Cameras are starting to arrive

[Jim Martin]

Originally Posted by Robert Sanders

Jealous of all of you!!! LOL!

And I don't even own a home that I can take a second mortgage out on!

Good thing I've retired from this whole filmmaking thing.

Retired?.....since when. You are much too young to throw in the towel Robert.....and when are you going to stop by our big store here?

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

[Scott Hayes]

Are you still smiling when you credit card or loan statement arrives?

[Robert Sanders]

Originally Posted by Jim Martin

Retired?.....since when. You are much too young to throw in the towel Robert.....and when are you going to stop by our big store here?

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

I appreciate the sentiment Jim. But one must first fix the financial catastrophe lain at my feet along with the abandonment of those who were supposed to be our partners and friends. Hollywood is a cruel mistress.

[Jim Martin]

10-4......but you will rise from the ashes....

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

[Nigel Barker]

Is there anywhere with a C300 EOS mount actually for sale in the UK? I've been quoted 2-4 weeks delivery but even that is not certain as it's all depending on when Canon import some more stock & how many they dole out to the dealers.

[Alister Chapman]

Most UK dealers have long waiting lists. I spoke to one that told me he was getting around 20 enquiries a day, admittedly lots of this are people just phoning round to see if anyone has cameras, but the dealer said they have never seen anything like this before. I ordered mine back in December and got it 10 days ago.

All the dealers I've spoken to have told me that any cameras that come in are going straight out the door to pre-orders, so if you want one, you'd better get your name on a wait list.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

Most UK dealers have long waiting lists. I spoke to one that told me he was getting around 20 enquiries a day, admittedly lots of this are people just phoning round to see if anyone has cameras, but the dealer said they have never seen anything like this before. I ordered mine back in December and got it 10 days ago.

All the dealers I've spoken to have told me that any cameras that come in are going straight out the door to pre-orders, so if you want one, you'd better get your name on a wait list.

I made the mistake of making sure that I had the finances all sorted before ordering & then discovering that CVP only wanted a £200 deposit which I could have given them weeks ago & been that much higher up the waiting list.

It's interesting that demand is so high as with the announcement the same day as Scarlet the initial impression was that the C300 was overpriced & a bit disappointing. Now that the cameras are getting into the hands of real shooters the merits are becoming clear Aside from Alister's excellent review I just found this one that Dan Chung wrote last week DSLR News Shooter | Why I love the Canon C300

[Alister Chapman]

Dan's is a good well balanced review and I think echo's my own thoughts in general. The C300 is very good as a grab and go S35 camera. Not perfect, but very good none the less. Right now, if you shoot news and docs then the C300 is a simple solution that is good enough.

You can get better images, better expandability etc, but this comes with the added complication of external recorders which for news and docs is often not a viable option and that's what makes the C300 so attractive, that and the huge amount of EF glass owners.

[Nigel Barker]

It will be ironic after Canon's razzamatazz Hollywood launch targeting the C300 at film & TV production if the largest market is actually run & gun news & docs.

We are buying one for weddings & events & will probably rent a second as required. We have been using 5DIIs for the past three years but this looks to be the camera that we always wanted. Even though for the same money we could buy four of the new 5D Mk IIIs it will be worth it to get away from the workarounds & inconveniences of DSLRs. We in any case already have far more money invested in Canon lenses than we do in DSLR camera bodies.

[Brian Drysdale]

I wouldn't have thought that the C300 would be an ideal camera for news, although I guess with the larger zoom range lens it's doable, regardless of the aperture ramping. Also, by the time you stick on a decent on board mic and radio mic receivers, it mightn't be that well balanced for hand held in the camera's default layout.

It'll certainly work well for lower budget TV dramas and documentaries that want to look different to the 1/3" and 2/3" productions.

[Alister Chapman]

News isn't just reporters camped outside court rooms etc. Many news reports involve structured interviews, in depth stories, investigative journalism and can often be mini documentaries. This is where the C300 should do extremely well.

[Brian Drysdale]

Usually you want a camera that does everything and having shot quite a lot of the stuff I wouldn't pick the C300 as my main camera for news. It's something that so unpredictable that you may start doing a soft news feature item and end up covering a full blown riot or an explosion all in the same day.

[Alister Chapman]

We are no longer in the age of a camcorder and lens costing over £50k and requiring a truck load of batteries to support it. These days it's quite affordable to have a couple of lower cost cameras, maybe an XF305 for the scrums and the C300 for the more considered shoots. I know that at least one UK dealer has taken a substantial order for C300's for news. The larger news agencies will often have separate crews shooting the long form pieces while other crews cover the breaking stories. Besides a C300 with a stabilised 18-200 lens, while not ideal, in the right hands would be able to cover almost any story. Throw in a long lens as well plus the low light performance and it may even have an edge over most handy-cams in a lot of situations. You can always put an 2/3" ENG zoom on the C300 using the MTF B4 adapter.

The only negative aspect to using a C300 for news as I see it is the shallow DoF. This can be mitigated by stopping down. Given the high sensitivity and low noise of the C300 that won't be too much of a problem. A C300 at 1600 ISO has no more noise than an XF305, yet is 3 stops more sensitive.

[Brian Drysdale]

Indeed, there a quite a few camera options now out there and making use of the C300's modular design may be one way way to go. Certainly a shoulder mounted layout makes more sense with the larger zoom range range, which will tend to be front heavy in the C300's factory layout.

Given the budget restrictions now on news, it would be hard to for a freelance to justify spending £50k plus on a camera just for shooting news unless they had a contract. I was speaking to one cameraman who runs a facility company for news coverage and he regards the C300 as a relatively low cost extra option.

News coverage tends to be a rather broad church with 24 hour news channels also needing magazine programmes as part of their schedule. At the very least to break up the routine of repeating the same news stories endlessly.