Canon VIXIA GX10 with C-LOG3?

ziggy53 · April 21, 2022

First, some disclaimers:

None of the following is recommended by myself nor DGrin, and certainly it's not approved by Canon.
You must not use the following process on a new GX10, as it will void your warranty.
If you attempt any of the following it is at your own risk and your own responsibility. No one will help you if it fails and destroys your camcorder.
Nothing below should be expected to translate to the Canon Legria GX10. Just don't do it.
The following is for entertainment value only!

ziggy53 · April 21, 2022

If you decide to take the risk of damaging your GX10 camcorder, here's the story.

First, why would you want Canon Log 3 - C-Log3 on your GX10 anyway?
The camcorder comes with a few legitimate Canon profiles already, but no Log profiles. Specifically it comes with 2 - BT-709 profiles which cover typical consumer use of the GX10. Those profiles work well in most interior use cases, under tightly controlled lighting and cloudy days outdoors.

The GX10 also has a "Wide-DR" to help with sunny-bright and some theatrical lighting scenarios. You can also tweak the "Wide-DR" footage a bit in post-production to get back to more BT-709 colors and contrast for distribution, but you don't really have a broad control otherwise.

Canon C-Log3 records an extremely "flat" profile, with very low Saturation, low Contrast and low Sharpening. All LOG profiles require post-production treatment to expand the video tonalities back to BT-709 values to "look correct" for distribution.

Before I purchased my GX10 camcorder I searched for ways to "simulate" a Log type profile during acquisition, That's when I stumbled upon a discussion thread at a Canon USA support forum,
"Canon Vixia GX10 firmware 1.0.5.0"
https://community.usa.canon.com/t5/Camcorders/Canon-Vixia-GX10-firmware-1-0-5-0/m-p/346907

I'm not going to give usernames or quote the exact content of the thread, but the quick-take is that one member of the usergroup posited a question about the previous firmware for a similar camcorder, the XF400, being similar to the last firware update of the Vixia GX10, and wondering if the latest verion of firmware for the XF400 (which includes C-Log3 profile) might work for the GX10.

Some brave sould actually tried using the version 1.0.5.0 firmware on his GX10, and he claimed it worked to give the GX10 the Log profile. He proceeded to put the same firmware on a second GX10, and another user also tried it with success.

My interest was piqued, but how to get the Log footage back to BT-709? Fortunately that was also covered in the same thread, with a link to a Canon 3D-Cube file which appeared to work also on the GX10.

Armed with all this information, I found a used GX10 on a reputable vendor site and ordered my camcorder.

ziggy53 · April 21, 2022

Please scroll to the top of this thread and read the disclaimers section, if you have not already read it.

If all of the above hasn't scared you away, the following is what I did to add Canon Log 3 to my own copy of the Vixia GX10:

First, make sure you check what firmware version you have on your used GX10.
1) If it happens to be version 1.0.5.0 firmware, you are all done. That's the version with C-Log3 and there's no version later than that.
2) Otherwise, make sure to update to version 1.0.4.0 for the GX10 beforehand.

With version 1.0.4.0 installed and working, download the USA version 1.0.5.0 firmware from here:
https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/details/camcorders/professional/xf400?subtab=downloads-firmware
Be very sure of the version number and computer type you will use for extraction; Mac or Windows.
(I downloaded 2 - copies of the firmware and bitwise compared the files to make sure they matched, to help rule out file corruption.)

Follow the PDF instructions within the compressed file and load the SD card per those instructions, continuing to follow the instructions for loading the FIM file onto your GX10 camcorder.

ziggy53 · April 21, 2022

Please scroll to the top of this thread and read the disclaimers section, if you have not already read it.

If the new version appears to have loaded properly onto your camcorder (give it plenty of time), and if the red activity light is off for at least a minute, cycle the power to the camcorder off and then back on, and check the version number one last time to make sure that the camcorder shows version 1.0.5.0 firmware.

ziggy53 · April 21, 2022

Please scroll to the top of this thread and read the disclaimers section, if you have not already read it.

Now test the camcorder for proper basic function, Probably you won't be able to find the new menu which includes the C-Log3 profile.
View this video which shows how to expose the new menu items:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ji4QoOAr_Y

In order to use the C-Log3 profile.with your GX10, you should also choose an appropriate "Color Matrix", and most of the time I'll be using the "Production Camera" selection. This should even mix reasonably well with the Canon Cinema Camera C300 model II footage using similar settings in bright light conditions.

ziggy53 · April 21, 2022

Please scroll to the top of this thread and read the disclaimers section, if you have not already read it.

Finally, once you have some C-Log3 footage, you'll need the appropriate 3D Cube files to use in an appropriate video editing software to expand the compressed frames back to something you can use in your production.
Canon Canada 3d LUTs for GX10:
https://canoncanada.custhelp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/1032577/~/canon-lookup-table-version-201911

ziggy53 · April 22, 2022

A 49 second example of use of the Canon VIXIA GX10 with 'C-LOG3' Gamma and 'Production Camera' Matrix, with the file processed by DaVinci Resolve 17 and Canon 3D Lut applied, along with some additional color grading, noise reduction (Neat Video, both Temporal and Spatial NR) and then posted to YouTube as both 4k/UHD and 59.97fps and 1080P30. If the first link won't work for you, try the second link.

Just a few seconds of "Before", showing how flat the color profile is before treatment in Resolve, followed by a quick and dirty grading. (Still learning Resolve.)