Canon EOS c300

I definitely understand the comments about low light, as we shoot with smaller lights all the time with the FS100, but I don't necessarily agree with the comments about the big silks during the day. For two reasons. One, there is an aesthetic to the light levels in the scene. You want to bring some things up and some things down so that the proper parts of the scene are lit that you want. A camera isn't going to fix that. Which brings me to point two, and that is the C300 is 12 stops. While I think this is good, it is certainly not the type of freedom range you are going to ge on an Alexa and its dynamic range (or the epic) or film.I say this because I drove past the filming of a new Colin Firth film in downtown Raleigh yesterday, and what did I see? HUGE silks setup AND an Alexa.With bright sun and 12dB of range, you are still going to want the tools to make the light more appealing.
correct me if i'm wrong, but I don't think he was saying you don't need silks at all, his point was that if you set and shoot your exteriors at night you don't have to worry about them. And he was being a bit cheeky, I believe. Even still, using silks in daylight shooting is an aesthetic choice, and it's entirely valid to shoot without them if you want a higher contrast look and it's done all the time, Colin Firth features be damned! ;)

*edit: Piolet, you beat me to it!
 
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Well I was responding to this:

"less trouble controlling daylight with big silks."

And I say that because a lot of people get hung up on here about huge dynamic range, but that as a few people have pointed out, if you've ever tried to grade an image with huge dynamic range, you quickly realize that it does nothing to get the lighting right in the scene, If it's all off, it's all off, regardless if its got under and over exposed area. Not that any of you were implying that, but I think some new people don't always realize that lighting is actually an art, not just to get it in the range of the sensor.

I only quoted what someone else wrote, so I clearly might have missed humor in the article if it was there! :) I am using DVXUser as a break every so often as I am cleaning my house for a wedding tomorrow, my wedding :)

It was really neat seeing a big local set. I don't think I've seen a silk that big up close. And MAN did they have a nice dolly system.

As for night shots, I couldn't agree more. With the FS100 I've REALLY been able to do some neat lighting with low power lights that I could never do before. The joy of using a battery powered light that you don't need to hide a cable for a very dynamic shot using a stabilizer. Yeah, it REALLY changes the way you shoot. In good ways.

Anything to keep shots from being so static is a good thing to me. Not that I think they need 'bourne' movement, but I like when shots have a good fluid to them and don't feel like you are watching a play.
 
On a different topic from silks, here is an interesting quote from Angelo Lorenzo on a guest post at NoFilmSchool.com regarding his experience evaluating the C300 and DR:

"A Canon rep pulled me aside to hint that their spec sheet is conservative, with 13+ stops in the field."

Of course, time and testing will tell, but this is encouraging news/rumor about the camera. You can read his article here: http://nofilmschool.com/2011/11/hands-on-impressions-canon-eos-300c/
 
On a different topic from silks, here is an interesting quote from Angelo Lorenzo on a guest post at NoFilmSchool.com regarding his experience evaluating the C300 and DR:

"A Canon rep pulled me aside to hint that their spec sheet is conservative, with 13+ stops in the field."

Of course, time and testing will tell, but this is encouraging news/rumor about the camera. You can read his article here: http://nofilmschool.com/2011/11/hands-on-impressions-canon-eos-300c/

That confirms Laforet's take as well, who felt that the C300 had the same or more dynamic range as his Epic (I heard that on a podcast at fxguide, where the consensus was that the C300 would become a B-cam on Alexa (and to a lesser extent, Epic) shoots due to the dynamic range and image quality, and an A-cam everywhere else).
 
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Here's a photo I took during the Canon Event. One of the Canon guys pointed a C300 at a backlit latitude chart and this was the waveform. Keep in mind I'm not sure what the camera settings were and it's most likely not a production camera.

C300_latitude.jpg
 
Just placed on order for the C300 with EF mount. Since I have a set of EF lenses for cine shooting and everything else that you need to make the camera work (besides batteries) it will have many advantages. I had Sonys F3 in mind but now that the price is closer to $14k for the C300 it makes sense to gradually change from my Panasonic AF.

Footage looks great. Functionality is good with the exception of 10-bit recording and no 1080 overcrank.
 
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Just placed on order for the C300 with EF mount. Since I have a set of EF lenses for cine shooting and everything else that you need to make the camera work (besides batteries) it will have many advantages. I had Sonys F3 in mind but now that the price is closer to $14k for the C300 it makes sense to gradually change from my Panasonic AF.

Footage looks great. Functionality is good with the exception of 10-bit recording and no 1080 overcrank.

Congratualtions! Where did you place your order? I can't find anyone taking orders in the States. I've already got a bunch of Canon BP-975 batteries and six 32GB Sandisk CF cards, so that really helps defray the cost for me if I decide it's worth buying. Really thinking hard about this one...
 
I placed my order with a store in Stockholm/Sweden and release is the end of January. Priced at 14000 EURO is above my budget but the total investment in gear will go down since I only need one set of lenses to go on my 5DmkII and the C300.

As I started of with shooting on DSLR cameras it makes perfect sense going the C300 route. Frankly it's what I first wanted when trying to reconfigure Canon DSLR cameras to work in commercial shoots and now it's real.
 
I placed my order with a store in Stockholm/Sweden and release is the end of January. Priced at 14000 EURO is above my budget but the total investment in gear will go down since I only need one set of lenses to go on my 5DmkII and the C300.

Is that the actual selling price? That would be about 19-20K in US dollars.
 
I think it's a bit tricky with currency all over the scale but between the first announced price in Sweden to the one I got from the store it's one third lower than the first price.
 
C300 Purchase after considering the F3

C300 Purchase after considering the F3

You might be surprised. Historically Canon has held their dealers to 100% MSRP. There was no such thing as "street price" on the xlh1, for example. And yeah I know people will say it's price fixing etc; I'm not saying one way or the other, I don't know how they structure it with the dealers to make it legal, but that was how thy did it for a long, long time. I don't know if they still try to enforce that but I wouldn't be surprised at all if they did, seeing as this is their new flagship.
Barry, I know I am replying to an old post, but your wisdom helped me to easily decide on the C300 after also considering the F3. You had said the choice depends on your clients. My client base is mainly network television, documentary, corporate and web work at this point in my career. The need for 10bit 4:2:2 is simply not needed for me. What I love about the C300 is the in-camera 50mbps 4:2:2 MXF wrapped codec and the XLR audio inputs. I have since found video clips online with major DPs raving about the C300 when they had full budgets to work with any camera including the Alexa and the big Sonys (F35, F65 etc). There have been many negative comments on these threads regarding the 16k price for the C300, but the reality for me, already owning a 5D package with a trove of lenses and CF cards made the price no issue at all. To purchase the F3, Nanoflash, S-Log, SxS cards and two good lenses would have cost at least 30k. Different strokes for different folks. Thanks again for great advice. My C300 arrives today.
 
Minor thing....Canon holds the pricing at MAP....minimum advertized price....not MSRP....manufacturers suggested retail price or list price. Canon announced at the November event a list price of $20,000.....the MAP priced announced in January was $15,999.

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

PS - GO KINGS!
 
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