C500: C500 and The Atomos Shogun

Thanks everyone.

i might get the 1st shogun and extreme drives San disk for the 4K Pro res.

How many drives do you recommend? I will be shooting in 2K quite a lot I imagine .

also how many cf cards for a days shoot?

Thanks
 
Maybe start with one 480 and see how it works for you? Will really depend on what and how you shoot.
 
You could be right about the 1980s look. LOL

I built office wall frames for my old cartridge and original package Atari games... Atari was the best! I remember when arcades were the thing... even chuck-e-cheese used to have a full huge arcade in it... video game systems today have destroyed the arcades of yesterday.

Chris McGuinness
www.pulsecinema.com
 
Does anyone know how long the C500 will recorder with out the fan kicking in heavy? Latest firmware. I never use onboard mic, always boom as close as possible.

Thank you.

Chris McGuinness
www.pulsecinema.com
 
I'm curious about how long before the fan kicks in as well, I did a little research before I bought my C500 just last week and felt pretty sure the problem was addressed in the last firmware update. I guess if it does ever kick in I could get a jacket for the camera like my old Eclair NPR camera ( hope that never happens ) I have the Odyssey Q7+ without the paid RAW, time will tell! It look's like Kinok, has not had his C500 fan kick in while he's been recording 4K RAW yet, I wonder what his run times have been.
 
There is a really nice C500 package for sale in the For Sale Want to Buy section!! Offered by Scott Gwin ( member )
 
New C500 owner here. First of all in MXF mode, basically like a C300, the fan is silent. Other modes require the fan. The fan has two settings, automatic and on. In automatic, when a certain temperature is reached the fan kicks on, so the temperature of the environment will play a large role in the fan kicking on. I tested it recently in 4K mode, while also recording internally to the CF cards, indoors, with a room temp of approximately 70 degrees. Here's my exact results: 7 min. fan off/2 min fan on/4 min off/3 on/4 off/3 on/4 off/3 on/4 off/3 on/4 off/3 on.


 
Matt, how audible is the fan when on, I noticed the fan on when in regular 1080 mode, but at an almost undetectable level, when its kicking recording 4K is it at a level that would be annoying for the sound recordist? Also was the camera with the latest firmware, and was it in the automatic setting (with the new firmware the fan is supposed to be off when recording, and back on when in pause mode) your findings have me rather concerned.

https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/...s/cameras-and-lenses/cinema-eos-firmware/c500

Bellow Canon said this about the firmware update, and fan noise.

Then bellow Canon also said:



To help control unwanted noise, the Cooling Fan Control can be set to Automatic mode, in which the fan will remain off for an extended amount of time while the EOS C500 camera is recording or until the camera's pause button is pressed*. Such fan control is important while recording in-sync sound, since it prevents high-frequency noise reaching lavaliere or boom microphones during close-ups and tight shots. Canon listened to what the market had to say and the cooling fan can remain off during critical operations.

* When recording for an extended period of time, the cooling fan will automatically turn on.

​
 
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Movies by Matt said:
New C500 owner here. First of all in MXF mode, basically like a C300, the fan is silent. Other modes require the fan. The fan has two settings, automatic and on. In automatic, when a certain temperature is reached the fan kicks on, so the temperature of the environment will play a large role in the fan kicking on. I tested it recently in 4K mode, while also recording internally to the CF cards, indoors, with a room temp of approximately 70 degrees. Here's my exact results: 7 min. fan off/2 min fan on/4 min off/3 on/4 off/3 on/4 off/3 on/4 off/3 on/4 off/3 on.
Click to expand...

This sounds about right and consistent with expectations, considering how much heat is generated from the C500's massive data stream (3 GB/s at 4K30P and 6 GB/s at 4K60P).

My own record times have been very short (a few minutes here and there) with some time in between recordings when the fan is on. The fan has yet to come on in the middle of the take, but I never go more than a minute or two as I'm still testing the camera.

For interview purposes, you should be using a lapel or boom, so it will not be an issue in those cases. Even a shotgun mic mounted on the camera should be okay in most environments except for some tight spaces where sound reverberation becomes a problem. A camera-mounted stereo mic with a wide pickup may however be a problem.

I'll be doing some testing with a cheap shotgun mic mounted to the camera and will let everyone know what I find.
 
Well that's good information, thank you Kinok. Seeing as they have shot two features Need for Speed, and Fathers and Daughters, with no mention of sound issues, I'm feeling a little better about recording interviews in 2K and 4K now.

I know when I first powered up the C500 out of the box and I removed the side cover, as prompted by the camera ( It was set to 4K recording upon powering up ) the fan noise was overwhelming! yet when set to record dead silent, we will see when I record an interview shot in 2K-4K how it goes.
 
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C-Mac said:
I really enjoyed the Atari 2600 ET game as a kid... but I grew up in Silicon Valley and a friends dad was a VP of Atari at the time. We literally had testers of games floating around our neighborhood from Activision, Atari, and others... just the inners no plastic over... it was a cool time to be a kid. If you knew the order of how you needed to do things to get ET's space ship to come and take him away, it was cool. One cool trick with Space Invaders was if you put the cartridge in and you held down the reset button and turned the unit on and off 2 times you would get a double fire shot... meaning every time you pushed the fire button 2 bullets flew out rather than 1. It made the game much easier and flipping it was simple. The PL version may get lowered, but I doubt they made as many... only Canon knows. FYI, Pitfall II for the Atari 2600 is one of my favorite games of all time! Still have an NIB plastic wrapped Pitfall II on my office wall.

Chris McGuinness
www.pulsecinema.com
Click to expand...
OMG, you just triggered a major flashback to my youth with the Space Invaders hack. I remember that distinctly.
 
Both 2K and 4K modes will behave in similar fashion. I tested it with the latest firmware installed. If it is in MXF mode, which is different than 2k and is basically a C300, it is quiet. I think the difference between shooting narrative with short takes and interviews with long takes is dramatically different when it comes to this camera. Upon calling Canon tech support they definitely stated its intended as a cinema camera, not necessarily a doc/interview camera. My test numbers above came from rolling the whole time and fan set to automatic. What I wish was that they had a mode where the fan was on full time but at a lower power level because if you do roll long interviews in 4K or 2K having a fan kick on and off in a quiet room is worse than having the fan on full time, in my estimation. If it's on full time you can try and take a sound print and eliminate the noise in post. Not ideal. Sadly, in a quiet room I can hear it 15 feet away. Because of this I tracked down a custom external fan that Mitch Gross mentioned in another thread from AbelCineTech. Thanks Mitch!!! Just getting it wired now to fit my setup.
 
If Canon call the C500 a Cinema Camera, you would think there would be a stronger need for less noise with a multi million dollar movie on the line, those sound recordist would be complaining like crazy if there was any noise like we are talking here.
I did see that fan set up on another posting, see bellow.
http://mattporwoll.com/problems-solved/

Hell they shot many episodes of Transparent, and those scenes can really play out! I wonder why we haven't herd more about this fan noise.

It would be a shame having to put this added contraption on the C500.

I may be calling Canon, and swapping my order for C300 mark II!
 
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That's the exact fan I purchased from them. Maybe there's a few out there. Think about narrative filmmaking, rarely is there extremely long takes (of course there's a ton of exceptions). So in that scenario the fan is not really an issue. From my test you can roll for around 4 minutes after the camera is heated up before the fan kicks on. That's long enough to shoot a scene without the fan kicking on. Then after cut is called the fan cools it down for a few minutes, while notes are given, etc. Then they can shoot another take with the fan being silent. If you shoot interviews in 4 minute chunks with 3 minute breaks you'd be fine but I don't have experience shooting interviews this way. Usually it's long takes. They are opposite styles of shooting. If you read Karl Kim's posts here on DVXUser he's brought up the fan noise several times, though I believe he had it before the firmware upgrade.
 
Damn, my doc clients and corporate clients can run an interview lasting 20-30 minuets. This could be a big problem depending on how loud that fan gets.
 
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B.Berry said:
Damn, my doc clients and corporate clients can run an interview lasting 20-30 minuets. This could be a big problem depending on how loud that fan gets.
Click to expand...

Those would be very short interviews in my world. I would say typical for our clients is 1hr+. We even had one client generate 18hrs of interview with 1 person over 3 days plus we shot some B-Roll.

After reading Matt Porwoll's blog, I'm looking at making a fan system that runs off 9v battery. It seems like engineering is really a good quality to have in this industry, LOL

Best Regards,

Chris McGuinness
www.pulsecinema.com
 
I can't see how a lapel mic would pick up the fan noise at 7-8 feet in most environments. For tighter interviews in a quiet room (5 feet or closer), you could attach a camera blimp or small side blimp for that compartment that would muffle the sound and leave room to redirect the air. That would be a lot easier than attaching external fans. Then you could leave it on the whole time.

My main concern is a camera-mounted stereo mic. In that case, I would definitely use a blimp or sound muffler of some kind or just limit the length of the takes.
 
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I agree that a close mic, prefer a boom, but close mic should be fine... I also think a small fan system like Matt has shown is both a fun challenge and would be smaller and more optimal than blimp. I'm OCD about things, LOL.

Best Regards,

Chris McGuinness
www.pulsecinema.com
 
No problem. My own OCD precludes attaching homemade fans and wires or changing the camera in any way. I like a neat and tidy setup.

A little blimp I could put on for occasional use would be the best for my purposes. I'm sure someone has done this before considering all the productions that have been shot with the C500 in the last 4 years.
 
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