C200: C200 vs iPhone XS Max

nutmegger said:
Interesting comparison of the video capability of the new iPhone XS.

https://9to5mac.com/2018/10/09/iphone-xs-camera/

Enjoy.
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I have the C200 and an iPhone 8 Plus. I am sure the new XS has a better camera and processor but still, there is no way a phone has the nearly the dynamic range of the C200, especially when shooting C-Log 2. I have not shot tests on my phone but it feels like maybe 10-11 stops tops. My phone does make good looking images but the limited dynamic range means things blow out quickly when in mixed light and I agree, the image is oversharpened. I personally think the video from the phones is great for viewing on phones but when you see it on a 1080 or 4K larger screen, it looks pretty bad, pretty quickly. They're getting there though and I do think in a matter of a year or two, the top phones will look as good or better than the video from the C200 and the FS7 level cameras.

Of course, always going to have tiny imagers in phones, diffraction, more difficult to shoot optical shallow DOF, audio is a kludge, etc. Many of us don't shoot medium sized cameras just for the picture quality, it's for the audio, built-in NDs, timecode, etc. as well as how the camera looks to clients. Clients will not be hot to shoot on phones anytime soon. I've even tried to have a client let me shoot gimbal footage with my iPhone 8 Plus and they still wanted me to shoot 1080 on the 80D instead, even though I told them the footage from the iPhone was 4K and would probably look better. For clients writing the checks, image still counts for a lot with some of them.
 
I just watched Google's hardware/software introductions in New York. Google touted the still photo capabilities of the new Pixel 3's, but did not say much about the phone's video capabilities.
 
Small sensors; limited dynamic range; aggressive sharpening; no interchangeable lens mount; no (good) audio options; limited bitrates; limited frame rates; terrible ergonomics (solved with a gimbal)...

Don't get me wrong. It's amazing that the tiny computers we carry around can record video as high quality as they can, but they're still far from anywhere close to a modern, dedicated video camera costing many times the price and the result of a couple decades of development. I think we're years and years away from that, but they will get there through a combination of horsepower and machine learning.
 
Dustin Svehlak said:
Just wait until the RED phone drops, there will be a dozen of these comparisons a week.
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While I am not a huge RED fan, I agree, the RED Phone holds a lot of promise although that seems to more like a camera that can make phone calls than a phone that can shoot pro grade images. I think most of the obstacles can be overcome with computing power. Fake shallow DOF is already here with stills, video will come. Over sharpening can easily be taken care of by the manufacturers. Phones that shoot at 8k, 12k and eventually 16k will take care of lack of changeable lenses easily with oversampling for say a 4K output. The dynamic range will improve, heck I was kind of impressed with the imager with the GH5S I tested, I never thought an M43 imager could look that good in low light. Audio, they need to solve with some sort of built in wireless receiver and small, inexpensive tiny lavalieres and a plug on for handheld or shotguns, not insurmountable. Bit rates and frame rates are already partially solved with apps like Filmic Pro. It lets me dial up 100MBps on my iPhone 8 and I can dial in any frame rate between 1 and 60 in 4K. They are almost there. Ergonomics need help but once there is enough oversampling for digital stabilization like the new Go Pro Hero 7, the ergonomics cease to be an issue for many uses.
 
puredrifting said:
While I am not a huge RED fan, I agree, the RED Phone holds a lot of promise although that seems to more like a camera that can make phone calls than a phone that can shoot pro grade images.
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A client of ours is beta testing the RED phone and brought it in the other day. I would agree with your assessment and go one step further - it feels like part of a camera that will interface with a RED body / lens mount that happens to make phone calls.

I can't speak for video because he didn't show me any footage but the still images were very impressive. The screen was... it was interesting but I don't know that I fully bought into it. It reminded me of the Nintendo 3DS but with much better color. The resolution is apparently split across 4 separate pixels so depending on which angle you're viewing, you get a weird amalgam of UHD or whatever the actual resolution is. The 3D effect was very prominent though.
 
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