Harness the power of 3D LUTs in the Canon EOS C70

The Canon EOS C70 enables you to create up to 20 Custom Picture files that can be used to give different treatments to your videos.

It's an efficient way to speed up your workflow and bring a consistent look to clips, as once you've set parameters such as gamma, colour space, black level and skin detail, and registered them to a Custom Picture file, you can instantly recall that specific setup at any point.

But did you know that you can also register 3D LUT (Lookup Table) files on the EOS C70, giving you an even higher degree of freedom to adjust the colour and character of an image?

A LUT (Lookup Table) is essentially a set of mathematical instructions that remaps the input or recorded values for each pixel to different RGB output values. Think of it as two columns of numbers, where the input number in one column has a corresponding output number in the other column. When you apply a LUT to a video, the numbers are converted – as is the look of your footage.

One of the drawbacks of a standard 1D LUT is that it doesn't allow the red, green and blue colour values to be mixed. It's a linear conversion from one R, G or B value setting to another. A 3D LUT does allow this, however, so it provides more control over specific colour values and a more sophisticated level of colour manipulation as a result.

As the name suggests, a 3D LUT maps red, green and blue in a three-dimensional grid, allowing for more complex and nuanced colour transformations. There are three grid sizes, or 'resolutions', of 3D LUTs – 17grid, 33grid and 65grid. Although 65grid offers the most accuracy, applying it to footage in editing software requires a computer with more processing power.

There are a host of different applications for a 3D LUT. They can be used for straightforward colour correction, for example, or to emulate a specific cinematic look or style to help tell a story or create a mood.

So how do you turn your 3D LUTs into Look File options? Here's a step-by-step guide:

While the Canon EOS C70 is the first camera to incorporate the Look File function, both the Canon EOS C500 Mark II and Canon EOS C300 Mark III now support the functionality as well, via a firmware update.

Additional performance enhancements and creative options have been added to all three cameras as part of the same Cinema EOS firmware release. For example, the updated EOS C500 Mark II is now able to record in 4:3 and 6:5 aspect ratios in Cinema RAW Light. Both the EOS C500 Mark II and EOS C300 Mark III also now feature a 1.8x de-squeeze option, enabling access to a wider range of anamorphic lenses, and the two cameras can even be controlled remotely by the Canon RC-IP100 remote camera controller via Canon's original IP-based XC Protocol.

EOS C70 users will benefit from the improved autofocus capabilities, thanks to the addition of 'Whole Area' to the existing 'Small' and 'Large' frame size options. Touch Tracking and Face Detection can now be initiated by touching the LCD screen when you're using this new mode.

The latest firmware also adds support for a further seven zoom lenses to the Canon Mount Adapter EF-EOS R 0.71x. These supported lenses allow for full optical correction, autofocus and metadata compatibility with the EOS C70, with even further lenses planned to be supported in future updates.

Download the latest firmware at https://www.canon-europe.com/support/consumer_products/product_ranges/digital_cinema/cinema_eos/