C300: Canon Cine-Servo ENG Cinema Zoom Lens Announced! Texas Media Systems

Wider, longer, and cheaper than the Fuji Cabrio - plus interchangeable mount to boot! This is the Cine/ENG lens I've been waiting for. I have a feeling that this lens will be a very hot item. Well done, Canon!
 
Perfect range. (unlike the other two canonzooms that I never 'got')

1lb heavier than cabrio

Id wish for an affordable and lighter F4 version personally.

S
 
mhood said:
Yea, my company bought me a car and I've been depreciating it for the last three years. But unless you're in the transport business, it's just another expense like my airfare and hotel room. Why would you want to borrow money for local transportation and not a camera or lens? Good luck floating a loan for a car if you're going into the media production business. We got some money for a van to build our location truck out of but the vast majority of the loan went to equipment. I had to pay for my Harley. ;)
Click to expand...

Dude,,, You said it yourself! "Yea, my company bought me a car". Did they do it out of kindness or investment to drive what is hopefully profit? Somebody thought this.... "we hired Mhood and now we need to utilize him to generate profit. We shall let him use out cameras and lenses. But for those cameras and lenses to create content we in fact intend to use for profit, Mhood must be able to travel to job sites to gather footage". Think about a grocery store. They sell food. The food is what we shall call their lenses and cameras. How does the food get to the grocery store? They don't grow it in the store do they? Think about the farmer. He grows the food (the lens and camera). What good is his product without means of getting it to market?

You also said it yourself. "My company". Meaning, you are not self employed. Meaning, you work for somebody that understands business. Meaning, you don't.

I have loads of money invested in gear. But it's all worthless without a vehicle to transport the gear to location. Guess what, ALL of that gear has depreciated (well, expect for some of my fine Leica M glass but that is due to collector markets).

"But unless you're in the transport business, it's just another expense like my airfare and hotel room." Another silly comment. I live near LA and I travel to SF for shoots once or twice a month. How else am I going to get there, sleep there and eat there? Or should I just stop going there and buy a lens and hope renting out the $33,000 lens will make up the difference in profit at $300/day fee? I'm already $33,000 in the hole (if you bought cash. Put it on credit and you're far more in the hole). I need 110 days rent out to break even because I chose the lens over the vehicle or airfare to SF to shoot.

But let's say you come back with "I work in a studio and everything comes to me". Well, the studio is your vehicle and you will still need a car to run errands and get to and from. Ya see, the car is the device making you profit before the lens. You can rent the lens, which 9/10 people that will shoot with this lens will do and put the cost into their line item just as they will travel. Do you (you don't because you're an employee) charge vehicle and travel fees in your estimate? Things like gas, mileage, wear and tear, maintenance? I do. I even allocate that money to the cars upkeep and for purchasing (or leasing) a new car. I charge rental fees to my clients even though I own all of my gear. So therefore I could justify the $33,000 lens if I thought I needed it. But that rental line item is going to have to increase. And that increase might make my estimate less competitive and if that happens I don't get the job and that $33,000 lens is red and not black. But without the car I would have ZERO jobs to shoot because I can't get there.

"Good luck floating a loan for a car if you're going into the media production business". Again, how are we suppose to travel then? I would say, "Good luck getting into the media production business (as an owner) if you can't float a loan on a car".
 
dustylense said:
You also said it yourself. "My company". Meaning, you are not self employed. Meaning, you work for somebody that understands business. Meaning, you don't.
Click to expand...

I'm a Sub-Chapter S Corporation. In addition to owning the business, I also dump the trash. You won't have much luck getting a $100K SBA loan if $60K is going to a new Lexus...That's what I was saying. Transportation expenses are common to any business you go into...$33K lenses and $60K cameras are not. $2K cameras that you buy out of petty cash is a fairly recent development.
 
Either you are in this business for being in business or you're not. $33K for what this lens is makes for an excellent value. I don't give a crap how it compares to a car, a house, a pile of rocks, whatever. I care how it stacks up against other products in this industry. A 17-120 S-35 handholdable zoom with a servo handgrip is going to rent for $350-500 per day. That means 66-100 rental days at full rate to pay it back. That's great for a lens as a professional piece of gear. As an investment, I could buy one, drop it at a rental house and split rentals on it today. The thing will work constantly and I will make a nice income off it as I also write it off in my taxes as a five year depreciation. If I get sick of it after a couple of years I should be able to sell it for 80% of what it cost me, around $26K. Realistically after two years if I sold it, I will have made close to $30K profit off my $33K investment. That's fantastic.

Be in business to be in business. You wanna buy a car? Go ahead, but it has zero to do with the value of this particular product.
 
I think the lens would be a much better investment than a similar priced car. This is what I read MHood's point to be initially. Folks will drop 33k on a car but feel they can't afford a 33k lens. But you can make money with the lens and it wil retain its value far more than the car. My view is to buy the 33k lens and get a lower priced car if it is either or. Because it is always better to get the good stuff!
 
I say, buy what you determine will ad value to your business. That of course, depends on what your needs are at the time. For some, $33,000 for a car will add value(as per Dusty), for others the lens will(as per mhood).
 
I mentioned that you could buy a brand new AUDI A3 because I thought it was humorous. So much tech r&d, labor and pure material costs goes into building a luxury sedan, even an entry-level one. I think it's humorous that a lens can retail for as much!

But that's the business. Trust me, if I could find a way to rent that puppy out for $300-500 a day, I'd snap one up in a heartbeat. I just got off a pilot with the C300 and was talking w/the DP about wanting nearly this exact zoom size and speed. For my budget, it would have to be closer to $15k to make sense.

Still cool that it finally exists though! Hope to get to shoot on one soon!
 
I have the CN E primes except for 35 and I have the 30-105. I bought it partially to give me a compatible 35 to the primes. It is constant aperture t2.8, par focal. It covers super 35 and it covers the 1.3 crop on the my 1Dc, but not full frame. It is a gorgeous lens.

I hemmed and hawed about getting the 15.5- 47 or the 30-105, because I thought the 15.5 would make a better run and gun lens. But in testing 15.5 looks "video" and the 30-105 looks "cine" because of the background bokeh. It is quite apparent when cross shooting with same size image area.

I don't know how I feel about this lens, well I do know, I want it. If it had been available two months ago would I have bought the 30-105? probably not, but I love it and am happy to have it. If I had bought the 15.5-47 I would be pissed. I almost bought both, to have the range, but in cross shooting they just didn't match, I suspect the 17-120 will.

My long term goal is to get one more 4k body to go along with my c500 and 1Dc. I am waiting to see if there is a MKII coming along to the c500 or if Dragon ever becomes available. If I do get another c500 type body, I will probably get this lens. It would make an incredible cross shooting kit with the two zooms.

For my style of shooting the 14.5-60 and 30-300 are out of the question to own. But they are magnificent.

I am looking forward to the new Zacuto zoom control to test on the 30-105.

These lenses are huge investments, but incredibly useful and satisfying to own.
 
But will this work on my T2i? :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)

Just a little price perspective, if I remember correctly in 1994 a Sony BVW-400a with a Fujinon lens was about $50,000. By a very conservative estimate that would be about $80,000 today.
 
Oddly this lens in PL seems better suited to the Sony F's or similar shoulder-riders than it does to the double-fisted C-cams. Very useful range but the size rather kills the Cs' biggest strength.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Either you are in this business for being in business or you're not. $33K for what this lens is makes for an excellent value. I don't give a crap how it compares to a car, a house, a pile of rocks, whatever. I care how it stacks up against other products in this industry. A 17-120 S-35 handholdable zoom with a servo handgrip is going to rent for $350-500 per day. That means 66-100 rental days at full rate to pay it back. That's great for a lens as a professional piece of gear. As an investment, I could buy one, drop it at a rental house and split rentals on it today. The thing will work constantly and I will make a nice income off it as I also write it off in my taxes as a five year depreciation. If I get sick of it after a couple of years I should be able to sell it for 80% of what it cost me, around $26K. Realistically after two years if I sold it, I will have made close to $30K profit off my $33K investment. That's fantastic.

Be in business to be in business. You wanna buy a car? Go ahead, but it has zero to do with the value of this particular product.
Click to expand...

First rule of business. Know your market. If you tried to come to my market and buy
that lens for your business, you would be out of business faster than it changes from
summer to winter here in Alaska. Try to rent it out?
Shoot with it and charge the rate needed? Its not going to happen. You need to
have a market which has either a need or a desire for that lens and most importantly,
the ability to pay the appropriate rate for its use. I'm in business to stay in business and
much as I want to (and trust me I really try to justify buying new 'toys' because I am the
biggest gear junkie in the known universe!) I just can not give a crap as to how it stacks
up to other lenses until clients will pay the appropriate rate. It's the hardest lesson I have
learned in this business, and is also the reason I am still in business in this small market
after 13 years when my competitors have went under. You could have 10 times the gear
I have and be 20 times the DP and its really not going to matter.

Live in LA, NY, or a host of other cities? Sure, it might work for you there. But there
are a lot of places this lens wouldn't be a very wise investment.....places where
'good enough' as long as its 'affordable' reign supreme.
 
Last edited:
alaskacameradude said:
First rule of business. Know your market. If you tried to come to my market and buy
that lens for your business, you would be out of business faster than it changes from
summer to winter here in Alaska. Try to rent it out?
Shoot with it and charge the rate needed? Its not going to happen. You need to
have a market which has either a need or a desire for that lens and most importantly,
the ability to pay the appropriate rate for its use. I'm in business to stay in business and
much as I want to (and trust me I really try to justify buying new 'toys' because I am the
biggest gear junkie in the known universe!) I just can not give a crap as to how it stacks
up to other lenses until clients will pay the appropriate rate. It's the hardest lesson I have
learned in this business, and is also the reason I am still in business in this small market
after 13 years when my competitors have went under. You could have 10 times the gear
I have and be 20 times the DP and its really not going to matter.

Live in LA, NY, or a host of other cities? Sure, it might work for you there. But there
are a lot of places this lens wouldn't be a very wise investment.....places where
'good enough' as long as its 'affordable' reign supreme.
Click to expand...
That's true of any gear, but it also has nothing to do with anything OUTSIDE of gear. Either the market will bear the necessary rate for a certain type of gear or that gear is not sustainable in that market. Simple enough and a good lesson to learn.

Please note that in the example I gave, I wasn't even talking about using the lens myself ever. It was buy the thing, park it at a facility with high demand and then possibly sell it off after a time. You could live in Botswana and rent it out from London to LA and make money.
 
Mitch Gross said:
That's true of any gear, but it also has nothing to do with anything OUTSIDE of gear. Either the market will bear the necessary rate for a certain type of gear or that gear is not sustainable in that market. Simple enough and a good lesson to learn.

Please note that in the example I gave, I wasn't even talking about using the lens myself ever. It was buy the thing, park it at a facility with high demand and then possibly sell it off after a time. You could live in Botswana and rent it out from London to LA and make money.
Click to expand...

I am sure you could, but you are a much braver soul than I, if you are willing to rent out your $33,000 lens at facilities
in markets that far from where you live (Botswana to London to LA, or in my case Alaska to LA). Maybe it's like
when you rent out real estate you own in another state, you hire a property manager. Do these facilities have
'lens managers'? :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top