Canon Video Tutorials for C300 Mark II

[Barry Goyette]

Canon posted earlier this week a series of tutorial videos for using the c300 mark II. Worth a look.

Canon DLC: Gallery: C300 Mark II Tutorial Series

[Mark Dobson]

Thanks for the heads up Barry.

These are talking operation manuals really but there is always something to learn and I found the Focus Assistance and Custom Picture tutorials pretty helpful.

Having been out filming with the camera for a couple of days I've found the new focus tools very useful but haven't quite worked out the variations that are possible.

I really love the camera and think it's a huge and very solid improvement over the C300.

But there are 3 minor operational things I need to stop getting annoyed about. One is that the rear camera start button has been removed, this is how I've always started recording with my C300 and it will take a while before I stop putting my thumb there to start and stop the recording.

The other 2 things relate to the viewfinder, the inability to magnify the image whilst recording and not being able to shift the WFM display from its position half way up on the right hand side of the screen. These issues have been discussed on the forum and I hope Canon can fix them through a firmware update.

[Jim Martin]

Originally Posted by Barry Goyette

Canon posted earlier this week a series of tutorial videos for using the c300 mark II. Worth a look.

Canon DLC: Gallery: C300 Mark II Tutorial Series

Good find Barry!

Jim Martin
EVSonline.com

[Dan Parkes]

Yes thanks Barry, look forward to viewing these tutorials soon.

Originally Posted by Mark Dobson

The other 2 things relate to the viewfinder, the inability to magnify the image whilst recording and not being able to shift the WFM display from its position half way up on the right hand side of the screen. These issues have been discussed on the forum and I hope Canon can fix them through a firmware update.

Completely agree with you Mark. These are both really annoying me at the moment, particularly the MAGN. My workaround is to use the Atomos Shogun as it has 2 X magnification for critical focus check. However my Shogun is presently in for repair and now just relying on the focus guides I have noticed these are really not quite sufficient to ensure precise focus. I've seen soft focus when the guide was green (esp. in 4K). I also do not trust Face Detection any more after noticing that interviewees with long noses caused slight lens 'hunting' reminding me why pros never use auto....! Off to Paris for a shoot this week and feeling very vulnerable without the Shogun...

P.S. Mark...looks like I live around the corner from you, globally speaking (Telscombe Cliffs near Brighton!). Be great to catch up with you if there's ever a chance.

[Mark Dobson]

Hi Dan,

I've just invested in the Zacuto Graphical / Recoil bundle and it arrived a day before a two day shoot. The clarity of the Graphical HD viewfinder solves any focussing problems, well, what I mean is that you can clearly see what is and isn't in focus.

And yes the Canon C300mk 2 autofocus face recognition is pretty unreliable in all but the optimum conditions, great when it is working but, like you, I encountered dramatic 'hunting issues'. I eventually switched to manual focus assist which is really great.

Incidentally the Zacuto Graphical enables you to punch into the image whilst recording.

However using the Zacuto Graphical and the recoil rig together with the C300 Mk2 is going to be a huge ergonomic learning curve.

I will create a separate thread to share my initial experiences.

[Barry Goyette]

Hi Mark,

Curious about your hunting issues with face recognition. I haven't found that to be the case except in exceptional situations, or when shooting people that it simply doesn't seem to recognize as "faces" (beards and hair in the face are often the culprits here).

What custom preset are you using, typically? I've noticed that in Clog2, due to the lower contrast,that all the autofocus features are less reliable, but in CLog, or any of the other gammas, generally I'm pretty amazed at how well it does.

[Mark Dobson]

Hi Barry,

Yes I was filming in Clog 2 C-Gamut and I think you must be correct about the auto focus function not working so well in that circumstance.

I've only used the camera for 3 days now out on location. However the first day I used C Log and was also experiencing issues. Another thing is that I am currently filming on construction sites and the face autofocus really doesn't like the safety helmets that everybody wears.

The autofocus works much more dynamically across the board with the 18-135 STM lens I use for certain situations. I think that a STM lens must have been used in the Focus Assistance video you pointed us towards in the original post in this thread. The full autofocus functions are only available with STM lenses which might explain why the 24-105 STM lens was used for certain shots in the Trick Shot video that was produced to launch the camera.

I'd probably choose using CLog2 C-Gamut over having fully working autofocus functions but I will keep experimenting as I get used to the camera.

[Barry Goyette]

A couple of thoughts.

Guys with helmets....perhaps switch to object tracking mode. Less automatic, but essentially it's face tracking with the ability to select something that the camera doesn't see as a face. In my experience so far, Face detection sees light skinned young women with makeup better than it does older men with glasses, hats and wavy hair...I haven't really tried the object tracking, but it seems as if it would be tailor made for picking out a pumpkin with a white or yellow plastic cap on it. :-)

Preference for CLog2 over CLog. I've shot a fair amount of both. I find for the kinds of limited grading I do, the Mark II version of original CLog has plenty of DR, and is so much easier to grade. The benefit to CLog2 to me is if you are doing a lot of power windows and other local corrections, something I don't do much of. If you aren't doing those types of grading reqularly...I don't see what value all the additional DR buys...except for a little extra wiggle room on exposure, (that you might pay for with noise in your shadows).

A curiosity. It seems as if the DPAF is reading the image post processing (I've switched between the various gamma's and see that it struggles in CLog2 and is generally sollid in the other gammas). I'm wondering if using built in monitor LUT's might help this situation in CLog2. Might be worth a test.