C300: Canon at NAB2015 starts to make "headlines"

dustylense said:
Why? Who would buy a used C300 at $11,000 or so with NAB around the corner? I wouldn't even buy a used C300 for $6000. And I love the C300. And if you owned a C300 for the past 2 years, you should have made your money back 100X's its original cost. If you haven't, why do you have a C300?.

I always laugh when camera prices drop and people say, "I just lost my investment value". Investments grow in money. Ya know, like a SEP IRA, a Roth, even a savings account at 2%. When I buy a camera as an "investment" it's because I'm investing that I will sell images with the camera. What the camera is worth 2 or 3 years later is near meaningless. Especially if there are cameras released since then that cost 40% less with 80% more features. But like I said, you should have profited with the camera 1000% while in ownership working with it.

Who didn't see this coming? The second the Fs7 lunched at $8000, C300 users should have put their cameras up for sale if they felt they needed to maximize their "investment" resale factor. Or just hold on to it, book a job next week, and go out and make $8,000 and not worry about what your camera is worth. You should be worried about what YOU'RE worth.
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Well said. The only exception is when they drop the price extremely fast, but that's pretty rare.
 
jbregar said:
The C100 Mark II is still $5499 unless I missed something.
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There are also specials being offered - with EF 24-105mm F4 for $5,999; with Atomos Ninja for $5,799; with EF-S 18-135 for $5,699.

Stand alone prices are - EF-S 18-35 is $$549, EF 24-105 $1,149, Ninja 2 - $695.
 
dustylense said:
When I buy a camera as an "investment" it's because I'm investing that I will sell images with the camera. What the camera is worth 2 or 3 years later is near meaningless.
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Damn straight.

I DP'd a portion of a broadcast job at the end of last year with a 4-year-old AF100 (with Samurai) that I could've barely gotten $800 for used (because it's been very obviously used in 4 years). Client was happy. Invoiced several thousand dollars more using that camera since then, with more lined up through the year. I happened to buy it used after the C300 debuted, and everyone flung their AF100's to the wind in the mad dash to re-Canonize themselves.

The C300.1 may be superseded in the Canon lineup, but it's simply still one of the nicest broadcast-level 1080p24 doc acquisition mechanisms available, without having to deal with the foibles of a C100 with or without a recorder. The steep price drop really has me considering picking up a used specimen at $3-4K, simply so I'll never have to rent one again. If a client requests anything specific, it's usually Canon. I'll probably still keep the AF100, though....
 
mcbob said:
Damn straight.

I DP'd a portion of a broadcast job at the end of last year with a 4-year-old AF100 (with Samurai) that I could've barely gotten $800 for used (because it's been very obviously used in 4 years). Client was happy. Invoiced several thousand dollars more using that camera since then, with more lined up through the year. I happened to buy it used after the C300 debuted, and everyone flung their AF100's to the wind in the mad dash to re-Canonize themselves.

The C300.1 may be superseded in the Canon lineup, but it's simply still one of the nicest broadcast-level 1080p24 doc acquisition mechanisms available, without having to deal with the foibles of a C100 with or without a recorder. The steep price drop really has me considering picking up a used specimen at $3-4K, simply so I'll never have to rent one again. If a client requests anything specific, it's usually Canon. I'll probably still keep the AF100, though....
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For the price you would get selling the AF100 used its probably just better keeping as an emergency back up camera. I actually almost bought one recent but the deal fell through and I'm kind of happy now, might finally be time to move away from DSLR video if I can get my hands on a C100 for a good price.
 
One of the areas supposedly getting improvements is the auto focus of the C300 mkII. Dual Pixel is already pretty good as I understand it. Perhaps these improvements concern usability? Like being able to move the area of interest so as to not be locked into a middle rectangular area of the screen?

I think that there will be other cameras with better hard specs than the new C300, but if Canon gets it to record flexible, economical 10bit (or better) and push its usability features, they will have great challenger in the camera race: 4k, 10bit, auto focus, NDs, 60/120fps on a good codec.

Other areas worth looking into, that everyone struggles with, are: viewfinder and monitoring. Both will also file under "usability".
 
AndreeOnline said:
One of the areas supposedly getting improvements is the auto focus of the C300 mkII. Dual Pixel is already pretty good as I understand it. Perhaps these improvements concern usability? Like being able to move the area of interest so as to not be locked into a middle rectangular area of the screen?
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This will sound like blasephemy to a pro but how about adding face detection autofocus? I've used it on Canon's low end consumer cameras and it works pretty darned well. That feature would have saved my rear a few times when I am shooting stand up interviews at night, lens wide open, shallow DOF and talent is shifting toward and away from camera in a CU. Looks fine on the camera monitor, get back to post and look on a big monitor and it's like, "sharp, soft, soft, sharp, softer, soft, sharp." I hate that.
 
puredrifting said:
This will sound like blasephemy to a pro but how about adding face detection autofocus? I've used it on Canon's low end consumer cameras and it works pretty darned well.
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Yes, this is a great feature. Use it a lot on my FS700 and A7s with the e-mount lenses.
And why has no one developed face/eye detection focus peaking?
 
My expectation for C300mk2 is $12.5K. The original C300 was 150,000YEN=US$16K ( 1$=80YEN @2012)
Now;2015 1$=120YEN,
So C300mk2 would be the same as MK1 =150,000YEN = $12.5K.


The weaker YEN translates into lower and hence more competitive export prices of Japanese products.
IMO, It cannot be assumed that MK2 could be higher than Mk1.....


BTW, In Japan, recent huge price down occurred 2 weeks ago...
C300mk1 now 860,000YEN (tax included).
 
puredrifting said:
This will sound like blasephemy to a pro but how about adding face detection autofocus? I've used it on Canon's low end consumer cameras and it works pretty darned well. That feature would have saved my rear a few times when I am shooting stand up interviews at night, lens wide open, shallow DOF and talent is shifting toward and away from camera in a CU. Looks fine on the camera monitor, get back to post and look on a big monitor and it's like, "sharp, soft, soft, sharp, softer, soft, sharp." I hate that.
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Get a thumb tack and nail the jacket to a chair. It'll stop all with the exception of the truly rabbinical (Happy Passover, everyone).

In any case, I expect C300 auto focus area to expand beyond the frame center and cover much more of the screen a la NX-1.

And, just in case you need more -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMv_JnVrutw
 
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DLD said:
Get a thumb tack and nail the jacket to a chair. It'll stop all with the exception of the truly rabbinical (Happy Passover, everyone).
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Ha, ha. My challenge is usually DPs, Directors and Actors on film and television sets doing stand ups, not in sit down interviews.

DLD said:
In any case, I expect C300 auto focus area to expand beyond the frame center and cover much more of the screen a la NX-1.

And, just in case you need more -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMv_JnVrutw
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Very cool link, thank you, I enjoyed watching that. I wonder what that entire system costs though? About as much as a C300?
 
The good news in all this is that people can finally turn the corner on DSLRs and buy a proper video camera(C100) for the same price they were paying for a 5D. Step it up a bit more and get a really nice video cam (C300).
 
It's even worth contemplating "sidegrading" from a C100 to a C300 just for the name recognition, especially if you are shooting docos.
I'd expect the investment would pay for itself pretty quickly and aside from different media it's a totally painless body replacement.
 
Matt Turner said:
It's even worth contemplating "sidegrading" from a C100 to a C300 just for the name recognition, especially if you are shooting docos.
I'd expect the investment would pay for itself pretty quickly and aside from different media it's a totally painless body replacement.
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It is.

And all of the accessories like the Wooden Camera gack all swaps seamlessly.
 
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