Canon Eos One 4K video camera - and Jackie Chan

Its been said before but they could really have just put these codes in the C100 MK2 and I would have been all over it. I am bummed about this, maybe Panasonic will finally come to the rescue.
 
I'm looking for a small cam for solo travel work so I've been following this closely to compare with something like the PXW-X70.

Things I like:

1 - the price.
2 - form factor looks nice, handgrip is ace and loupe is pretty cool - saves making the cam bigger with an EVF.
3 - fixed lens is actually a good idea for lots of reasons - no changing lenses on the beach or up a mountain, saves huge amounts of space and weight in the bag on your back, allows you to be creative with what you’ve got in the moment. I'm going to come back to that lens in a bit, though, reader!
4 - codec promises good things and having Canon log and WDR is great.
5 - 1" sensor is not as bad as many people think imo - shallow depth of field isn't everything and, in theory at least, you can drop out the background a little with 1". Ok, scratch that, it is important, read on...
6 - internal ND filter (but only one setting! WTF?)
7 - Overcranking and timelapse - excellent news.
8 - Internal 4k. Great (though we all know it’s not yet vital, just there to drive sales amongst us suckers).
9 – Canon ‘look’ is proven and much admired, presumably this cam will stay true to that.


The bad?


1 - That lens, of course! It’s an absolute dog. 2.8-5.6, seriously? Sony can do it at 2.8 on the RX10 and Panasonic can manage 2.8-4 on the FZ1000 with a longer zoom range, both 1" cams. FFS Canon, if you're going to use a 1" sensor, you've got to be able to control it enough to give SOME shallowness. A 1" sensor at 2.8 is fine - at 5.6 its pointless, you may as well have one of the many excellent 1/3" cams already around. I really WANT a fixed lens camera with a big sensor, but this isn't it (unless the lens holds 2.8 to around 100mm, then I’ll eat my words happily). They'd be much better off chopping the lens off and encouraging us to spend more on EF glass (I shall now win the prize for earliest ever prediction for a new camera - the Canon XC20: same as the XC10 but with interchangeable lenses, launching at NAB 2017).
2 - DR looks nowhere near 12 stops to me. That poor, freezing, slightly bewildered looking model wandering around Paris has massively blown highlights every time we see her forehead and bridge of nose - on a cloudy day with not much contrast in the scene.
3 - Audio is DSLR style mini-jack. Hard to see what the control is - if you can assign one of the buttons or dials to control levels whilst recording then that's not the end of the world - but I'd gladly pay out another £500 for an XLR interface box (like Sony have managed with the A7s).
4 – Cfast 2 cards – that’s around £500 per hour of 4k recording. For run and gun work on the road, expect to pay an extra £2k just on media. Yes, yes, prices are coming down yada yada yada – but not yet, they’re not!




So close, Canon. But so far.
 
hgf4 said:
If you have no interest in shallow dof it might be a decent camera.
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Or lowlight shooting (it's a 1" sensor after all).... Or dual pixel focusing... Or an inexpensive 4k camera (lx100).. Or a truly action/drone camera (gropro)...

I don't see a market for this camera... Even after all these years and several "drastic price drops", Canon is still trying to avoid cannibalizing their cinema division... It seems like no innovation from Canon this year with respect to the low budget video shooter. I guess we have to wait to see what Nikon, Samsung, Blackmagic, panasonic brings out. Here's hoping... I want to upgrade from my very old gh2. If there's nothing, than I'll get the sony a7s...
 
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I don't know if it's the framerate or what, but the video example looks very video-ish to me. Which is fine, but not what I'm looking for personally. I'm curious to see what others can do with it. I am interested though, if for nothing other than the form factor. But not something I would spend that kind of money on these days. Maybe after a few years when the used price drops below $1000 and I need something as a backup camera.

To me the problems are:

1. The lens - 2.8-5.6 is quite a range. Which could be very annoying. Not to mention the lack of a power zoom on a fixed lens like this takes away one of the positives of most fixed lens camcorders. Which puts this camera is a weird position.

2. The lack of an XLR accessory that snaps into a hot shoe or built in. Again for a camera that is primarily a video camera in this day an age, at that price point, it's a major short coming to me. I might as well just use a DSLR if I'm going to be wiring up a zoom recorder to this thing as well. The DSLR is cheaper and offers interchangable lenses as well. For a camera like this at this price point, I want an all-in-one run-and-gun solution.

But I don't want to sound like I am completely against it. Things could change. But it does feel like this is Canon's answer to avoiding 4K in their DSLR line so they don't cannibalize their cinema series.
 
Roxics, At $2,500 + pricey cards, the cost of a workable audio in box is minimal and would negate the need for going full double system...as long as the basic cam circuits are tolerable. This seems to be a jumble of consumer and pro features at a very non-consumer price. But...hey...Chackie Jan doesn't come cheap.
 
Is anyone else bugged by the fact the lens it 8.9mm - 89mm, but "24mm - 240mm" is painted on the lens with a faded "35mm equivalent" next to the markings?

I understand the whole 35mm equivalent thing, but I think it really needs to stop. We have too many sensor sizes out on the market today to be using a flawed old fashioned way of thinking about FOV.
 
It's the 'sumer part of the marketing talking with that. I can live with it if they knock $1k off the price..
 
Dafilman21 said:
Its been said before but they could really have just put these codes in the C100 MK2 and I would have been all over it. I am bummed about this, maybe Panasonic will finally come to the rescue.
Click to expand...
C100 based 4K camera would run in the $8,000 range. This is sort of a GH4 competitor ... sort of.

But what about the name? Isn't it ex-ci-ten?
 
I agree the lens is a dog. Two stops in only 10x zoom range? For the size of the sensor and the size of the front element they should be able to do better than that. The Panasonic LX100 found a way to get a lot out of a small front element. (although the range is smaller but the sensor is larger). I don't care for the form factor if it is a true video camera. It is really a DSLR with a slow lens! Kind of a 2/3" camera competitor without all of the eng functionality.
 
zijital said:
Is anyone else bugged by the fact the lens it 8.9mm - 89mm, but "24mm - 240mm" is painted on the lens with a faded "35mm equivalent" next to the markings?

I understand the whole 35mm equivalent thing, but I think it really needs to stop. We have too many sensor sizes out on the market today to be using a flawed old fashioned way of thinking about FOV.
Click to expand...

No. I don't know what 8.9-89mm means in relation to a 1" sensor. But I do know what 24-240mm means in relation to a 135 film frame. Personally I'm happy they're sticking with the full frame equivalent. It's a common language most of us understand even if it's not exact.
 
roxics said:
It's a common language most of us understand even if it's not exact.
Click to expand...

My problem isn't with how "exact" it is, my problem is that it creates confusion.

I once asked for a 85mm lens, was handed a 50mm lens b/c I had a Canon 7D and a "50 is a 85 on a 7D." I didn't want the equivalent of a 85 I wanted a 85.

There is a conversation I overheard at a AF100 demo event, that my brain has purged because it hurts to think about how bad it was. More or less it was about how "that 14mm lens is micro 4/3, so it is really 28mm, right? But 28mm on the AF100 is like a normal lens on a 35mm camera, so what wide angle lens can I use?"

We need a better system.
 
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