C300: C300 on a larger screen?

New_Zealand

New_Zealand

Veteran
I'm coming from the DVX100, HVX200, Canon 5D mkiii and Samsung NX1 world so got a question; I have been looking at getting the C300 (not the C300 mkii - out of my $$$ range) and was wondering how well does it look on the big screen for festivals? The HVX200 was so so but a bit wash out. Never saw the 5D or NX1 on a large screen so can't say anything about them. Thanks
 
Plenty of low budget features have been shot on the C300 (heck, even DSLRs!). So you'll be just fine.

But if you're looking into a C300, then I'd strongly recommend you check out instead the Sony PMW-F3 and Sony FS700 instead. As they're a very similar price budget (actually... cheaper!!), but much superior to a C300.

The Sony PMW-F3 is capable of 444 12bit (although personally, I'm very happy with ProRes HQ from F3!) and the Sony FS700 of course is very famous for its amazing slow motion capabilities! (plus can do 4K raw output)

Meanwhile the poor C300 is stuck with 8bit 1080 30p (that is right, it can't even do 50fps!).

Next time you're in Auckland feel free to drop me a message and I can show you my Sony PMW-F3 and tell you all about it.
 
The F3 is a great camera. You can find one with 444 for $1750 today. But in order to get what you need out of it, you should shoot in SLOG with a recorder. So plan on investing another $1K.
I have two now and have seen my work numerous times up there on the big screen. I have never, ever heard any complaints and no one has cared that it was FullHD rather than 4K for instance. Can't recommend it enough if you are looking to move up from DSLR's without spending a fortune.
 
You might experiment with upscaling the final output and adding a layer of actual 4K film grain over top. In my experience that yields pretty spectacular results with the C100.
 
5D3 and 70D in the theater look fine (relatively low detail 1080p cameras); C300 looks excellent on the big screen (very high detail 1080p camera).
 
I would go for C100 mark II with a Prores422 recorder, they are very affordable right now when everyone thinks 4k is a must :)
If you plan to shoot zombies, than Sony is ok, but if you need colors, Sony is the last place you should look. Canon cinema cameras gets you pretty much Alexa colors out of the camera, and Canon LOG or WideDR are great, very easy to make "expensive" picture, and with Sony everything looks either flat and dead, or overly saturated like on bad production TV, very hard to make colors look just ok...
 
The original C300 can hold it's own on a big screen. I was present at the launch of the films at paramount and saw the original Mobius film projected at 40ft wide and I've taken several short films through festivals as DCP's. They all look great when presented in the right format.
 
guru said:
I would go for C100 mark II with a Prores422 recorder, they are very affordable right now when everyone thinks 4k is a must :)
If you plan to shoot zombies, than Sony is ok, but if you need colors, Sony is the last place you should look. Canon cinema cameras gets you pretty much Alexa colors out of the camera, and Canon LOG or WideDR are great, very easy to make "expensive" picture, and with Sony everything looks either flat and dead, or overly saturated like on bad production TV, very hard to make colors look just ok...
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So, you've worked a lot with the F3 to qualify those remarks, I'm guessing?
 
yoclay said:
The F3 is a great camera. You can find one with 444 for $1750 today. But in order to get what you need out of it, you should shoot in SLOG with a recorder. So plan on investing another $1K.
I have two now and have seen my work numerous times up there on the big screen. I have never, ever heard any complaints and no one has cared that it was FullHD rather than 4K for instance. Can't recommend it enough if you are looking to move up from DSLR's without spending a fortune.
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If you are very lucky you can find a Sony PMW-F3 for nearly HALF that price! Crazy crazy, but true!

As for a recorder, again with a bit of luck you could get a recorder for US$300ish secondhand which will do ProRes HQ.

deltoidjohn said:
So, you've worked a lot with the F3 to qualify those remarks, I'm guessing?
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Yeah, is funny someone can think the crippled Canon C100 (and the external recorder doesn't help that much with a C100) is going to be better than a Sony PMW-F3!

Not even counting the better thicker image, you also have lots more features such as SDI and TC with the F3 that the C100 doesn't have. You need to get up to at least the C300mk1 or better before you can close the gap a bit more vs the F3
 
IronFilm said:
If you are very lucky you can find a Sony PMW-F3 for nearly HALF that price! Crazy crazy, but true!

As for a recorder, again with a bit of luck you could get a recorder for US$300ish secondhand which will do ProRes HQ.



Yeah, is funny someone can think the crippled Canon C100 (and the external recorder doesn't help that much with a C100) is going to be better than a Sony PMW-F3!

Not even counting the better thicker image, you also have lots more features such as SDI and TC with the F3 that the C100 doesn't have. You need to get up to at least the C300mk1 or better before you can close the gap a bit more vs the F3
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"Thicker" and "Thinner" are very easy adjectives to throw around, but they don't seem to actually mean anything. How exactly is the F3 image "thicker" than the C100? I don't doubt the F3 looks nice on the big screen, I just don't know it looks that much better than the C300 or C100.

I also think you're confusing the original price of the cameras against the images that are produced. The C100 mkII via the HDMI produces an uncompressed 8-bit 422 image (same as the C300), and is has a newer image processor than the C300, and unlike the C300, it does 60p. And in my experience, the images from the C100 upscale quite nicely.
 
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jm.gardiner said:
The original C300 can hold it's own on a big screen. I was present at the launch of the films at paramount and saw the original Mobius film projected at 40ft wide and I've taken several short films through festivals as DCP's. They all look great when presented in the right format.
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Yes sir!......was there too and they looked great! 4K projector, screen as big as the Chinese theater....and the winner at Cannes a few years ago was shot on the C300.
Jim Martin
CinemaWorks
 
I wouldn't worry so much about the cam quality for festivals (within reason). I've seen plenty of work that originated on C100 Mk1s, features included, that looked completely professional on a big screen at a fest. As far as quality goes -- for both projection and sound -- a lot depends on the quality of the projector and general setup at the individual festival. As long as you're giving the programmers a decent quality file to project, it has the solid potential to look good. Festivals could ask for anything ranging from a Blu-Ray disk to a DCP file, and of course the quality from one to the other variest. I've been to fests where my movies looked way too blown out, or maybe they screwed up the aspect ratio during projection, and then again I've had the same films play at other fests where it looked perfectly superb.

I think there's a tendency to get too hung up on what camera you're using. As long as you have a solid demonstrable grasp on your craft -- story, camerawork, lighting, etc -- the programmer and/or audience isn't going to care THAT much whether or not you've shot on a C100, C300, HD, 4k, whatever.
 
I would also vote for the c100 mark II with an Atomos- seen it on the big screen and it looked great. Obviously light well, white balance correctly, and have a somewhat experienced colorist and youre golden.
 
jthabel said:
I think there's a tendency to get too hung up on what camera you're using. As long as you have a solid demonstrable grasp on your craft -- story, camerawork, lighting, etc -- the programmer and/or audience isn't going to care THAT much whether or not you've shot on a C100, C300, HD, 4k, whatever.
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Nobody in the world except video nerds like us who frequent nerd boards like DVXUser care about which camera a project is shot on. Story, direction, acting, performance, sound and lighting trump all camera specs and resolution. People out in the world care about 1080/2K/4K only because their evil video manufacturer overlords have programmed them to care. I've shot plenty of C100 MKI, both super low bit rate AVCHD and Prores HQ on the Atomos Ninja Blade that was broadcast and two documentary films that I saw digitally projected in higher end theaters and all looked good when I did my part.
 
Blue is the Warmest Colour won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and was shot on the original C300.

I remember reading in an interview they shot with 2 x C300 with Angenieux zooms. They didn't even use an external recorder, just to CF card.

The production bought the cameras and lenses instead of renting as they had a long shooting schedule and it was financially better to purchase them.

I've stolen this idea a few times on jobs where there's a bit of budget but not enough to hire a full camera package. I rent an Angenieux zoom with EF mount and shoot on my C300 MKII (with some diffusion) and it works well. You get all the nice characteristics of a cine lens with a solid c-log file which is flexible in the grade.
 
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