What color space is Canon Log 3?

Canon Log 3 is a gamma curve, not a color space. On Cinema EOS bodies it is normally recorded with Cinema Gamut, which is the color space. They are two separate menu settings and DaVinci Resolve needs both: Input Color Space Cinema Gamut, Input Gamma Canon Log 3.

What are the DaVinci Resolve settings for Canon Log 3?

Add a Color Space Transform as the first node. Input Color Space Cinema Gamut, Input Gamma Canon Log 3, Output Color Space DaVinci Wide Gamut, Output Gamma DaVinci Intermediate. Leave Tone Mapping and Gamut Mapping set to None, because anything else changes the picture before you have graded it.

Why does my Canon Log 3 footage look dark after the conversion?

Canon publishes Canon Log 3 against reflectance, which carries a 0.9 factor. DaVinci Resolve decodes without it. The difference is a constant 0.152 stops, so middle gray lands at 0.162 instead of 0.180. A tool that applies the factor where Resolve does not gives a picture that is correct by Canon's definition and about a sixth of a stop darker than Resolve's.

Does the C80 triple base ISO change which LUT I use?

No. The C80 has base sensitivities at ISO 800, 3200 and 12800. They change noise and how much highlight room you have, not the log curve or the color space, so the same Canon Log 3 LUT is correct at all three.

Which Canon cameras record Canon Log 3 and Cinema Gamut?

The C80, C70, C400, C500 Mark II, R5 C, R5, R5 Mark II and R6 among others. Canon rates Canon Log 2 at 16 stops and Canon Log 3 at 14 stops at ISO 800 on the C80.

Canon Log 3 and Cinema Gamut in DaVinci Resolve

Canon Log 3 and Cinema Gamut are two separate settings on the camera, and Resolve has to be told both. The thing most people get wrong is neither of them.

Want it done already? PursuitLuts for Canon has the conversion and the look inside one file, for Log 2 and Log 3.

The short version

Canon Log 3 is the curve. It decides how brightness is stored.

Cinema Gamut is the color space. It decides which colors the numbers mean.

They are set separately in the camera menu and they are two separate fields in Resolve. Getting one right and the other wrong is the most common reason Canon footage comes out looking almost right.

The settings, exactly

Add a Color Space Transform as the first node on the clip, then set:

Input Color Space: Cinema Gamut
Input Gamma: Canon Log 3
Output Color Space: DaVinci Wide Gamut
Output Gamma: DaVinci Intermediate
Tone Mapping: None. Gamut Mapping: None.

Leave the two mapping options off. They change the picture before you have graded it, which makes everything you do afterwards a correction to something you did not ask for.

If you are going straight to delivery instead of grading in a wide space, set the output to Rec.709 and Gamma 2.4 and put your grade before the transform, not after.

The 0.9 factor, and why a correct conversion can look dark

Canon publishes Canon Log 3 against reflectance, which carries a 0.9 factor. DaVinci Resolve decodes it without that factor. Both are defensible and they do not agree.

We measured the gap across the whole curve. It is a clean constant:

Exactly 0.152 stops, the same at every brightness, and the same for Canon Log 2 and Canon Log 3.
Middle gray lands at 0.162 instead of 0.180.

So a LUT built with the reflectance factor is about a sixth of a stop darker than Resolve's own conversion of the same clip. It is small enough to miss on one shot and large enough to see when a graded clip sits next to an ungraded one. If your Canon conversion looks slightly dark and nothing else explains it, this is usually it.

Our files are built the way Resolve does it, checked against Resolve 21's own Color Space Transform to within 0.01 of a code value. How we checked that.

Triple base ISO on the C80

The C80 has three base sensitivities, at ISO 800, 3200 and 12800. Shooting at a higher base changes the noise and how much highlight room you have. It does not change the log curve or the color space.

That means the same Canon Log 3 LUT is correct at all three. If the picture shifts when you change base ISO, the LUT is not the reason.

Which bodies this covers

C80, C70, C400, C500 Mark II, R5 C, R5, R5 Mark II and R6, among others that record Canon Log 2 or Canon Log 3. Canon rates Canon Log 2 at 16 stops and Canon Log 3 at 14 stops at ISO 800 on the C80.

Not sure which curve you shot? Canon Log 2 or Canon Log 3 tells you how to find out and what the wrong choice costs.

Where the LUT goes

If you are using a file that already has the conversion inside it, like ours, it replaces the Color Space Transform. Do not use both. Two conversions on one clip is the second most common reason Canon footage looks wrong.

Put it on the first node, before any grading. A LUT applied after your adjustments is being fed something it was not built for.

What we measured on a Canon body

We shot a color chart on a C70 in daylight and fitted a correction from the gap between the chart's true colors and what the camera recorded.

Average color error drops from 2.82 to 1.61 CIEDE2000, scored on frames the correction had never seen. One correction serves both Log 2 and Log 3, because it sits in scene light after the decode, where the two curves land in the same place.

That number was measured on a C70. It is right for a C70 and approximate for a C80 or an R5 Mark II, because sensors differ even inside one brand. We say which body we measured rather than letting one figure stand in for all of them.

Updated 2026-10-24. All guides