scorsesefan
Veteran
Ha ha. Is that a turkey or peacock?
Canon's Upcoming RF cinema camera rumored specs
- Thread starter ahalpert
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ahalpert
Major Contributor
It's such a mixed bag for me.
I have one agency that shoots a lot of corporate stuff and activations. They will specify the codec and bitrate for me to use - the exact setting.
For a lot of little docs, they will specify that they want 10-bit but not specify all-I or long-gop. Often the director owns a camera for doing their own shooting and knows enough to know about 10-bit.
I shot some interviews last year for a doc company and rented C300IIs. I asked him if he would hire me with an FS7 and he said no, he prefers Canon color. I asked him what he thought about the C200 and he said he didnt like it. Part of that might be "the C300II is more expensive so it's better" but part of it is that he edits it himself and knows what he can do with 10-bit log. He didnt want to shoot RAW. But he doesn't mind dropping down to HD for 60p b-roll.
I have wedding companies who ask me, "what's the smallest file size you can deliver HD60p in?"
Then I shot an event 2 days ago and asked my handler if they wanted HD or 4K and she asked me, "What's the difference?"
So, I'd say that for 50-75% of my work, a c200 would be great. But it's a better value proposition for me to buy 1 camera that can cover 100% of my work.
This is a great question. I am, after all, mostly just editing for the time being. Although some shoots are starting to come through.
I bought an S1 last year because I needed a gimbal-friendly low-light beast. I sold it this year to replace it with something with good autofocus. So, I have that spot in my camera line-up empty, although I don't need it that often right now.
The R6 is a great value proposition - about the same price as the S1. If it didn't overheat, it'd be a clear win. Using it with an external recorder? ...somewhat less exciting.
Your friend surely knows better than me. But I'm optimistic that business will resume next year for 2 reasons:
1. Surprise therapeutic treatments will keep getting discovered that lower the mortality rate and lower the potential harm from getting sick
2. Even Fauci says there may be a vaccine by early next year. A vaccine starts to make a dent in people's cautiousness even before everyone gets it (especially if you yourself have received it).
We don't need to kill covid to go back to business as usual. We just need to reduce it to the same risk assessment as the regular flu
But perhaps you're right - the smart move may be just to wait. I still have 1.5 months to cancel my A7SIII preorder...
puredrifting
Major Contributor
In the era of Quarantine, I would wait as long as humanly possible to buy any expensive production gear. I bought two open box X-T3s this year but I had a project that paid for both of them and made me some profit on top of the
expenditure. If you can buy a camera and have one or two booked jobs pay for it, I always say go for it because after that, the camera becomes a revenue stream for you as my X-T3s are now every time I add them to a shoot.
Nothing better than having half a dozen cameras, all paid for. Every time you invoice them, it's a nice feeling. But since the dawn of time, buying a camera in the "hopes" of booking work with it is a fools errand that an astounding amount of people in our business fall into.
I have another shoot like that that will require me to either rent some additional lighting or buy a pair of additional Godox VL-150s or 300s for, it's to light a good sized set that talent will be walking through. My partner has a pile of Kino Divas that
will bring up ambient levels but then I need to spotlight three different areas and light the inside of a truck. I'm looking forward to it, this shoot will utilize between 20-30 instruments and I love lighting sets with a lot of smaller lights,
it's my jam. I once lit a set I shot table top for (Tabletop with a Fisher 10 dolly!), a full size, production designed set with tons of props from Disney with 85 instruments myself. It took me a week to light it, tweak it but it looked fantastic and this was well
before the era of LEDs. Big lights are great, esepcially for lighting through windows with talent. but a pile of small lights gives you a lot more fine control of highlighting little areas, mixing a ton of color temps, etc.
My ideal DP job is not having a crew and lighting a medium sized set by myself or with one assistant and having a ton of time to do so. It hardly ever happens, but when it does, I am on cloud 9. Killer lighting is all about experimentation for me to
see what looks good and works and dialing in the perfect levels and it can be tough to get there with a crew, even if they are great because they often cannot see your vision for the scene. Don't get me wrong, I love to collaborate with my gaffers,
but for tabletop and smaller insert stages, it can be fun to just tweak it yourself until it looks amazing.
expenditure. If you can buy a camera and have one or two booked jobs pay for it, I always say go for it because after that, the camera becomes a revenue stream for you as my X-T3s are now every time I add them to a shoot.
Nothing better than having half a dozen cameras, all paid for. Every time you invoice them, it's a nice feeling. But since the dawn of time, buying a camera in the "hopes" of booking work with it is a fools errand that an astounding amount of people in our business fall into.
I have another shoot like that that will require me to either rent some additional lighting or buy a pair of additional Godox VL-150s or 300s for, it's to light a good sized set that talent will be walking through. My partner has a pile of Kino Divas that
will bring up ambient levels but then I need to spotlight three different areas and light the inside of a truck. I'm looking forward to it, this shoot will utilize between 20-30 instruments and I love lighting sets with a lot of smaller lights,
it's my jam. I once lit a set I shot table top for (Tabletop with a Fisher 10 dolly!), a full size, production designed set with tons of props from Disney with 85 instruments myself. It took me a week to light it, tweak it but it looked fantastic and this was well
before the era of LEDs. Big lights are great, esepcially for lighting through windows with talent. but a pile of small lights gives you a lot more fine control of highlighting little areas, mixing a ton of color temps, etc.
My ideal DP job is not having a crew and lighting a medium sized set by myself or with one assistant and having a ton of time to do so. It hardly ever happens, but when it does, I am on cloud 9. Killer lighting is all about experimentation for me to
see what looks good and works and dialing in the perfect levels and it can be tough to get there with a crew, even if they are great because they often cannot see your vision for the scene. Don't get me wrong, I love to collaborate with my gaffers,
but for tabletop and smaller insert stages, it can be fun to just tweak it yourself until it looks amazing.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Right- an A7SIII/R5/R6 would definitely just be an upgrade to my GH5. It wouldn't be an additional item to invoice but would give me less noise, more dynamic range, and usable autofocus. Better-quality footage. And hopefully it would be something I could camp on for 5+ years.
But it's probably smart to stick with my GH5 unless work accelerates later this year.
NY is doing well for now - I think we have like a 1% covid test positivity rate and supposedly schools will be open in every community where the rate stays under 5% or 3%. Maybe things will pick back up. Here's hoping...
But it's probably smart to stick with my GH5 unless work accelerates later this year.
NY is doing well for now - I think we have like a 1% covid test positivity rate and supposedly schools will be open in every community where the rate stays under 5% or 3%. Maybe things will pick back up. Here's hoping...
scorsesefan
Veteran
"NY is doing well for now - I think we have like a 1% covid test positivity rate and supposedly schools will be open in every community where the rate stays under 5% or 3%. Maybe things will pick back up. Here's hoping..." I'm hoping right there with you, Abe. But I work in midtown and it's dead. Not as dead as April, but a very small percentage of businesses have reopened and I'm seeing zero shooting on the street (despite productions allowed to restart) IMO things are not going to get going again until 2021 regardless of the infection rate in NY... I almost pulled the trigger on a new camera but I balked. Instead, I've spent a few bucks on new drives, a new light, a camera case, etc...
puredrifting
Major Contributor
Lets all hope so. When things were starting to open back up here in Ca. we booked a few shoots that have since canceled. One was a good sized project with a ton of editing that would have made our August and September.
Live streaming is still happening, especially our remote live streams but live streaming compared to regular production is a much lower dollar affair. It's work but it's just barely putting a dent in the bills, def not replacing
regular production.
Live streaming is still happening, especially our remote live streams but live streaming compared to regular production is a much lower dollar affair. It's work but it's just barely putting a dent in the bills, def not replacing
regular production.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
What do people think about the quality and desirability to clients of the original FS7 versus the C300iii and the rumored R300?
Obviously, the C300iii is a better camera than the FS7. But is it a total knockout?
The R300 is better in some ways but it probably has lower maximum bitrates and maybe no all-I codecs at all.
Do these minor details matter to many clients? Is the Canon color just so much better than the FS7 that it's a clear win? Or is there too much variability between clients to even make a generalization?
What do you think?
Obviously, the C300iii is a better camera than the FS7. But is it a total knockout?
The R300 is better in some ways but it probably has lower maximum bitrates and maybe no all-I codecs at all.
Do these minor details matter to many clients? Is the Canon color just so much better than the FS7 that it's a clear win? Or is there too much variability between clients to even make a generalization?
What do you think?
There’s an agency that sends me random bookings every few months. Not my bread and butter, but they’re usually interesting people or productions. (They also hired me for FS7 jobs specifically, before I sold it.) Today I was supposed to be producing a live stream with a world famous author. But yesterday she had to cancel the event after she found out she came in contact with someone that had Coronavirus. She’s now self-isolating for two weeks. No idea if it will get rescheduled.
I was hoping to use my new Ursa G2 on it.
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I can't comment too much on the client perspective, as I'd imagine that would depend a lot on the particular client.
But just from an image quality standpoint, I'd expect the R300/C300 Mk III to be a fair a bit better. The FS7 has a fairly ancient sensor, and it's actually kind of surprising it has held up as well as it has. It is largely the same sensor as was in the FS700 introduced back in 2012.
I'd expect the R300/C300 Mark III sensor to have better dynamic range than the FS7. The C300 Mark II was rated at about a stop better dynamic range than the FS7, although this comparison says it was more like 2 stops better in practice: https://www.strayangel.com/canon-c300-mark-ii-vs-sony-fs7.html
And then Canon says the C300 Mark III sensor is a stop better than the C300 Mark II. So, I'd expect a fairly significant difference on that front. The C300 MkIII also has 4K 120 which is something that the FS7 can't do. And it has usable continuous autofocus, which if you need it to use it for some shots would definitely result in a noticeable difference (compared to out-of-focus video, for example).
In terms of the recording bitrates, most comparisons of IPB (interframe) vs. ALL-I (intraframe) compression generally find that there is not a significant difference in video quality between the two. Even though interframe codecs use much lower bitrates, the reality is that most video has a relatively small change in the image from one frame to the next. So forcing the video encoder to encode every frame separately (in an intraframe codec), rather than encoding the differences between frames (in an interframe codec), just means that the intraframe codec is much less efficient. Depending on the content and the encoding bitrates used, interframe codecs sometimes achieve better quality at a much lower bitrate than an intraframe codec. Because the intraframe codec wastes a ton of bits encoding portions of the frame that don't change from one frame to the next, it can actually end up with less bits available to encode the parts that do change than an interframe codec (which devotes most of its bits to the stuff that changes).
The reason to use an ALL-I codec in most cases is that it is more edit-friendly, not for any video quality improvement.
Having said all of that, I would expect that a good DP could produce images from an FS7 that rival what you could get out of a C300 Mark III. It might take a bit more work, but the reality is that even a 6-year old camera like the FS7 is still capable of producing good images. These days, camera image quality alone is rarely enough of a distinguishing factor where most viewers would notice a difference.
Ultimately, the reason to choose one camera over another probably has more to do with whether it makes your life easier when shooting.
morgan_moore
Major Contributor
It seems to me that the FS7 has a file which with addition of a simple LUT can keep clients happy. We were shooting 4k50_10bit greenscreen this week (upright!) and really its a fine file - the client is a large infrastructure company.
So how does the FS7 fall down? Really on a gimbal - its too heavy and also using remote focus is a crew eating pain.
I think the new cameras wont look much better (C300iii raw will in a situation that requires a specialist grade) but may be a lot smoother on set.
To some extent that is not clear - sometimes with AF one wishes just to be able to use a puller and a motor, as they rarely do completely the wrong thing.. as it is said AF needs to be perfect or it just wastes time.
The 7 seems a fine all manual body with good audio and inbuild ND - its a good thing and with a proper crew (remote focus monitor and puller) does nice stuff. Cut the crew and the new gen becomes more appealling ?
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Clermond
Veteran
This is a legitimate point of view as a FS7 owner
As a former FS7 owner I can tell you that it falls down in various situations. For example when you need a non log file for quick hand over. I struggled and tested endless hours but nothing came close to the Panasonic scenes files or Canon Rec709 Wide DR settings. It falls down if your CineEI WB doesn’t hit one of the three presets. also in low light and if you compare the sharpness to a C300iii or EVA1.
You can fix a lot in post but from my personal experience you spend a lot of unpaid hours for that. And sometimes you just don’t get there. That’s where the new cameras look much better. Not mentioning the options of the tracking AF.
YMMV though
morgan_moore
Major Contributor
All true
Dare I say I’m pretty quick at post. I never had a problem with Wb correcting esp if you shoot a grey card.
Baked looks? Yep I never tried them. Horrid.
Post wise I expect every camera to need a tinkle of wb and exposure - the fs7 is not out of the usual bounds of that. Maybe I’m exceptionally slack shooter - or have some standards for delivery. Given scene range changes, poor location monitors on location glare and the multiple things that fook you up on location I think shooting post free perfect baked is a myth on any camera until you are in the most controlled studio.
Dare I say I’m pretty quick at post. I never had a problem with Wb correcting esp if you shoot a grey card.
Baked looks? Yep I never tried them. Horrid.
Post wise I expect every camera to need a tinkle of wb and exposure - the fs7 is not out of the usual bounds of that. Maybe I’m exceptionally slack shooter - or have some standards for delivery. Given scene range changes, poor location monitors on location glare and the multiple things that fook you up on location I think shooting post free perfect baked is a myth on any camera until you are in the most controlled studio.
Clermond
Veteran
All true
Dare I say I’m pretty quick at post. I never had a problem with Wb correcting esp if you shoot a grey card.
Baked looks? Yep I never tried them. Horrid.
Post wise I expect every camera to need a tinkle of wb and exposure - the fs7 is not out of the usual bounds of that. Maybe I’m exceptionally slack shooter - or have some standards for delivery. Given scene range changes, poor location monitors on location glare and the multiple things that fook you up on location I think shooting post free perfect baked is a myth on any camera until you are in the most controlled studio.
all true also
I can highly recommend to rent a c300iii for a day or two.
Oh wait, maybe better not. You will look at your FS7 totally different.
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I am quick at post too. But with the FS7 it didn't look good
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puredrifting
Major Contributor
I think clients who have been specifying the FS7 will continue to specify the FS7. Many won't even accept the FX9 (simply because it's not an FS7), even though it's far superior to the FS7. Most Sony clients don't know or care about Canons
and vice versa. My Canon specific clients outright hate the FS7 colors and would never allow us to shoot their work with the FS7. Clients won't know what a C300 MKIII or an R300 is for years. Many DVXers
give clients much more credit than they deserve in the arena of product preference. Most people who specify camera models either know way too much or not nearly enough and 5 years ago, some editor or
camera person whispered in their ears that "Camera XYZ is the one." The client doesn't know why and often just parrot what they were told, even if that doesn't make sense.
I don't think most clients care that much, other than if you are hired by production companies or networks who deal with
this stuff on a daily basis. Most of those clients in the U.S. are dead in the water anyway and will be for at least a year to come, possibly longer. I anticipate that notable percentage of clients who used to hire
us may go out of business in the next six months. Ad agencies, marketing agencies, mid level production companies, none of these entities can go for a year or two without work. Many will fold.
Run&Gun
Veteran
If we’re talking about NBC, both.
Run&Gun
Veteran
I’ve run into this over the years and sometimes it’s for no other reason than, that’s the model they know, or someone shot something on that specific model and they liked it, so in their mind everything else has to be shot with that model.
One example: YEARS ago I had a producer for one of my network clients call me for a shoot and I asked them if it was HD or SD(that’s how long ago it was) they said HD and wanted to shoot on the HDX-900. I said I don’t have that I have the VariCam. Well they kept insisting on the 900 and couldn’t give a real reason why. I told them I was not renting a 900 for their shoot when I owned a superior camera and finally told them, “You do realize that the VariCam is THE camera of choice for the network, right? They approached me and lots of other guys and told us to buy this camera to shoot HD for the network.” They finally relented and on the shoot I finally got the real “reason” out of them, someone had shot something for them that they really liked and it was on that camera. So in their mind, everything had to be with that camera, now.
morgan_moore
Major Contributor
Many will fold.
I have a strange view on business crisis. Say you sell Fords, you lose a load of people who used to buy a Ford every three years.. but you get a whole bunch of new people who can no longer hang at the BMW dealership. You carry on.
I have a strange view on business crisis. Say you sell Fords, you lose a load of people who used to buy a Ford every three years.. but you get a whole bunch of new people who can no longer hang at the BMW dealership. You carry on.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Many will fold.
I have a strange view on business crisis. Say you sell Fords, you lose a load of people who used to buy a Ford every three years.. but you get a whole bunch of new people who can no longer hang at the BMW dealership. You carry on.
I'm not sure that analogy works in this case because the 1% are currently getting richer (as usual).
So, if you're a BMW, or better yet a Porsche, dealer, you may be just fine.
If you sell new Fords, you may fold while the used dealership stays in business.
But your point is well taken - that the landscape of business failures and evolutions is more complicated.
And with regard to what puredrifting said - he's probably right and probably knows better than I do - but if I were a large agency, I would let go of my office space and fire everyone but a skeleton crew. Business is all about client relationships so as long as their company still exists in theory, their customers will come back to them when they're ready and the agency can hire freelancers to get going again.
For me, personally, i have a lot of different clients who have fared differently.
Large agencies/corporate stuff - on ice.
Small/medium businesses who hire me directly - no change.
Events - dead. But mostly postponed to next year, so 2021 could be a banner year.
Editing clients - no change.
Self-financing directors and artists - pretty much the same, depending on if their personal finances were impacted