C300: C300 Mk II down to $9,999.

[puredrifting]

I'd also say the 300mkII is more marketable/desirable in a rental capacity, too. I've never had a call for a C100mkI or II.

Yep. Even before 4K was the thing, every damn call I was getting was demanding the C300, that's why I had to get one. When I only had the C100 and the Blade, you could talk to producers until you were blue in the face and they still wanted the C300. We will all run into this with the C200, certain producers will still want the C300 MKII and MKIII next year.

 

[kmoreau893]

I keep telling people about the Davis & Sanford Steady Stick but nobody believes me that it's any good:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...O5x4oGEG_5ZTxz3-9v37khtq2gldKuSV8NRoCktbw_wcB

It's a super-simple design that keeps all the weight on my hips rather than arms or shoulder. Attaches to the camera in seconds, I can walk for hours with my C100 in front of me when using this thing, and it maintains the handheld feel of the footage without any of the fatigue. And at less than $70 it's a steal.

I love the steady stick, in fact I talk about using it in one of the episodes of my podcast, go to www.techmovepodcast.com and search for it. I modded the head a bit with some other parts as well.

 

[mraaron895]

What other camera on the market can dual record plus have a proxy backup other than the C300 mkii. You don't have to worry or think about loosing footage which many other camera manufacturers do not think about.

 

[Run&Gun]

What other camera on the market can dual record plus have a proxy backup other than the C300 mkii. You don't have to worry or think about loosing footage which many other camera manufacturers do not think about.

You're obviously getting into a different class and market, but the V35.

 

[Michael Thames]

I wonder on a practical level post grading with the C300 mkii 12 bit 444 24p, vs raw light. Will raw be that much better than 12 bit 444?

 

[NorBro]

People produce miracles with 8-bit 422 so I doubt it, but the 12-bit 444 is only in 2K.

 

[mizzar]

I wonder on a practical level post grading with the C300 mkii 12 bit 444 24p, vs raw light. Will raw be that much better than 12 bit 444?

I did some tests and found the 4K 10 bit 422 to be superior for general work (not green screen) than the 2K 12 bit 444 (when converted to 1080!). Here is the (unscientific!) comparison:

https://vimeo.com/211387256

Password: dvxuserc300mark2

I only did this because someone asked to see the difference so I'm not trying to make any bold claims. My conclusion about the 4K 10 bit is just my subjective opinion after viewing the results. I wish I had a subject handy to see facial gradients but alas.

 

[Michael Thames]

I did some tests and found the 4K 10 bit 422 to be superior for general work (not green screen) than the 2K 12 bit 444 (when converted to 1080!). Here is the (unscientific!) comparison:

https://vimeo.com/211387256

I only did this because someone asked to see the difference so I'm not trying to make any bold claims. My conclusion about the 4K 10 bit is just my subjective opinion after viewing the results. I wish I had a subject handy to see facial gradients but alas.

Your video requires a password.

 

[Michael Thames]

I'm leaning towards the C300 mkii, it has more flexible codecs, and name brand recognition. The only delima is the touch screen AF.

 

[mizzar]

Your video requires a password.

Whoops! Totally forgot! Password is:

dvxuserc300mark2

 

[Curtis Mack]

I like cameras to be as small as possible, so yayyy for the c200 which I think is the smallest its ever going to get with that feature set and if you want a shoulder rig and don't want to frankenrig just get this:

http://www.ergocine.com/lion-r2-.html

Is there a photo of someone actually using it? It's hard to visualize how it would work.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

Is there a photo of someone actually using it? It's hard to visualize how it would work.

http://www.4kshooters.net/2014/11/0...assic-design-for-modern-dslrs-and-4k-cameras/

Looks goofy to me.

 

[jb.]

For those who gave input on the C200/C300mII choice, I appreciate it. Decided to go with a C300 Mark II. In the end, the better "midrange" codecs outweighed the raw recording. I can't imagine what even a short BTS vid would eat up in raw footage... one I just shot was 1.2TB... and that was FS5 footage transcoded to ProRes 422 (not HQ... 588Mbit 4K ProRes 422).

While "raw" sounds good, I've found it kind of a pain in the ass with my X5R (Inspire 1 drone cam) and it takes up a silly amount of disk and card space.

I will miss the touchscreen AF, but I'm sure I'll be ok (considering I haven't had it in the past anyway). My GH5 can do the 4K 60p over cranking duties when I need that.

 

[puredrifting]

Is there a photo of someone actually using it? It's hard to visualize how it would work.

Here

 

[puredrifting]

For those who gave input on the C200/C300mII choice, I appreciate it. Decided to go with a C300 Mark II. In the end, the better "midrange" codecs outweighed the raw recording. I can't imagine what even a short BTS vid would eat up in raw footage... one I just shot was 1.2TB... and that was FS5 footage transcoded to ProRes 422 (not HQ... 588Mbit 4K ProRes 422).

While "raw" sounds good, I've found it kind of a pain in the ass with my X5R (Inspire 1 drone cam) and it takes up a silly amount of disk and card space.

I will miss the touchscreen AF, but I'm sure I'll be ok (considering I haven't had it in the past anyway). My GH5 can do the 4K 60p over cranking duties when I need that.

Based upon your needs, you made a sound choice. I do think the CFast 2.0 cards will increase in capacity and decrease in cost pretty quickly but for today, XF-AVC is more practical. Touchscreen is super cool but the 300 MKIIs DPAF works great too. Touchscreen is a just a convenience over using the C300 MKII handgrip joystick. Congrats!

 

[DLD]

Plus, one can still record Raw off C300 MKII via SDI to an external recorder.

 

[jb.]

Based upon your needs, you made a sound choice. I do think the CFast 2.0 cards will increase in capacity and decrease in cost pretty quickly but for today, XF-AVC is more practical. Touchscreen is super cool but the 300 MKIIs DPAF works great too. Touchscreen is a just a convenience over using the C300 MKII handgrip joystick. Congrats!

I have no doubt the CFast world will boost capacities, but the cost of the bigger cards is staggering. Especially considering how fast they’ll need to be for Raw Light. I’m also not fond of either transcoding or archiving 1Gb/s footage.

I’m sure the C200 is going to rock, but the more I thought about it, the less it seemed like the right answer for me. If the cost difference had stayed $2500+, I’d have stayed with the C200, but when it’s less than half that... it made sense to jump up to the “right” answer.

 

[Michael Thames]

For those who gave input on the C200/C300mII choice, I appreciate it. Decided to go with a C300 Mark II. In the end, the better "midrange" codecs outweighed the raw recording. I can't imagine what even a short BTS vid would eat up in raw footage... one I just shot was 1.2TB... and that was FS5 footage transcoded to ProRes 422 (not HQ... 588Mbit 4K ProRes 422).

While "raw" sounds good, I've found it kind of a pain in the ass with my X5R (Inspire 1 drone cam) and it takes up a silly amount of disk and card space.

I will miss the touchscreen AF, but I'm sure I'll be ok (considering I haven't had it in the past anyway). My GH5 can do the 4K 60p over cranking duties when I need that.

When the C200 came out I was excited by the raw light, but last week I shot 4 days straight from 9:00 in the morning to midnight. In between and on break I had to dump the the cards onto hard drives, and it was always a pain..... several times I'd dump the cards and forget to reformat them as I was managing 4 cameras. After that experience I realized as nice as it would be to have Raw-light, at this point its impractical. Also I don't want to have one camera with a raw image along with 2 C100's and a 5D3. The codecs are really great on the C300, and I don't shoot slow-motion, or I would if I could film a guitarist in slow-mo, so far I haven't figured that out yet.... ha! So for me too, its going to be the C300 MKII.

Another thing I learned last week..... if anyone else wants me to shoot a video they are going to have to pay me, with the exception of a few people. One client of mine wanted me to shoot and record him playing in a Church, 3 days after I shot last week. I told him I was videoed out. It took two hours to unload the equipment set up the audio and video etc. I realized I don't enjoy it..... maybe I'll feel different about after I recover. But, damn its a lot of work. I have new found respect for you guys!

 

[Eric Coughlin]

I have a feeling a lot of people are going to buy the C200 for the RAW, and then hardly ever use that feature after filming their cat in 4K RAW, and using MP4 for their normal paid projects.

 

[Matt Turner]

I will miss the touchscreen AF...

You can get very fast at wiggling the select knob to one of the four "rule of thirds" points, tapping cancel to centre, or using the joystick.

Plus your monitor will be cleaner than a C200 owners.

Touch screen DPAF would be awesome as well, but in some cases taking your hand off the controls to tap the screen is not the best/fastest method.