Hey gregreh, I actually ran into the same problem when I was first testing out the CGO3+ camera, and at first it thought it was defective, but after testing the camera some more I figured out what the problem was. For some reason the video bitrates change drastically if you switch profiles in between shooting. So if I turned on the Typhoon H and started filming in the Natural profile, that video would be about 50mbps, but then if I switched to Raw the bitrate would be anywhere between 14 to 40mbps. The same goes if you start with Raw and then switch to Natural (the video shot in Natural would be at a lower bitrate). So I found out that in order to get around 50mbps on a consistent basis when shooting in Raw, I had to start off with that profile and then keep it there during the whole flight of the Typhoon H. I now shoot all my videos in Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) at 24fps in the Raw profile, and since then I’ve always had the videos be right around 50mbps.
Just out of curiosity I also did a few other tests to see if there were any other inconsistencies among the camera, and it turns out there were; most notably I found out that when I upped the resolution to true 4K (4096 x 2160) at 24fps (still shooting in the Raw profile only) the bitrates were a little sporadic, and I had some at 50mbps and others much lower. I didn’t test any of the higher frame rate options, or any of the 1080p ones, but it would be interesting to see what the camera produces with the other resolution options.
As far as color grading goes, I would always shoot in the Raw profile, making sure of course that the video is close to 50mbps (because you’re right, if it’s much lower, than the final product won’t be as good or detailed). But the most important thing to do when you want to color grade a video, is to first make sure the “in-camera” settings are as close to correct as you can make them. This means that the white balance should be consistent and “color accurate” to what you’re actually filming, and the exposure should be very close to a point where you can make out details in the highlighted areas, as well as some of the shadow areas in the frame (I went into further detail about this in the above post if you wanted to check it out). The reason these settings are so important is because even though the CGO3+ is a good camera, with a decent bitrate, it’s still not stellar; and adding extra work to correct the footage in an editor will end up degrading the final product since there’s not a ton of data to play around with in the first place.
The good thing I’ve found out about grading this footage so far is that it doesn’t take too much manipulation in post to get a pretty cool looking shot. The first thing I like to do is brighten the image up a little (that is if it’s slightly under exposed) then add in some saturation. Next I’ll add a little contrast to the video, but not too much as it’s already a pretty “contrasty” profile. If everything’s looking pretty good at this point, I will add just a little bit of blue to the shadow areas and some orange/reds to the mids (which helps give it a little bit of a cinema type feel). The last thing I do is add some sharpening to the video (and it’s important to always do this last, or else the picture won’t look quite right when it’s rendered out).
You can definitely do some more stuff to the footage to make it your own, but it’s kind of dependent on the editing software you use, and of course your own personal taste. I hope this helps though!