my opinion and for my use cases)

[@studioprairie]

@@TheFtzen good to know, I'll try that as well 😀

[@roadroyal]

Thanks Claus.... very informative

[@TheFtzen]

I'm glad you think so :)

[@DonKayMediaGH]

Great video. I learnt a lot

[@chuck9490]

Fantastic comparison

[@TheFtzen]

Thanks Chuck, I'm glad you liked it ! :D

[@CleanSlateMinimalism]

Hi Claus, which profiles( with or without tweaks) would you suggest for vlogging / talking head videos?

[@TheFtzen]

It's been a while but I think I ended up using Landscape for the most part :) Tweaking it a bit in contrast, saturation and sharpening to my liking. I basically liked how skintones seemed to pop without any grading needed, which was ideal for the livestreaming events I did.

[@theyoutubehusband5308]

Good work. Keep it up 👍🏿

[@TheFtzen]

Thanks, got a few videos planned already :) Anything m50 related you are curious about?

[@stanvisualseychelles932]

What were your custom neutral settings please?

[@TheFtzen]

Hey, you can find it on my other video: How to improve the picture profiles on the Canon M50. About 5 minutes into the video I show how to set it :) In hindsight I should have included the settings in this video as well, thanks for the comment :)

[@stanvisualseychelles932]

I'm getting a lot of banding in a clear blue sky using cinestyle with the m50 +22mm f2 lens. Any work around this? My histogram is in the middle. Aperture is f5 to f8. Would a higher shutter be the cause of this too

[@TheFtzen]

Hi Stan, good question :) Color banding is related to the color bit depth. The M50 records video in 8-bit, which means you have 256 shades of each color. Simply put, the camera can't record all the fine nuances as the sky changes in small increments from light to dark. So let's say you are trying to record a video of 1000 shades of blue, then the M50 will compress those 1000 shades into 256.

[@stanvisualseychelles932]

@@TheFtzen thank you. I will try and play around with different settings in footages today. Your answer is helpful

[@stanvisualseychelles932]

@@TheFtzen today i shot sharpness all the way down to 0 the rest were at 4 and I got the best results. I only had to sharpen in post and add the canon log to record 709 at 40% and I got 0 banding. Have to make the most of what i can afford for now. Will do more tests tomorrow. I have a feeling its the high shutter speed that could be causing this over 1/300, I get banding only while the camera is tilting or panning. Not moving i don't see it. My panasonic fz1000 at 1080p 60fps is around the same bit rate anf 8 bit. I do not get any banding with it

[@EduardoFilipeCoaching]

Hi, thanks for the tips. I have a question, are you able to help?

[@TheFtzen]

Hi Eduardo, I can't make any promises but try me :)

[@EduardoFilipeCoaching]

@@TheFtzen thanks man, I really appreciate the reply. For some unknown reason ALL my KZbin videos that I watch on my 60 inch 4K LG tv look terrible. Very low quality, and extremely glitchy (frame jumping etc) but those same videos viewed on my iPhone, iMac or iPad look great. No issues at all! All other KZbin videos from other creators look great on my tv. I’m shooting with a Canon m50 at 1080p 24f. I just can’t seem to get to the bottom of the issue. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated 🙏🏼

[@TheFtzen]

​@@EduardoFilipeCoaching I would approach this from a troubleshooting point of view. Try to eliminate as many potential causes one by one. A few that comes to mind 1. is it KZbin? Try playing a LOCAL video from a laptop hardrive connected via HDMI to your TV. This way you are testing whether or not the mishap is due to the KZbin upload. If so, try and upscale your videos to 4K before uploading and set the bitrate per second to 40.000. This way you have less compression from KZbin and a higher quality video. Even if I shoot a video in 1080p, I always upscale to 4K in the export menu and upload the 4K version to KZbin. 2. Is it your TV ? Find a laptop, find one of your Online KZbin videos, connect the laptop to the TV via HDMI. If the video is playing fine on the laptop, but not on the TV, then it might be the TV. Try the same with a 4K version. (See point 1). 3. is it due to hz on your TV ? Try setting the TV to either 50 or 60 hz. It's a tough one and I can't really help you much apart from this :)

[@EduardoFilipeCoaching]

@@TheFtzen Thank you so much, I really appreciate your help. Will look into this over the weekend. Thank again.

[@Yoko.Kurama]

is there a way to bring up the shadows in camera?

[@TheFtzen]

I assume you mean in terms of video. Not really, I would suggest lowering the contrast to maximize the control you get in editing, but it is limited. And always prioritize the subject. Make sure the person on camera is well lit and correctly exposed even if it means clipped shadows with no detail or blownout hightlights :) In a controlled environment, use light to match the scene with the subject. Some external picture profiles might have a slight edge, but that likely comes with a cost of detail or contrast. The dynamic range recovery on the M50 is the real issue in terms of lifting the shadows. Other than that you can try to recover the image-noise with a plugin for Premiere Pro or with the Studio version from Davinci Resolve. The noise reduction from Davinci Resolve Studio is worth the money by itself :)

[@Epocadk]

Does this apply to stills also?

[@TheFtzen]

Only if you shoot jpg. Picture profiles does not affect still images shot as raw :)

[@bulcub]

If you can't color grade in 8bit, then why spend all that money for a 10bit camera? for the extra pixels? I've seen FANTASTIC work done in 6/7/8 bit! the difference being there were no REAL color profiles!

[@TheFtzen]

Hi Bulcub, thanks for commenting but I do not understand what you mean? Of course you can color grade an 8bit file BUT it's more of a question of limitations and why you want to do it. Colorgrading is trendy and we all want cool cinematic looks, but the thing is. If you take the Canon M50, put it into a super flat profile then you are already manipulating the file before you even start to grade. So now you got a file that's already been processed, next step is to bring it into your computer, bring it back to normal (color correction) and then start shifting greens, blue, reds, exposure, contrast, face masks and so on. BUT If you DON'T shoot in a super flat profile or get a nice starting point to begin with, then the file is less processed before you even start to process it on your computer, meaning you can grade it more before it breaks + it makes the workflow faster and simpler. You most definately get your money worth by shooting 10bit, BUT the 8-bit coming out of a C200 might look better than a 10-bit file from the canon m50 (Note, the M50 can not shoot 10bit video). You also mention pixels, which have absolutely nothing to do with bit depth. The whole point with this video is to let the camera do the heavy lifting by understanding how each picture profile processes the image :) Now, like I said, I do not quite understand what you mean, so my answer may be a total miss :)

[@KensleyInnocent]

@@TheFtzen excellent explanation