C500 MKII Leaked on Canon Rumors

[jcs]

As the owner/op of a couple of C300 II's, I can say that the C500 II seems like a significant upgrade at a justifiable price. 4k60p, full frame for when requested, internal RAW, the more adaptable form factor, internal stabilization (if isn't useless). If they also manage to increase the DR, handle shadows better, and provide better implementation of NR then I think it is well worth it for commercial work. I also don't quite understand the complaint about stock color science. The C300 II definitely had it's look, but it also had a relatively large number of stock color profiles to choose from. It wasn't like you were stuck choosing s-log 3 and a general white balance like on the Sony cameras.

You like C300 II color, Eric's not a fan (compared to ARRI), and I did my best to match the C300 II to optimized color I did for the 1DX II (1DX II still better IMO), supporting evidence: http://brightland.com/w/downloads/filmic-skin-for-canon-c300-ii/ , http://brightland.com/w/downloads/filmic-skin-pictures-styles-for-canon-dslrs/ . It's one of the reasons I sold the C300 II. I did have a chance to try one of my optimized color settings on the C700 FF, and it looked pretty good, however was never given permission to share the results. Alexa & Venice look better than the C300 II (by quite a bit, depending on the shot in real world light), so hopefully Canon updated the C500 II to be more competitive straight out of camera.

Agree with other comments about price (I purchased the C300 II at launch for $16000. After realizing it was really a 4096*.66 = 2.7K (at best) real resolution camera with terrible aliasing on fine fabric/patterns, I felt ripped off). Kudos to Canon for finally providing honest/true 4K with a 5.9K sensor, however IMO it's an $8K camera relative to the current market.

 

[Jaime Valles]

...however IMO it's an $8K camera relative to the current market.

Presumably it'll drop by a few thousand dollars in a year or two.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

Presumably it'll drop by a few thousand dollars in a year or two.

And if one can't make a few thousand dollars of profit off of the camera in a year or two then it's not the camera for them.

 

[Run&Gun]

Well, it's better than having the single HDMI output that most people on this board are willing to work with. Ot the workarounds required for the FS5/7.

Better than a DSLR, but still woefully lacking for a camera in that class/where it's aimed.

 

[Run&Gun]

Most sets I attend you need an onboard monitor and a transmitter which is then going to multiple further monitors.

Yep. Shooting a single cam sit-down, I'm going to be running a VF and 9/10 times at least an on-board monitor and if it's a bigger and 'all-day' type deal an additional 17" or so for the producer. Multi-cam will be at least VF, on-board and a multi-view box feeding a monitor to see all the cams simultaneously. And occasionally, on the network side, they'll want to do a multi-cam interview with a quick-turn so we will not only need to monitor on-cam and on-set, but simultaneously need to feed a live signal out being transmitted and recorded back at the ranch so it can be turned as fast as possible.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

Well, even the Amira and Alexa Mini only have two SDI outs, which is the same as the C500 Mark II has, but the C500 Mark II also has HDMI out, so technically has more outputs than the Amira and Mini. And Red never does well with the stock camera having lots of outputs. I'm not complaining so much about the amount of outputs on the camera; I just think it's stupid that they make this entire separate and large module and don't offer additional SDI outputs. Wooden camera and some other companies have a third party add-on module for the Alexa Mini and one of the things it offers is more SDI outputs, and same story with the FS7 extension unit.

 

[Jim Martin]

This is a great camera for the price, period.....and I've already had a couple of orders today....and the accessories are reasonably priced too....there is always going to be something that is missing in some people's book but for the most part, Canon has done a great job in bringing this camera to market.
"That's my story and I'm sticking to it!"

Jim Martin
Filmtools

 

[puredrifting]

Will there be version that starts out as EF lock? $2,199 is a difficult pill to swallow just to get a locking mount.

According to Canon, no. I know, they should have just made EF locking standard. I'd really want it if I bought the camera but I wouldn't pay an extra $2,200.00 for it. I'd rather just live with the EF and occasionally swap out to PL for shooting some high end lenses.

 

[puredrifting]

Just read the news shooter article knowing nothing going in.

The whole time I thought, well, it’s not perfect and missing a few things, but this actually sounds really good and not crippled! I’m impressed and actually kind of intigued.

I was thinking from all I read the price would be $5999 to compete with EVA1, or $7999 if they felt aggressive. Or $8999 because hashtag, canon.

Then I saw $15999 and almost spit out my coffee and closed the tab. Yeah right guys.

IBIS with ND Filter, internal 4K 60p 10-bit 422, Dual Pixel AF, great UI all sounds compelling... at like $6-7k... maybe a hair more.

Flipping canon, lol.

Have you ever bought a Canon?

I predicted $16k, I was right on the nose. I agree with Eric, they should have called this the C300 MKIII, not the C500 MKII. The C300 MKII and MKI are pretty well known and have some good reputation with clients.
The C500 is a failed footnote that hardly anyone outside of the production community of shooters even knew existed. I don't see them ever coming out with a C300 MKIII now, what would it have that the C200 doesn't and what would it lose from the C500 MKII, they've kind of boxed themselves into a corner as far as naming conventions.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

I really haven't used PL much (like, maybe once), but in my brief experience with it I found it to be much more finicky, not intuitive, and time consuming to change a lens than with locking EF. One of the things I like about the Amira over the C300 is the ability to not use lens support with my Canon cinema zooms, so I'd likely want the locking EF mount if I got a C500 Mark II. But ouch on that price tag for what should be offered as a starting package.

As it is I currently have two Arri PL mounts worth about $1400 each which are collecting dust because I never use them. I'd be tempted to sell them, but if I sell my Amiras in the future it'd probably be an easier sale to include the lens mounts, and I don't believe there's a big market for used Arri PL mounts on Ebay.

 

[puredrifting]

I felt the same thing when originally reading about the Sony Venice. I thought, "This is all sounding good. Probably like $1k to compete with the iPhone X," and then I read $55k and I called a friend with my Canon C700 and was like, "What was Sony thinking?"

I approve of this sarcasm ;-)

 

[Run&Gun]

Well, even the Amira and Alexa Mini only have two SDI outs, which is the same as the C500 Mark II has, but the C500 Mark II also has HDMI out, so technically has more outputs than the Amira and Mini. And Red never does well with the stock camera having lots of outputs. I'm not complaining so much about the amount of outputs on the camera; I just think it's stupid that they make this entire separate and large module and don't offer additional SDI outputs. Wooden camera and some other companies have a third party add-on module for the Alexa Mini and one of the things it offers is more SDI outputs, and same story with the FS7 extension unit.

If the camera has a real, native VF(not a little camcorder vf like has traditionally been on the C's) with native/dedicated VF port(like an Amira, Varicam, F55, etc.) then I can live with two SDI's. Some pieces of gear you can loop IN & OUT of and make it work. One, especially if you're having to feed a VF from it is just dumb. And everyone knows my feelings on HDMI for professional use. It's wasting valuable real estate on professional cameras that could be used for something truly useful, like another SDI or giving us TC IN & OUT simultaneously.

 

[puredrifting]

That's all well and good. Great, actually.

The main question is if the camera is actually worth its paper-spec price.

I - and many others - have lost a small fortune in the past on cameras just like this offering mouth-watering features only to be very underwhelmed by their IQ and overall performance.

IMO, the C300 Mark II and C500 have to be two of the worst cameras ever made for the price (I'm sorry) while the C200 is one of Canon's best cameras ever made. (And nothing but love for the C100s and original C300.)

Where this one will exist I do too wonder.

Very good synopsis, I feel the exact same way. C100 was genius, C300 was so solid and looked and still looks great. C500 was an experiment that failed and C300 MKII, while not a terrible camera, had some ridiculous gaps in it's resume that it really should have had like 4K 60p, better 4k quality in general, no stupid clamshell and lame AV cables.
I've come around to thinking that I really like my C200, it's great although I still think the 1080 from my C100 looked slightly better than the 1080 from the C200 on those rare occasions I shoot 1080. But overall, it's a great value camera, which is rare from Canon.

 

[puredrifting]

I mean...then you do it yourself. Batch convert the CRL.

Or purchase an external recorder (solves two problems).

Timecode is also solvable.

I get it, but it just shouldn't be a problem in 2019...unless you're handing over footage, I guess.

But maybe an additional $12K+ is worth it to "fix" those "holes" for good.

Tentacle Sync Es cheaply solve the TC issue, I love mine. It's funny though, I only use them for clients who request it. For my own stuff, the multicam sync in FCP X is so good and easy to use, you don't need matching TC. Really. It's nice and I don't complain when it's given to me but in reality, as long as you have a decent scratch track, FCP X Multicam is amazingly good. I did an entire two camera with a sound mixer shoot in San Francisco last year with two C200s and a Sound Devices 633. No TC fed to anything, grab all three clips, make a multicam clip and what do you know, they're all in perfect sync with no drift. Who needs TC? Some workflows I guess but generally, we don't.

As far as the redundant RAW recording, what can I tell you, we use cheap EgoDisk CFast 2.0 cards and have shot 140TBs of RAW footage on our Docu Series over the past 18 months, often under brutal conditions on the ocean, baking in the sun. No glitch, loss, crash, bobble, the CFast single slot has been rock solid. Of course, I'd like two slots. But to date, haven't needed them at all. I was shooting dual slot with the SD cards last year and had an SD card go bad and having the second slot saved us that interview. So that was nice. But I think the CFast media is more relaible and robust than SD cards too.

 

[puredrifting]

Well, it's better than having the single HDMI output that most people on this board are willing to work with. Ot the workarounds required for the FS5/7.

Or having SDI and HDMI but only allowing one to work at a time (stupid C200 thing that has made my life hell quite a few times)

 

[Run&Gun]

I really haven't used PL much (like, maybe once), but in my brief experience with it I found it to be much more finicky, not intuitive, and time consuming to change a lens than with locking EF. One of the things I like about the Amira over the C300 is the ability to not use lens support with my Canon cinema zooms, so I'd likely want the locking EF mount if I got a C500 Mark II. But ouch on that price tag for what should be offered as a starting package.

As it is I currently have two Arri PL mounts worth about $1400 each which are collecting dust because I never use them. I'd be tempted to sell them, but if I sell my Amiras in the future it'd probably be an easier sale to include the lens mounts, and I don't believe there's a big market for used Arri PL mounts on Ebay.

My 17-120 has a swappable mount(PL and EF). I obviously have to use it as EF on my C300 and it's a pain to mount with the standard "twist-lock" EF mount on the body(this could be solved with a locking mount), because you have to twist it on and then hold it to support it while you slide the support rods and mount in place, BUT I actually get more frustrated with the PL on my 55. I mean, the PL is great in regards to strength and convenience(power/data/control through the LDS/iData pins with no extra cables), but it can be an absolute PITA when it comes to mounting the lens. If you don't hit it just right, most of the time you have to pull the lens out and start over(and pulling it out again can be almost impossible at times, too), because it can be impossible to twist it to line up with the index pin if you are off. I also have a client with several Amira's and they're all PL and the mounts are even tighter than the one on my 55. Even mounting a relatively small, light prime can be a chore. I'd say at least 50% of the time when I mount my 17-120 on a camera as PL, it takes at least two tries, if not more.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

If the camera has a real, native VF(not a little camcorder vf like has traditionally been on the C's) with native/dedicated VF port(like an Amira, Varicam, F55, etc.) then I can live with two SDI's. Some pieces of gear you can loop IN & OUT of and make it work. One, especially if you're having to feed a VF from it is just dumb. And everyone knows my feelings on HDMI for professional use. It's wasting valuable real estate on professional cameras that could be used for something truly useful, like another SDI or giving us TC IN & OUT simultaneously.

I've had times where I've had to work with a Teradek or Parralinx that is HDMI only, so having HDMI on my C300 has been helpful while not having it on my Amira has meant needing to loop through the SmallHD to feed the Teradek, which is not ideal, especially since I like to take the SmallHD off for Steadicam use. Sure, in a perfect world all of your support gear will be SDI, but the world isn't always perfect and I appreciate a camera offering that versatility.

Well the C500 Mark II does have a real traditional viewfinder available which you won't need to feed from an SDI port. One of my biggest gripes with the C500 Mark II still is the lack of a second video output for feeding both the viewfinder and monitor at the same time. The Amira and Mini can feed their viewfinder and monitor at the same time; why not the C500 Mark II and C700? At the least they could have put a loop through port on either the monitor or the viewfinder, but alas. I could seriously imagine a scenario if I ever got the Canon viewfinder of being in the midst of shooting and constantly changing from plugging the single output into the viewfinder for shoulder use, then the monitor for non-shoulder use, etc., and that sounds like such a pain. Yeah, you can set up a third party monitor or viewfinder through SDI, but it won't be as integrated and good at controlling the camera.

Lack of a quality viewfinder and monitor is actually my big gripe with a lot of cameras. I hate having to futz about with third party solutions, connecting SDI or HDMI cables, constantly replacing batteries or having another cable going to an Anton Bauer battery, etc. The Amira's monitor is quite useful but I wish it was bigger and sharper so I could actually use it to judge focus and not just framing and camera settings. Arri has solved that problem with the Alexa Mini LF with a larger and sharper monitor, and I assume with the Amira and Alexa Mini Super35 4K update that should be out next year as well. Meanwhile, cameras that don't have both a monitor and a viewfinder integrated...EVA-1, FS7, RED, Sony F55, and Sony Venice. The Varicam LT has a viewfinder and monitor, but the monitor is a bit bulky, difficult to place in good ergonomic positions, and so low quality that it's pretty unusable as a monitor. Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pro has a monitor and viewfinder, but the monitor is attached to the camera in a poor location which limits its versatility.

I regularly use my C300 Mark II bare with just the C200 monitor attached, and typically only add on a SmallHD when a client requests it. Apparently my eyesight is good enough for now to work with a 4" screen. With the Amira, for non-viewfinder work I always feel the need to use a SmallHD 702, but if the updated screen on the newer Arri cameras is as good or better than the Canon C200 monitor, then there'd be less need to always have a bigger monitor on the camera.

 

[jcs]

This is a great camera for the price, period.....and I've already had a couple of orders today....and the accessories are reasonably priced too....there is always going to be something that is missing in some people's book but for the most part, Canon has done a great job in bringing this camera to market.
"That's my story and I'm sticking to it!"

Jim Martin
Filmtools

You're a great salesman Jim- hope you sell a lot! (+thx again for the C700 FF test. Maybe I should dig up the Canon rep's card and ask to release the test footage. I was at Samy's and they said you moved to Filmtools- hope all is well there!).

PS- keep an eye on Eric- looks like he's interested in acquiring a C500 II or 2

 

[Eric Coughlin]

PS- keep an eye on Eric- looks like he's interested in acquiring a C500 II or 2

Maybe Jim can send me one to test out on a short film. My only goal would be to try to make it look better than whatever Canon sponsored demo may be planned, which often isn't a difficult thing to do.

I do need to buy a house before buying another camera, though. Must not be tempted.

 

[jcs]

Maybe Jim can send me one to test out on a short film. My only goal would be to try to make it look better than whatever Canon sponsored demo may be planned, which often isn't a difficult thing to do.

I do need to buy a house before buying another camera, though. Must not be tempted.

If you shoot with optimized profiles and with a bit of Amira/Alexas for reference, I can help you match them so no one can tell which camera is which

(buying an asset is a good idea; building a business that generates net profit also a good idea).