C100: C100 price?

Pelican

Pelican

Well-known member
Anyone have a crystal ball on the price for the C100? I know the C300 had a $1k rebate about six months after it hit the market. Could that happen to the C100, or will NAB specials be offered?
 
Maybe you answered without reading? Yes, I know the list price, but any rumors or inside knowledge about any upcoming offers, like a rebate? Or, is there a canon trend to run any specials during NAB?
 
If Sony updates the FS100 line this NAB which to be honest is probably 1 more year before it's updated then Canon may offer a rebate otherwise look at the timeline of the XF300. That will be your answer. About 3yrs later it's $1,500 cheaper at $4,999 at B&H. You can wait 3yrs on the C100 to come down that much if you want :)
 
Thanks for the info. That's what I was thinking, but the industry has changed so much in the past couple of years. Product obsolescence in such a short time. I wondered if Canon may begin to get a bit more aggressive with pricing, and possibly offer a rebate within the first year, like they did the C300.
 
Let's actually re-look at this though. Has the video industry product life really been shortened? The XF300 is coming up on 3yrs. The NX5's I believe are right in that time bracket of being 3yrs now and looks like will get a 4K upgrade this NAB right on schedule. Let's look at Large sensor camcorders. The F3 still hasn't been updated. The F5 is a new 4K line. The FS700 hasn't been updated. The FS100 hasn't been either and neither the Canon C-line. The only large sensor camcorder that has been updated is the AF100 to AF100a but that was so incremental and probably follows the same way that Panasonic did it with the DVX100 to DVX100a. So if we step back what has been updated so far? Now Sony has released a lot of camcorders. Yet they've always done that it seems. The DV line had 3 prosumer cams in it. The HDV had 4 camcorders in the prosumer line. The large sensor now has 5 in the line.
 
if it comes down at all i'd expect it to be only around 500. c300 is twice the price therefore i'd deduce the c100 would get half the rebate
 
I am in the video business. A saving of $500 - $1000 will not make much of a diff as these cam will let me recoup the money faster than waiting for it to drop in price.
 
I don't think it will come down in price. From Canon's point of view you are paying for the sensor. Its all about the sensor. Specs be damned.
 
What kind of product would need to be launched to make the C100 seem dated?

It would have to be frame rate or resolution related. It could also be a similar 4k sensor with an interesting codec solution. But the risk of this happening soon seems remote.

Don't forget that the C100 has a sensor that others might have marketed as a 4k sensor. It has been a very conscious decision on Canon's part to make the "perfect" 1080p sensor. And they are right in that 1080p will be around for a long time still.

Canon's white papers insinuate that the C300 was, if not rushed, at least brought quickly to market and that this is the reason for the 8 bit codec. I don't think that is the main reason, but the C100/C300 line with a 10 bit compressed raw wavelet codec like Cineform or RED Raw would be pretty cool.
 
Thanks everyone for the input. I just wanted make sure there weren't any impending price/rebate news before I pulled the trigger.
Off topic,, I really have been torn about the purchase of the C100; my HVX and AF100 were no-brainers. At their price point, they were the tops in most features/specs and IQ when they were introduced. It's the crippled evf and framerate that has me hesitant on the C100. I really wish the C300 was around $10-11k, where it seems like is should be (they may sell a whole lot more). I cannot justify price, for the incremental step up in EVF, framerate (albeit 720p!) and even the 50Mb internal broadcast codec everyone seems to love (I'm not a fan of ext recorders). It's just not enough to pay 2.5x the price of a C100. Oh well.. really love the sensor enough to wince and purchase.
 
I'm selling my AF100 and going for the C100 for now. An external recorder will get me pretty close to the image from the C300 I think and when Zacuto manages to get a frame built for the screen on the C100, we'll be all set using a diopter. Frame rate still irks me though!!
 
I've now invested in C100 due to the kind of work I have coming up in the next 6 months.

My little private and unsubstantiated concern is a 'C100a' that has the timelapse and the 1080p50, but I've watched Canon for a while now. A record of slow incremental upgrades (XL1, XL1a, XL2, XLH1, XL1H...) and - to be a little unfair - usually late to the party. I'd imagine the next rev out NAB next year, with a few little price drops (slowly released) to keep it in line with the competition, but that's marketing. The camera's earning money now and my 'Quality of Shooting/Editing Life' has improved.

Your biggest, most dangerous thing is the weeks following your C100 purchase as you go through a cycle of buyers remorse that makes you feel you should have sold your worldly possessions and maybe your firstborn, to stretch to a C300. Or better still, sell granny and have BOTH the C100 and a C300. :smile:
 
$16k for an 8bit camera that can't do 1080 60p? No, I don't think I will have any remorse for going with the C100. It's such a huge price jump from $6.5k to $16k! Pretty crazy when you consider the manufacturing cost difference between the C100 and C300.. guessing the mfg cost difference between the C100 and C300 less than several hundred dollars. I used to work in semiconductor mfg, and there are some similarities. Include the R&D investment and you still have a very overpriced C300, but man I love that camera!

"Your biggest, most dangerous thing is the weeks following your C100 purchase as you go through a cycle of buyers remorse that makes you feel you should have sold your worldly possessions and maybe your firstborn, to stretch to a C300. Or better still, sell granny and have BOTH the C100 and a C300. "
 
Historically have customers been able to send in their cameras to have them upgraded for a price. I know Panasonic has done that but what about Canon?
 
Tim Nitsch said:
Historically have customers been able to send in their cameras to have them upgraded for a price. I know Panasonic has done that but what about Canon?
Click to expand...

The only thing thats even remotely close is the Canon loyalty program, and thats something very different than what your asking. It would be cool though, Red did this when they launched the epic.
 
Pelican said:
It's the crippled evf and framerate that has me hesitant on the C100.
Click to expand...
I've discovered that you can turn the 60i into 60p and it looks pretty good! I need to test it properly but first look I was pretty impressed. I used "JES Deinterlacer".
 
I took 60i into a CS5 Win7 29.97fps timeline, set it to 50% speed, told it to always deinterlace and it didn't look half bad...I was pleasantly surprised.
 
Except for the lease program they offered for the C100, by the time you payed the lease you had about $8500 into it.
 
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