Interview with Canon's Larry Thorpe on C300 - Explains a lot

[Nuno Dias]

Rick, you look at banding, I look at the overall texture, the way the light works. I couldn't care less about that banding, because its a compression issues. Again, the butterfly short, its exactly what misleads people, its exactly what Red does. Beauty shots. Its a butterfly on a green leaf!

How about a dramatic structure? What about when you have to shoot in places that don't necessarily look nice, like a hospital? What about when you have to edit according to the actors rhythm and not the best or most beautiful part of the shot? What about when art direction is lifeless and mundane and you still have to make it work?

That's film making, or at least, that's the kind of film making industry Canon want's to tackle. And I can tell from these 5 shorts that it will, easily.

Simply because it looks awesome. Its not cold and lifeless as a Red image or a Sony image. Just wait and see. You're dying to kill this camera, no doubt about it, but what you're doing is nothing but an exercise in futility.

[Piolet]

It looks cinematic because of the composition, the lighting, and the grading. Did you actually look at it in 1080p? DVDs look better on my monitor than this did. WHERE is the detail? look at the guys shirt as he's walking away from the camera, the cotton pattern, it's full of compression noise. Look at the sky shots near the beginning, there is TONS of banding, all over the place.

Really, you consider this an example of great IQ? You cannot judge anything out of the C300 with this example because the encoding has destroyed it all. I've seen TONS of material released on youtube with the 5D or 7D that matches or exceeds this.

Frankly, the image quality of this short on youtube looks like complete crap.

Here is a 5D shot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKtXoX5hrlI

I see this as no better / no worse than what youtube has done to that trailer. In fact, there is less compression noise in this short than in that trailer, but more banding.

This is just excessively argumentative and confrontational, especially the tone of this post and the all caps on some words in your previous post. You say things like as if they're absolutes. Like there is no way to appreciate the image aspects of this trailer. Maybe you can't, but it doesn't mean someone else like Nuno or Kholi can appreciate the tonal responses in the trailer. You're free to express your own opinions but the tone of your posts are coming off as confrontational.

[Kholi]

When I looked at the Mobius short, it was WAY BEYOND the IQ of this example. Cinematography does not equal IQ.

I've been looking at footage online for just as long as you have, Rick.

If you can't see the obviousness in it, that's a different story. But even the lower quality Mobius short and yes, this uploaded version of the Howard's trailer, has enough information in it for my eyes to pick up a difference in image quality.

Again, maybe you can't see it, but my eyes see it.

This is just excessively argumentative and confrontational, especially the tone of this post and the all caps on some words in your previous post. You say things like as if they're absolutes. Like there is no way to appreciate the image aspects of this trailer. Maybe you can't, but it doesn't mean someone else like Nuno or Kholi can appreciate the tonal responses in the trailer. You're free to express your own opinions but the tone of your posts are coming off as confrontational.

Exactly. I didn't call the trailer cinematic. I'm looking at the material and commenting on IQ specifically, even IF it's gone through the torture of compression. I've done enough and seen enough to know how far compression will go to destroy an image, and I'm perfectly capable of filling in the blanks at this stage of my career.

[dustylense]

Well, if anything this camera has stirred things up. I read that post by Jim at RED and think that he's like David Koresh. Then I think, RED better be careful. He's outright insulting Japanese corporations, who at the drop of the hat could smash him with their global resources. I like what RED has done technically. But spiritually, Jim needs some prozac with statements that he makes. He could also had some out to his minions as well. Look at Philip Bloom. He has sent back TWO cameras that have failed. I have shot Canons for 3 decades. I have NEVER sent a Canon in for service or repair, much less one that does not work before I can use it.

As for the Ron Howard short. It looks as cinematic as anything else. THe Youtube is highly compressed, for sure. But I've always said about watching uploaded internet footage, "Don't sit too close to the TV or you'll go blind". Back off your monitor about 7 feet. Stop touching the monitor with your nose looking for artifacts. It's YOUTUBE! Back up a bit off the monitor guys when watching Vimeo and youtube.

@Rick. Too funny about the military shooting. I just got done shooting a corporate piece for the same field. They package and supply tactical gear to the Military and police forces. My buddy working with me was shooting the stills on the 5D and I asked him to shoot some video in between sorta as a C cam. The footage look horrible if there isn't a 2 inch DOF.

@Bern (Or I'll call you Black Bloc). I can see by your avatar that you're confrontational. My real name? Take the simple time to click on my profile and you will see. And you will see that I spell out what I do. I don't run around saying I'm a DOP, a cinematographer, director, or anything. I shoot stills and I shoot with video cameras. I've spent the last 25 years lighting and shooting what I call "architorture". I can light anything because of that 25 year run. I have had the great opportunity to transition into moving photography. But I'm no Scorsese, even though I have met and lit the guy 3 times. I'm happy that you have 2nd AC'd with Patrick Dempsey and shot Jessica Alba (who I smoked pot with when she was in high school, only to throw light at her a handful of times later in life). All sorts of people here have careers, opinions, experiences. But if you feel like whipping our manhood out for a pissing match, more power to you. You just keep on hiding in your protestor outfit. You don't show up on the PSA sets dressed like that, do you?

@Piolet ... Rick has just as much right to post as he does as you do. Rick and I have gone back and fourth, but I still respect his right to chime in and do it as he see fit or passionately. There are hundreds of posts where he has been very informative. Whats the old saying? Opinions are like A**holes, we all have them... Take them for what they are worth. ANd by worth, I mean what it's worth to you. Rick, go ahead and use your CAPS all you want.

COme on guys, enough with pecker checking. We are all here to DISCUSS (wink at Piolet) cameras. And there are plenty of good ones to choose from. The C300 is just another tool in the shed that we have the wonderful opportunity to look at, use, see, feel, or pass.

[yoclay]

Jim Jannard is Captain Kirk.

[Rick Burnett]

Jim Jannard is Captain Kirk.

ROFL!!!! Okay, that made my day!

[Rick Burnett]

How can you comment on something that is not there? The detail is gone. The compression has destroyed all the fine detail in the images. There is noise all over the place. Look in the sky around the windmill. It's a horrible example of showing the C300 work well. As I said, the Mobius short impressed me, this example does not.

Nuno, you say this is a real life example, what does that even mean? You dont't know what they used on set, you don't know what lights they had. If this was a "real world" example of using the C300 in a feature production, they'd have lights, they'd have everything they need to make the cinematic aspects of the production perfect. I'd love to see this BEFORE it got to youtube.

This isn't me tearing down the C300, it's tearing down judgement of a camera's capability by something that destroys what the camera outputs.

Let's say you are putting together a film for a 4K projector. You shoot the same scene with the Red Epic at 5K and the C300 at 1080p. Then you compare them both at 1080p. They are both going to look great, no doubt. But, that's not the target, the target is 4K. If you blow up the C300 to 4K, I have no doubt that the Epic at 5K is going to have more resolution. If resolution is important to you, then it IS going to make a difference, and something you couldn't see at 1080p.

My curiosity is in the IQ of the Canon, not what Ron Howard's daughter saw at the cinematic quality she was trying to achieve. If you post an example here trying to show the C300 shine, wouldn't you expect people to give their critical opinion of it? I mean, one of the BIG things that the C300 offers is MUCH HIGHER 1080p resolution than a lot of 1080p cameras. That's lost here. The C300 offers highlight protection, it looks no different than how the highlights are handling on the 5D, which is fantastic to me. The C300 appears to have a vastly improved rolling shutter performance, none of these shots have any fast movements across the sensor to even show that. I find the XDCAM footage to get less instances of banding in it compared to AVCHD, yet, youtube helped to drop some nice big banding in the footage.

The daylight scenes have noise, the night like scenes have none, but, you don't know if the daylight scenes were filmed darker and just raised and the night scenes filmed lighter and just darkened. Do you remember the Leo test with the Red Epic sensor? When I saw that, I thought the Epic was going to have AMAZING low light capabilities. but that doesn't seem to be the case. The ISO16K shot that was leaked out says WAY MORE about what the C300 can do than ANYTHING in this trailer example.

I'm all for praising a cameras capabilities when I see them, and with the Mobius short we see a nice large DR, we see amazing detail retained, we see great rolling shutter performance, and we see nicely handled highlights. That to me shows the C300 shining in many areas where other cameras have difficulty. This trailer shows limited dynamic range, many scenes with hardly much chromatic content, totally obliterated by youtubes compression. I would NEVER judge the C300 off of this footage because nothing the C300 excels at, other than highlight handling, is shown here.

I CANNOT WAIT for more raw (and by that, I mean straight from the camera ungraded) footage to show up from the camera. That is what I want to see.

[J Davis]

I CANNOT WAIT for more raw (and by that, I mean straight from the camera ungraded) footage to show up from the camera. That is what I want to see.

I use the word native media for this. Raw or RAW refers to pre-bayar and this precedent was set long before red

[Rick Burnett]

I use the word native media for this. Raw or RAW refers to pre-bayar and this precedent was set long before red

Native, that's the word I was looking for! Thanks!