Re: C300 Discussion
 

Ahh... I hadn't thought of it that way, Chris. Makes a lot more sense with that perspective.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

As to the odd complaint about "marketing" -- there has been NO marketing yet for this camera. There was an invitation sent out to a few hundred people saying "save the date and join us in Hollywood." That's it. When you consider that Canon announced their PL zoom lenses back at NAB, and that they were doing this event at Paramount, and that they just opened a 9,000 square ft. service center in Hollywood, the writing was definitely on the wall in large block letters... and the target market could not have been more clear.

Now that the Cinema EOS line has been announced, I'm sure we can expect Canon to begin a marketing campaign.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Yes it does.
Also signifies the difference between "being there" and "internet there"

Many thanks Chris for your input.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

I've been to press events for camera launches before. This wasn't a camera launch... it was the launch of Cinema EOS. For whatever that's worth. Will try to post some photos shortly.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Firstly, Broadcast is the new cinema these days... look at the migration to starz or HBO (to name a few) by serious cinema actors and directors these days.
Secondly, 1080p is as far as broadcasters are going to go for the foreseeable future considering that broadcast is becoming a web delivery based format and not the appointment to view format we have been familiar with till now.
Thirdly, It is a nice camera and is priced according to the broadcast market it's aimed at. I admit, the launch was very "cinema" based what with Scorsese et al earning a crust by backing the product but by the images I've seen, it offers a stunning quality at a price that will be highly affordable to most programme producing houses...... basically, it suits professionals with clients, it doesn't suit "Hollywood" or "Indie"

All that said, I was holding out for a full frame sensor shoulder mount camera that serves documentary. I'm disappointed by the announcement but also enthused by it.
In 2 years time, this camera will be probably be around 5 grand and improved by firmware....
Scarlet, on the other hand, is a dedicated cinema camera that will cost you more on hardware then the Canon C300 (I'm referring to capture drive space, computer capacity, software, etc) and could (by recent reports) be a bit buggy. I would love one though.

In short, Canon have hit the mark and in a very clever way.... They are marking their territory. It's out of my price range (for now) but sets the tone for what is to be a reference camera for broadcast/webcast in the future. If I had the cash and clients to go with this camera, I'd buy it.
My 2 cents....
Best
G

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Exactly. Right back at the start of this thread (post no 9) I commented about the sensor, and the implications:
So maybe the big two questions now are (1) when do we see the 4k version, and (2) ....... how much will it cost?

Re: C300 Discussion
 

We'll see a 4K version when they figure out a codec for it... !

In typical Canon fashion, it will be overpriced by about 30%.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Canon really rushed the C300

On DPreview, Larry Thorpe talks about the new C300 and says that after Canon being "astonished" by the filmakers reaction towards the 5D, they started a dedicated project to get into this new market trying to overcome all of the 5D shortcomings.
So they developed a brand new S35 sensor dedicated to video. For the rest of it -digital processor and codec-, they "lifted it from the XF300/305", so they could spit a final product in just 2 years (Now I understand where the 300 comes from).

The C300 sensor appears to be handicapped by the cheap electronics of an affordable 709 camera, as the sensor, as Thorpe says, IS capable of 60p, 444 and everything else.

Ok, then, why put a $20k price on it?



There are many more things on a digital film camera than a sensor. And Canon is just a newcomer in this field, as it shows when one carefully exams C300's features. Again I'll compare it to Canon's main target, Sony's F3. They are both $20k cameras (list price), if you'd add the S-Log option to the F3. What are the differences?

-The F3 has Dual-Link, the C300 doesn't
-The F3 has LUTs, the C300 doesn't
-The F3 spits out 10 bit, the C300 just 8 bit
-The F3 outputs 444, the C300 just 422
-The F3 does 1080@60p, the C300 only 30p
-The F3 has simultaneous SDIs with different LUTs applied (Outs+recording+monitoring), the Canon has just a simple SDI plus a consumer HDMI


All of the stuff above is what TV and Film professionals require and use and its implementation is what clearly differentiates product categories IMO.

The C300 is Canon's 1.0 entry in the pro TV/film world. Most kind welcome to them. But I'm a bit perplexed by the fact that while they are entering this market with a rushed and underspecced product, they are trying to price it along others that do provide everything else their own product lacks.
It's a free market though, so people will ultimately vote with their wallets.
I personally don't forsee many pros favoring the C300 over the F3 for all the lacking features stated above (but that is just me).

Re: C300 Discussion
 

From the "I have a feeling" department: I have a feeling it will sell for less than $20,000. The real question is how much less.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Chris, perhaps you also have a "feeling" if the street price of for the 1Dx will be much less than the prospected $6,800 tag? The more I read about it, the more I want one, (and yes, I also do photography).

-- peer

Re: C300 Discussion
 

It better be a LOT less.

For 1080P video, $20K is a bit much, don't you thnk?

Re: C300 Discussion
 

@Peer: I, too, would very much like to have a 1DX, but I can't justify the $6,800 price.
Unfortunately when Canon 1-series bodies are concerned, they tend to sell right at full
MSRP for at least a full year after their release, then they go down by $1,000 or so.

@James: Actually for 1080p video, I think $60,000 is a bit much -- and yet that's what
the Arri Alexa costs (roughly), and it's one of the hottest cameras in Hollywood right now.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

The Alexa is a LOT more than just '1080p'. Here are its specs:
1) 2880x1620 pixels
2) records 12bit Pro Res 444 1080p to SxS or 2880x1620 Arri Raw 12bit to Codex onboard recorder
3) 60fps Arriraw or PR 444 and 120fps to PR 422

I think "8bit, 1080p, 9 stops for 20k" would be more appropriate. Also, the F23 and F35 are 1080p and cost way more than any of these cameras but are still used in episodic and features. Too many people think '4k' is an absolute necessity, but its not. For a lot of work, it is a hassle. For editing, you can either waste a ton of time exporting to Pro Res for FCP, offline to online, etc or buy some Rockets to edit in 4k in other NLEs and programs. I think the Alexa proves that 4k is not needed.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

I watched a special screening of Martin Scorsese's "Hugo" today in 3D shot with Alexa cameras and I'll second and third the above notion.

As another point, people forget that Avatar is also a 1080P movie, but shot on Sony 1080P cameras. Lots of Red 4K originated movies can be listed, but after you de-bayer Red footage in post, that 4K gets knocked down to under 3K - or less.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

A number of those are options on the F3, the camera as you buy it doesn't have those, you have to buy them as extras. Many (if not most) F3s won't use these extras and this is the particular market would be the one that the C300 is addressing.

Canon has pointed out there is a paint box in the C300 menus and having an extensive menu as found on the high end broadcast cameras like the F900 series or the SDX 900 give a wide range of options that I don't think you can find in the F3. If you look in the manual for an F900 there are pages of menus for adjusting the camera's set and knowing their way around these is the job of the DIT.

It's a bit unfashionable now, but you could download a range of great looks for your SDX900 and you'd have it there and then on the set. You can also protect your highlights by how you set your knee and your clipping level. All this was done inside the camera before it was recorded at 8 bits, so those banding issues aren't there when you're doing this. However, not having seen the C300's paint box menus I don't know how extensive it is in practise.

I suspect the street price will drop, I haven't seen anywhere selling cameras at the manufacturer's price for a while. At the very least it needs to be competitive with a F3 fitted with an external recorder, which it isn't at the present quoted price. Ideally around same price as the basic F3.

Looking at the specs, the C300 is mostly aimed at television production, perhaps as a B camera, but for certain types of TV drama it could works as the A camera. You could shoot a low budget feature film on it, although if you would may be open to question. It would depend on the nature of the project and if you'd consider the Scarlet or the F3.

If compact size is important on the feature the choice could come down to the Scarlet or the C300. If you're shooting in a difficult environment with poor communications and limited power you may start favouring the C300. The cost of CF means that you could consider regarding them as the masters without downloading them for reuse during the shoot.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Having watched some of the behind the scenes stuff i think there's a few more points in favour to canon.

The wifi/ipad connection seems really useful. Remote control of focus/settings wirelessly i hadn't seen mentioned anywhere. I can see that being very useful on set, especially with cameras rigged in unusual positions. I don't know whether the set up is good enough for a directors viewfinder but the potential is there.

Ergonomically it seems pretty good too, things in the right places although it is a different form factor than usual video cameras.

The quality of that 1080p seems better than the F3. Until we can see side by side it's difficult to be quantative about it but the F3 does still suffer moire and colour aliasing.

I do think that it's more expensive than it should be, if it was sub $10k then i think they would sell a lot more. But it's a pretty nice all in one just-go-out-and-shoot camera.

cheers
paul

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Doctor: I have good news and bad news.
Patient: Give me the bad news.
Doctor: You have less than a week to live.
Patient: Geez! So what's the good news?
Doctor: Did you see the beautiful receptionist on the way in?
Patient: Yeah...
Doctor: She agreed to sleep with me.

Ba dump.

That's a swapped point of view joke.

The "historic announcement" wasn't historic for us (the patients). It was historic for Canon (the doctor).

Not that I mean to be dissing Canon here. It's as much our fault if we thought that the announcement would be historic for us ("It's all about me!") as it is Canon's fault for raising expectations. People in general tend to take a self-centered view of things. One could make a film with that premise...

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Chris, any indication as to the future of shoulder mounts for Canon ? There also seems to a gap left by the XF line. What is the future of the non cinema cameras ??

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Henry,

The C300 may be lacking some of the high-end features that are available to the F3 but it comes with some kind of LOG implementation and a slew of unique features. It may not be an attractive choice for film guys who need 4K output but I think the C300 offer a very compelling package for TV and Doco production. It sure does not record 4K but having an almost 4K sensor resolution can't hurt, even if your output is 1080. In carefully analyzing the hires pics (from the press kit) and the specs sheet, I think the C300 is actually a very well built and unique camera. As a TV pro, I think the EF version and the tight integration with Canon's lenses offering is going to be a tremendous asset. I also like the form factor, 422 50mbps, EVF quality, balance, power draw, etc... I feel this cam will work quite better than an F3 for TV and Doco work, and I own 2 F3s so, this is an unbiased opinion.

Thierry.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

If we had all the current info except price, what would we guess is the price of the C300? I would guess it's a FS100 competitor and put it at $7500, assuming it has superior sensor technology. Also the XF305 is about that price, and this camera is likely less expensive to manufacturer (without knowing how to apply development costs to projected sales of each product).
But on paper we (well, me at least) wouldn't expect the Alexa to be so pricey.
The C300's image may be closer to Alexa than the F3. We just don't know. The non bayer nature of the new sensor is important. It looks a lot more advanced than the apparently more standard CMOS on the cameras competitors.
But I can't say that advantage shows on Laforet's 1080p Vimeo video.
I look at the quality and technology of the XF300 series and I'm disappointed in the price of the C300. I think perhaps the House shoot on the 5D led to this Hollywood thing and the C300 market position.
What do they plan for the C100, anyways? 720p? Maybe take it down to 6 bit? Hand crank?

Re: C300 Discussion
 

If the C300 hits the street at a sub-$12,000 price tag, I think they'll sell a good number of them, myself included. At closer to $9,000 I think they'd have a hard time keeping them in stock.

There are a lot of things that get me all excited about the C300. The price point is the only one that really doesn't.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Thierry I'm not sure you're right my guess is the camera has been optimised to look like film and has ambitions to compete with cameras like the Alexa on only that basis. The Alexa is also great for Docu and TV drama because it can be made to look like anything. The documentary makers and TV may want to stick with the cameras more designed for that purpose.

We'll see!

Re: C300 Discussion
 

I know the Alexa has been used on documentaries, but it is a high end camera and most documentaries don't have the budget for the Arri camera. Camera people like it because it's good for shooting handheld.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Don, it seems that Canon is relying heavily upon third-party vendors in the shoulder support / FrankenRig arena to accommodate XF owners wanting to put their camcorders on their shoulders.

The launch of Cinema EOS is a new road for Canon, but I don't think that takes anything away from the non-cinema camera line-up, for which there will always be a market. We just have to remember that Canon does not update their pro line as frequently as Sony or Panasonic. There may or may not be a new XF-series camcorder at the next NAB. If there isn't, I would not interpret that as any kind of indication that there never will be. After all, the XL series ran for a decade.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

I'm aware of that, Steve -- I was trying to demonstrate for James that if
you're looking at these camcorders *only* in terms of output resolution,
as he was, we find that $20,000 isn't nearly the high end for 1080p.

Once again, here was the context of that exchange:

A poor choice of words on my part, perhaps. Instead of saying that
I think $60,000 is a bit much, I probably should have said that $20K
is about one-third of the price of the most popular 1080p camera in
Hollywood today.

My point being simply that you can pay a lot more than $20,000
for a camera that has "only" 1080p output.

And just to reiterate, I seriously doubt that the C300 is really going
to sell for $20,000. I'm betting it will go quite a bit lower than that.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

After spending all 3 days at the event, I can tell you a few things:

1) Seeing these films projected in the Paramount theater was flat out amazing. For those of you doing critical assessments based on what you saw on Vimeo is....not a basis for judging this camera. Canon was projecting the same films on 2 screens they had set up on the stages and they looked nowhere near as good as they did in the theater. One can't possibly make a true judgement from a computer screen.

2) Most all of the people in attendance realized that the camera really has a very good/special chip/picture taker. The colors, film grain, contrast, etc looked fantastic...all being recorded in camera with the XF codec...which is almost identical to the Alexa's codec.

3) Some of you are suffering from "spec" disease...."8 bit is soo terrible" .....its not...look at the picture properly, listen to the people who shot these films...who all stated how well this footage did in post.

4) Some of you are suffering from "price" disease....20K! (it will be less)...as I said before, wanting the holy grail camera for 5-6K isn't going to happen...the chip in this camera alone is worth a lot.

5) There was much talk of how well this camera is going to do as a B camera for the Alexa....which is one of the things that the DPs have been asking for....the body is small by comparison and when you put a nice cinema prime on, one can get to places for a shot that even the F3 can't. They used 2 small remote control helicopters for the traveling shots in Vincent's film.

6) The camera was designed to work now....with existing post facilities without having to upgrade or add equipment. Canon did not want to introduce the Cinema EOS line that would require post houses to have to add equipment to handle a cumbersome & difficult codec.

7) As I said before, Canon interviewed 150+ ASC DPs, all who basically stated "we love the look of the 5D, please make a functioning video camera we can work with.....which is exactly what Canon has delivered in these first cameras of the Cinema EOS lenses.

8) At NAB this year, Canon had me meet with the director in charge of the team making these cameras to confirm what had to be included to make them a success....functioning video camera, XF codec, incorporate both EF & PL lenses, allow existing 3rd party accessories to seamlessly work with the cameras, deliver in numbers, and don't make it too big if you can.....they nailed it!

Again,again....you had to see the footage in the theater....and you would understand why I'm so big on this camera. Specs are one thing, execution is another....and if these DPs who shot these films were unhappy with something, as DPs are, they would have not held back in their complaints if they had any.

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

Re: C300 Discussion
 

I must not correctly understand what you are saying here, because I think it would be very unusual to say that MPEG-2 4:2:2 8-bit 50 mbps is "almost identical" to ProRes 4:4:4 12-bit 330 Mbps.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

He is referring to is the way the image looks onscreen, not tech specs. Canon was going after the F3 feature set and the Alexa look.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Almost all of the TV shows using the Alexa are using the 50mb 4-2-2 pro res codec.

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Source please? The F3's internal 35Mb/s is far better than PR at 50Mb.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

My understanding is that the only way to get 50 Mbps with 10-bit 4:2:2 prores is to shoot in standard definition. Most of the TV shows I see are in HD, which only goes down to an average of about 120 Mbps (for 24 fps, ~150 for 30 fps).

Re: C300 Discussion
 

The lowest PR LT at 24p is 82Mb/s. According to the Apple whitepaper, there is no 50Mb/s for any HD version. Daniel is correct in that only 720x480 has a target rate of 50Mb/s.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Even viewing on Vimeo, the footage from the C300 looks impressive.

But, they also were using some pretty nice glass and recording to external recorders as seen on some of the behind-the-scenes stuff. I suspect that have very good colorists as well.

As much as "average Joe" footage can be not helpful, I would like to see some of that as well, compared with, say the F3, under like with like situations.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

It *IS* a standard Bayer sensor - but it's not being read in the "normal" way, it's not having the normal de-Bayering process applied.

They are able to do this because of the resolution - 4k - of which 3840x2160 pixels are active. You can treat that as 1920x1080 groups of photosites, each group being 2x2, with two green, one each red and blue photosites. Hence directly read R,G,B off each group and directly get an output sample.

It's simple, gives true 4:4:4 1080p, low power requirement, and no need for upscaling or downscaling - and the lack of need for downscaling can only be an advantage in many ways.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Correct, in other words, it is a standard Bayer pattern, but the readout is not de-Bayering.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Nope, all the films were shot using the internal 50mb 422 XF codec....

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Thanks Jim. Even more impressive! (Thought I saw external recorder in a few shots, thanks for correcting)

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Take the best source you can think of, for instance 35mm film scanned with an ARRISCAN at 4k.

Now compress it to 50Mbps MPEG-2 4:2:2, and to 1,200Mbps uncompressed 10 bit RGB 4:4:4.
Now decide which looks better and gives you more room in Post.

The first method is the C300. The second is an F3 with a Gemini or similar recorder.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

It is a very serious mistake to focus solely on numbers.

The proof is entirely in the image. I sat in the Paramount theater with several
hundred people and I saw beautiful pictures -- especially Sam Nicholson's
"XXIT" short -- and heard nothing but compliments about the image quality,
from an audience consisting mostly of filmmakers.

None of the complaints I've been reading about 8-bit have come from anyone
that has actually seen the output quality, as far as I know.

Re: C300 Discussion
 

Not that it really needs to be said, as Chris has already said it 10 times...but the proof being in the pudding, the footage I saw at the Paramount theatre left my jaw bruised from hitting the floor so many times. I would have never expected 1080P to look that good, from any camera. Looking really hard at it, as I'm sure every filmmaker in the room was, there was simply nothing that would raise a red flag in terms of image quality, short of some static grain on some of the ultra high gain stuff.

I may be drinking the Kool-Aid, but I do really believe canon has tossed a little magic in the JuJu on this camera....and the numbers really don't tell the story.

That said. For the most part the films I saw had a pretty conservative approach to color grading. I do wonder how the 8 bit pipeline will hold up against more severe shaping. As most of the films were shot using C-log which really does need a relatively significant amount of grading, and the results stellar, my guess is that you could shoot a standard gamma and tweak to your hearts content. Hopefully canon will make available some ungraded footage for us to play with.

I for one, hope that Chris is also correct regarding the price. I'm in the legions who expected this to be in the ballpark of $10-12k and I think canon does really want to sell a boat full of these...Bringing it in sub-$16k would probably assist in that goal.