I’ve recently gotten serious with chasing drone footage and upgraded to a M3P for the better sensor and the d-cinelike capability.
But looking into it, I’m wondering if shooting in d-cinelike is worth it since normal seems to be a very good profile. I enjoy colour grading in post, that’s not the point, but if the output in normal is good enough to sell the footage or get jobs then why not? But on the other hand, 8 vs 10 bit has to make some kind of difference these days?
Looking online I can’t really find a good comparison or reasoning for either profile.
Normal profile is baked in out of the box to look OK and if that is acceptable to you then carry on using it.
Its 8 bit as opposed to "10 ish) which does mean editing is more restrictive as theres less data to pull from it.
The flip side there is you can use it with no changes.
Cinelink will require grading but contains a lot more data.
Personally i find the normal profile colours are oversaturated and not that accurate so i use cinelink and manually grade or apply Rec.709 LUT and go from there. Also far better if trying to standardise and match footage from various cameras…
Normal might or might not be good enough to sell or get jobs. Cinelink will be. But the latter will require work in post to get the most out of it.
So depends on the job or personal preference.
Thank you, that is the exact type of answer I was looking for. I’ve never been happy with 8 bit normal from the Mini 2 which is why I upgraded. You’d be surprised how much conflicting information about this floats around online.
And like I said, I enjoy the grading in post so if that’s the only “draw back” I’m a happy camper. Cinelike it is.
One thing i would add is if you shoot in normal, get home and edit then discover due to the scene you needed 10 bit or more edit flexibility you’re stuck - you cant get back data that was never recorded.
If you use Cinelike you’re taking as much data home as possible regardless of whether you need it or not.
Some of the preset modes i think only work in normal mode so be aware of that. Ive never used them though so cant say which.
