C500: C500 Mark II: Observations from a C300MkII point of view

I agree on choosing the camera that makes _me_ happy. This is my iPhone 8 Plus right know, as it shoots UHD 60. I used to own a DVX100A (This is why I know this forum) and later a HVX200, but I never made money with them, I just wanted the latest affordable tech. Later I had the Canon 5D Mark IV with the Canon Log update, which I bought for a big family holiday, shot handheld with my 1.2L. Sold soon after the holidays. Now I am waiting for the Canon beginner RF C camera, but I could not afford it now. But I sold everything except my iPhone and two very old Canon digital still compacts, from which only one is working properly.

DLD said:
When I registered on DVXUser in October of 2014, the lowest priced 4K camera was 1D C at $12,000 and 8-bit 4:2:0.
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The 1D C has 4K at 8 bit and 4:2:2. They put a lot of work into that camera to get the 8 bit C-Log right. Never owned one, but for some time, this was my dream camera.
 
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I'd expect the C500.2's IS to be at least as good as the EOS R. Here' the EOS R + RF 24-105 F4L + digital IS with a cheap VND (which IMO makes pleasing highlight color shifts (not accurate though! I have the Tiffen which is more accurate)). Lots of steady hold shots as well rapid pans (basketball etc.):

The EOS R + DIS also works surprisingly well with the 24-70 F2.8L II (which has no OIS). Part of that may be lens mass distribution, however I figured perhaps Canon really optimized DIS for that lens. The 10-18 which has IS and is super wide, doesn't really work very well. Perhaps try a few different lenses.
 
chris f said:
Would be curious to hear other's perspectives on the new in-body stabilization.
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If I'm in human tripod mode. I find it works great, including for pans, tilts, pointing etc...and thats with my unstabilized 35mm 1.4. It's pretty useless for walking in DSLR mode, and or cradled, for me, but it didn't look too bad on my shoulder when walking carefully. I added some post stabilization to a shot and it's about as good as a gimbal...maybe better. You can tell I'm walking, but that's not always a bad thing. I'm old and have bad knees, so I can't do the cat prance the 20 year olds can.
 
Barry G said:
... Per Cuaron (from American Cinematographer):

Cuarón eschewed lens filters other than NDs. “For interiors and big spaces, I decided not to use any smoke or equivalents,” he adds. “That creates a beautiful diffusion for the background, but I refused to use it
unless it was absolutely justified, as I wanted a very sharp and grainless look.”
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I hate that milky, low contrast look. To me, digital looks just fine. All LF's look great because they end up in the right people's hands. And, as Steve Yedlin mentioned many times over, you can mold Raw into almost any look anyway.
 
DLD said:
I hate that milky, low contrast look. To me, digital looks just fine. All LF's look great because they end up in the right people's hands. And, as Steve Yedlin mentioned many times over, you can mold Raw into almost any look anyway.
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Type in 'Alexa Mini LF' into YouTube and filter (sort) by upload date.

Watch a little, and then scroll down a bit, and then a bit more.
 
NorBro said:
Type in 'Alexa Mini LF' into YouTube and filter (sort) by upload date.

Watch a little, and then scroll down a bit, and then a bit more.
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This is what I found.





JanusCC said:
Is there an Alexa LF forum you guys can continue your discussion in?

EDIT: Here you go https://forum.arri.com/
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There is not an active Arri forum in existence, unfortunately. I wish DVXuser would make an Arri subforum. Until then, we'll just clutter all the subforums with Arri talk.
 
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Eric Coughlin said:
This is what I found.


There is not an active Arri forum in existence, unfortunately. I wish DVXuser would make an Arri subforum. Until then, we'll just clutter all the subforums with Arri talk.
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Here’s an idea. Start your own thread. Maybe in a subforum that could use a little love. Xh-A1 anybody?
 
chris f said:
After doing various hand-held tests my initial conclusion is that I would pretty much never use the new in-body image stabilization unless I was trying to be a human tripod for a specific shot and in that case I would only use it in combination with lens image stabilization. For the most part the in-body stabilization looks like you put Warp Stabilization on it in post - image is a tiny bit softer (but noticeable), but there seems to be more motion blur/frame blending going on between key frames which helps with the illusion of smoother footage, but the footage definitely feels more blurry.

Currently I'm pretty disappointed because I thought the new stabilization especially when paired with a Canon lens with IS would be a go-to tool.
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I would like to officially redact this statement. After doing some real-world doc shooting today I tested out the in-body stabilization in a few different scenarios and after reviewing the footage feel very differently about this. I'll have to do more testing to really fine tune what types of shots make for good use of the stabilization, but so far I'd say:

If you're trying to be a human tripod, are shoulder mounted, or are in some other mostly stabile shooting position (aka you don't have all 5-axises in motion) it actually does pretty good. If you are free handing, or trying to intentionally add motion to a shot ala a hip dolly there seems to be too much movement among all 5-axises to benefit from it and in these situations it actually makes it worse with weird frame blending blurriness and 3D distortion wobbles ala a bad Warp Stabilizer job in Premiere.

I tried a walk and talk hand-held on an easyrig (which was a good stress test because that is not a good set up for that) and it was wobble city. Today I did a walk and talk shoulder mounted and it was surprisingly smooth.
 
So far, based upon footage, tests and what you guys are discussing, I am not very excited about this camera.
It seems like possibly Canon may have shipped a touch too soon. Chris, Barry, would love to see some of your
best looking footage if and when you can post a :30 sample, stuff that's well exposed, pretty or interesting looking.

So far though, I'm glad to be sticking with my paid off C200 ;-) The C500 MKII appears better but not almost three times the price better.
Chris, being a C200 owner and shooter, what are you feeling about using the C500 MKII in comparison?
 
puredrifting said:
So far, based upon footage, tests and what you guys are discussing, I am not very excited about this camera.
It seems like possibly Canon may have shipped a touch too soon. Chris, Barry, would love to see some of your
best looking footage if and when you can post a :30 sample, stuff that's well exposed, pretty or interesting looking.

So far though, I'm glad to be sticking with my paid off C200 ;-) The C500 MKII appears better but not almost three times the price better.
Chris, being a C200 owner and shooter, what are you feeling about using the C500 MKII in comparison?
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Ha...ok well most of the stuff I've posted has been well exposed, pretty, and somewhat interesting looking...at least in my humble opinion. To me, the 6k raw slo mo backlit dancer footage tells you a lot about what this camera can do, but what, to you, meets that description?. Something lit? or looks like there's a crew and a truck involved? What type of image or feature helps you evaluate a camera? I have a whole range of footage from that choreography piece that probably suffices, but I'm not ready to post just yet, but maybe if you can answer the above, I can try to help.

For me it's ultimate image quality, noise at higher iso's, in particular, preserved detail at higher iso's (which I think is the thing that not enough people are talking about with this camera). Color, especially skin tones, and finally how flexible the codec is in terms of grading (in Raw, but specifically in XFAVC). Unfortunately, I've never used the C200, so I don't really know where this camera sits in comparison to that one, but I feel confident saying that it's a comfortable leap forward from the C300II in all those aspects. (while the XFAVC is only 10bit, it seems to hold together quite a bit better than the same codec on the c300II...which I think comes down to a cleaner color signal).
I also think the ability to punch in to a 6k FF 60p overcrank, is a pretty nice feature.
 
puredrifting said:
Chris, Barry, would love to see some of your
best looking footage if and when you can post a :30 sample, stuff that's well exposed, pretty or interesting looking.
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So this is fuller edit of the material I shot last weekend, with additional angles, closeups etc. The first shot contains a 50% zoom in post to see how well the 5.9 scales.

I downloaded a copy of Color Finale Pro 2 and tried a "prettier" grade of the material. (I like how CFP2 rolls off the highlights better than FCPX's native tools, but there is enough to hate a about that plug-in currently that I'll be un-installing it today :-(. This grade is quite a bit warmer and brighter than what I've shown before, although probably much less of a stretch from the original shots in terms of contrast and exposure. As should be the case, this raw light material, can really be stretched in almost any direction. This grade is far from perfect, but as I'm not planning on using this material this way, I'm not going to spend any more time on it (as the shots were taken over the 25 minutes before sunset, there's a lot of color variation between takes coupled with lots of "flare" moments, so matching color on a shot to shot basis isn't something I've attempted here. The original material is much cooler and less saturated, but it handles changes in WB, saturation and gain easily and extremely well. (there is probably too much saturation in the bright highlights of the sky, a result of the grade not the original material, and I may deal with that in a secondary grade at some point.)

Overall, I'm really pleased with how the camera handles the lighting challenges I've presented it with on this project. I'm not used to trusting the DR of a camera to allow me to shoot without lighting and fill, and in situations like this with the C300II, while it could handle the DR, the shadow areas would have never been this clean, and thus would have been much more challenging in the grade.

Bonus Clip: This is a "pretty" grade of the first shot with more balanced coloration, preserving some of the cooler tones

Aaannnd...one more. This is an ungraded version with a ProRes download for anyone wanting to experiment. I has 3 clips. Including one frontal, one backlit, and one with flare. PW: NellUG
It is for personal use only to study the material and experiment with alternative grading. Do not repost without permission, AND original copyright credit. https://vimeo.com/386794337
 
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Barry what frame rate are you mastering in on these examples?

*Edit* never mind, just downloaded the sample clip - 29.97.
 
Very nice!

Yeah, this is shaping up to be a very good camera, both on paper and in production.

I like the colours. They’ve retained the ability to have cool shadows while keeping skintone looking good.

Canon and Red tend to have more depth and 3D quality, which lends a slight video look, but sometimes that is prefered. Arri tends to homoginize and spread the image onto on plane. Works for narrative fiction, but can look a little less clear and exciting.
 
Very usable iso 12,800 it seems!

And for somethings, 25,600 looks good too. Pretty nifty NR
 
The features and ergonomics are my favourite of the C series. Makes a lot more sense than the previous builds, while still retaining the ability for people to use it as the originals were designed. That is pretty cool.
 
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