C300: Anything new about C cams at NAB?

The fs700 has served me well. I've been chomping at the bit to get a c300, but the lack of VFR is just killing me.
if it had 120fps via firmware, I'd keep that cam for years!
 
mhood said:
This NAB has pretty much convinced me that I lucked in to the perfect camera for what I do. Blind hog found an acorn for sure.
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While, I see many many purchases in my future (including monitors and many other peripherals that make using a camera possible), I can agree with you there, and I have zero gear envy this year.

Just hoping a few more refinements start happening. Tech is going places we've not considered before, and there is no more need to hold back on the core features. We know what those features are, they are in almost every thread with 2 or more pages.
 
Unlike many, Canon hasn't tried to time some really good things to NAB. It doesn't seem to mean all that much to them. Just my opinion though.
 
cowpunk52 said:
This. So many people underestimate the importance of this. I need my camera to work every single time I turn it on, no matter how demanding or difficult the environment. The C series are such massively solid workhorses that I'm hesitant to go out in any relatively extreme environment with anything else (or an Alexa or Amira). I've been on shoots in weather just slightly below freezing where Red Epics completely bug out. I've had Sony bodies crack and break under cold, and sensor color channels bug out. I turn on a C300, and it just works, every time - no matter what. Right now I'm shooting in the Canadian sub-Arctic on 4 C300's, 1 C500, and 2 XF105's. We've been shooting outside for full 12 hour days in temps ranging from -10 to -40, and haven't had the first issue with any camera in 30 days. I've had my camera caked in snow, frost, and ice, and it kept plugging along as happily as ever. Last week, I took a C500, 5DIII, & a XF105 out on a caribou hunt in the far North, with no access to any power or amenities of any kind, sleeping on the ground on spruce boughs under a canvas tent. I brought 3 AB Dionics, 3 BP955's, and a pouch of CF cards and shot without a hitch for 3 days in some of the most remote frigid wilderness on earth.

Not one problem. Amazing images all day long.

I could care less about having a laundry list of features 4 pages long. Just give me something that works and that delivers every time. That's what these cameras do, and that's as good as gold for me.
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As someone who lives year round in harsh conditions, I will 100% vouch for the Sony FS700.
No cracked Sony body here. Has handled everything Alaska can throw at it and come back for
seconds. Remote off the grid rain forests, 60 below zero cold, whatever. I will emphatically state
that Canon has no monopoly on tough cameras that can stand up to the elements.
 
I've heard some horror stories about the C-series having really bad splash-proofing, though.
 
I shoot in rain, desert, sea shore, high mountains... C300 works all the time.

Canon is conservative. It is not like an arrogant cocky youngster displaying false bravado. It understands that solidity is important for its professional customers, laundry list of features is not. So most of the times you find a new feature is introduced in a low end camera, is perfected and then launched with better results in a professional body.

I can't fiddle with a feature and start sweating infront of clients knowing that it is not working. The director/producer will immediately know from your body language that something is amiss. Reputation once lost is difficult to regain. So solidity is very very important.
 
alaskacameradude said:
As someone who lives year round in harsh conditions, I will 100% vouch for the Sony FS700.
No cracked Sony body here. Has handled everything Alaska can throw at it and come back for
seconds. Remote off the grid rain forests, 60 below zero cold, whatever. I will emphatically state
that Canon has no monopoly on tough cameras that can stand up to the elements.
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To be fair, I haven't used an FS700 in these conditions, and I'm glad to hear you haven't had any problems with it. Our troubled cams were an EX1 and PMW200's that we used on out pilot. After that, we moved to all Canon due to that and some media management issues with the PMW200 footage. But I've also had friends op on F55 shows that experienced some issues with those cams and a few needed to be replaced - but I don't have specifics on what was at fault. Unfortunately, and deserved or not, my experience has made me wary about using Sony cams in extreme or remote environments.

To to that end, I don't think that any camera has a perfect track record, but the C series cams have treated me and my crews well when used in heavy production, and is one of the reasons I'm happy to continue using them.
 
cowpunk52 said:
To be fair, I haven't used an FS700 in these conditions, and I'm glad to hear you haven't had any problems with it. Our troubled cams were an EX1 and PMW200's that we used on out pilot. After that, we moved to all Canon due to that and some media management issues with the PMW200 footage. But I've also had friends op on F55 shows that experienced some issues with those cams and a few needed to be replaced - but I don't have specifics on what was at fault. Unfortunately, and deserved or not, my experience has made me wary about using Sony cams in extreme or remote environments.

To to that end, I don't think that any camera has a perfect track record, but the C series cams have treated me and my crews well when used in heavy production, and is one of the reasons I'm happy to continue using them.
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I almost wonder how random these camera problems are? For example, last summer I was AC on
American Eagles Holiday shoot here in Alaska. We had an Epic and 2 Canon C300s and a couple
5Ds, 7ds and GoPro Blacks. Only cameras with issues were the C300s (well one GoPro came off
a vehicle and was smashed but that was a bad mount and no tether). But one C300 had the
screw come out of the handle....but it was stripped so you couldn't take it out and replace it.
I didn't like the 'one screw' design of that C300 handle, reminded me of the FS100 and I much
prefer multiple screws holding the handle on the camera. And one C300 gave us a totally corrupt
card. No warning...looked to be recording fine....but when we came down the mountain and
gave the card to the DIT, computer couldn't read it. Neither could either C300 or 5D. We ended up
having to reshoot (lucky for us it was early enough in the week that we had that option).
Now to be fair, these cameras were 'just a rental, don't be gentle' cameras hauled from NY to
Alaska. The Epic DP told me he had nothing but problems with 'those cameras' (referring
to the handle issue we had) but I took it as good natured teasing from the Epic team to the
'lowly' C300 team as we had a little friendly rivalry going on between the 3 camera teams.

And then, in November I worked on a reality TV show. Much worse weather (after all it was mid 80s
the entire time AE was here). Again shot on the C300 over a week and no issues at all.
Well actually we did have another corrupt card issue but that was tracked down as being a
a bad/failed card. Sometimes, especially with rental gear I think 'the luck of the draw' comes
in to play. I was DIT on this one and had media issues though. The Mac laptop they sent me had no software on it that could check the hard drives after I dumped the
cards and allow me to watch the video and hear the audio from the Canon mxf files.
I downloaded the Canon utility and it let me spot check the video but you couldnt
listen to audio. I tried MPEG Streamclip, VLC, Resolve, I think even a desperation trial
download of Avid MC. Couldnt get both video and audio. Finally drove home and
dumped FCP X to an external and brought that back to PO. I thought I
would now be able spot check the footage before I cleared the cards....boot
up FCP X from an external drive. Nope, hard to do because the laptop had only 1 USB
port and I needed to plug in two drives!! Big mess and cards that needed to get back to
DP's piling up on my desk. Just my luck. Had to install my FCP X on their computer
and delete it before I let them pack it back up, just so I could spot check files.
What a nightmare. But again, to be fair it was due to post not including appropriate
software on the DIT machine, not a fault of the camera. Just saying I haven't had
nearly the same 'make you feel warm and fuzzy' experience that most have had with
the C300. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking it, the images on the big screen
were just great. It certainly makes for nice looking footage! Just wondering
how our personal experiences color our impressions of what camera is 'tough'
or 'prone to failure'. I've got friends who swear every Chevy they've owned has broke
down within a year and others who say they can drive their Chevy 300,000 miles with no
problems.
 
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C series at this point, seems like a good front lit, soft light, camera, when fast turn around, and a golden look in daylight WB is desired. Which is very popular in wedding and HG tv sort of environments. Anything more edgy, and the image doesn't stand out among the others. RedMX is more moody, alexa is more refined. Sony out specs. GH4/BMC out prices.

But there is a lot of content that can use the c series look. If you don't have the option to do a bounce or fill light, the C series is a mixed bag. I like the cameras, they are great, but they are not for everything. Very versatile in their genres. docu, wedding, event, corporate, reality, promos, church, etc, but can leave one wanting in hobby, cinema, beauty, art, commercial work. Oh wait, majority of paid work fits the C series genres? What? crazy.

If you were given a budget, and you needed to deliver a certain look in a certain timeframe, it may be very hard to resist the C series cameras.
 
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wgtwo said:
I've heard some horror stories about the C-series having really bad splash-proofing, though.
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C300? Nope. That one's pretty good. C100? Jury's still out, but I haven't heard of anyone losing theirs yet. Worst I've seen has been water getting in between the lens and the mount and stopping communication until it gets wiped dry and restarted.
I know of at least two, and possibly three FS700's that got fried by snow to the tune of $2500 each in repairs. To be fair, these same guys were used to shooting in the snow with older weather sealed cameras and 7Ds so they probably didn't take too many precautions with their new FS700s, and nobody on those crews use any of the Canon C cameras so we don't know if they would have done better.
Bottom line is that any camera can fail if mistreated badly enough. Under normal and decent usage it's a different story. Canon has a long track record of making cameras that work consistently with a minimum of fuss. I don't know if we can say the same for RED or BM.
 
For what it's worth......every big production company that has come to town that i have worked with, in the
last year with the exception of one (The Amazing Race) have used C300s as either A or B cam.
It's an insanely popular camera...for good reason!
 
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