Shooting video has never been better for consumers and with C-Log and C-Log 3 profiles on some Canon cameras, you gain access to far more malleable footage when it comes to post-processing. However, when you look at the preview of log footage, it looks like it’s sitting beneath a high pass filter in Photoshop, so how do you properly expose for it?

As Todd Dominey points out straight away, this video is something of a beginner’s guide, but I’ll add that it’s a valuable one. There is a lot in photography that directly translates to videography and if you make the transition or you want to add that media to your repertoire, you will have a solid foundation. That said, there is also a lot of nuances — particularly if you want to achieve commercial-standard results — and one such area is color profile.

C-Log is, for all intents and purposes, a Canon color profile that is popular within filmmaking for its high dynamic range and preservation of detail through that. When filming scenes that are high contrast, that is, there is a large number of stops of dynamic range between the darkest and the lightest areas of the frame, C-Log can be invaluable.

In this tutorial, Dominey walks you through the basics of setting up your Canon camera to shoot with C-Log or C-Log 3 and then how to properly expose for that profile, despite the confusing and sometimes misleading previews.