C300: Critique my shopping cart

puredrifting said:
We need to have a talk. Which brand cards are slutty? I don't know if I want to use slutty cards in my camera. My camera is more conservative and likes nice, demure, well-behaved media, not slutty cards.
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������ Siri fail.... “Slot A”
 
Clermond said:
hmm. Your expensive card in slot A is the card you trust most. Right?
If this one fails why would you have confidence to a less reliable for backup?
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Less expensive doesn’t mean less reliable… For SD cards they were both SanDisk cards the only difference is the ones with the faster transfer speeds are more expensive, but other than that for all intents and purposes there’s no quality difference. Definitely not advocating for putting name brand in Slot A and cheapo generic in Slot B. I try to stick to the same brand for all of my media.
 
Run&Gun said:
Most PayBoo card limits seem to top out around $5K-$6K.

But if you finance with Canon, you have to set-up an autopay/auto-draft, because they literally do not give you enough time to send a check by mail, SO... my recommendation is to set-up an auto draft for the monthly payment on a cash back credit card, so you can get at least a little something back and your payment will be on-time. Also, make sure you show them proof of equipment insurance that will cover the leased/financed gear, up-front so they don't tack their coverage on and take another $20+/month from you.
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For sure, I did that rodeo with both of my C 200s… Was not a hassle at all for me. I set up reoccurring payments on my credit card and also submitted proof of insurance when I purchased the cameras so no issues there and I also got all of the points on my credit card as I paid that off in full every month
 
rob norton said:
Looks good Chris. I’d figure out the exact weight of your ideal or most common set up. If the next level up easyrig (vario/cinema) is inevitable then you can think about bypassing the core batteries and going straight to mini v-mount, probably at a higher capacity too. Except ideally you’d have the cores for some situations and the larger batteries for others.
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This is definitely the weakest link in my entire set up… I would LOVE to level up on the next Easyrig, would open up a lot more options, but I just can’t swallow that several thousand dollar pill....

If I was a full time DP I’d pull the trigger but since I’m a director/DP/producer/editor I don’t think I shoot enough to justify it right now
 
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chris f said:
This is definitely the weakest link in my entire set up… I would LOVE to level up on the next Easyrig, would open up a lot more options, but I just can’t swallow that several thousand dollar pill....

If I was a full time DP I’d pull the trigger but since I’m a director/DP/producer/editor I don’t think I shoot enough to justify it right now
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Yeah, you'd want to be doing some serious operating to purchase those easyrigs.

Another approach is to plan for your ideal c300 iii production rig without being bound by the minimax capacity. Then sell the minimax for cash or to help pay for said accessories, while renting the more capable easyrig as needed.
 
chris f said:
I hate the idea of having so much footage on one card.......but if dual slot recording this would make a ton of financial sense - thanks for the heads up!

Of course the drawback is those situations like ahalpert mentioned with antsy producers/DITs that want to constantly dump cards throughout the day...
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Man, as I'm getting closer to actually pulling the trigger on the C300MKIII this is getting trickier..... I could get 2x 2TB Delkins for the same price as 4x 512GB SanDisks. Literally twice the storage for the same price AND wouldn't have to put all my eggs in one basket as I'd record dual slot whenever possible......but I can already envision my first shoot with the camera and the producer wanting to pull cards at lunch to start backing up to their 7200RPM external drive...

I'll probably split the difference and get 2x 512GB Delkins and 1x 1TB Delkin and leave the 1TB in Slot B to serve as the back up to the other cards all day. That would work for 99% of my shoots for which AVC would be fine and would give me 5.5hrs of record time while still having a backup of everything. And then for shoots in raw that would still leave me with 2TB total since you can only record raw to one slot (and proxies would go to the SD card), which would give me about 4.5 hours of record time.
 
When it comes to card brands, are there any preferences on these CF Express cards? Of course SanDisk seem pretty reliable but they cap out at 512GB currently and I have a bunch of interviews coming up that will take place over the course of a couple days so I am needing to order some cards now. I currently have 4 of the SanDisk cards.

I’m seeing the Delkin brand mentioned numerous times in this thread...are those preferred over the Wise or ProGrade cards? The costs and read/write speeds are all similar so I’m curious if there is one of those brands that are generally more reliable?

Personally, I’m leaning more towards the 1TB card size because, as mentioned, 2TB seems like a bigger risk somehow but it would also be nice to be able to record RAW for close to an hour...so that’s how I landed on the 1TB card size. Thoughts?
 
digitalinnovations said:
When it comes to card brands, are there any preferences on these CF Express cards? Of course SanDisk seem pretty reliable but they cap out at 512GB currently and I have a bunch of interviews coming up that will take place over the course of a couple days so I am needing to order some cards now. I currently have 4 of the SanDisk cards.

I’m seeing the Delkin brand mentioned numerous times in this thread...are those preferred over the Wise or ProGrade cards? The costs and read/write speeds are all similar so I’m curious if there is one of those brands that are generally more reliable?

Personally, I’m leaning more towards the 1TB card size because, as mentioned, 2TB seems like a bigger risk somehow but it would also be nice to be able to record RAW for close to an hour...so that’s how I landed on the 1TB card size. Thoughts?
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I have the same exact question. I've never strayed from the SanDisk cards. Can't imagine a card failure on the type of shoots I do, but is SanDisk proven to be more reliable?
 
It's impossible to understand failure rates of any of these cards because specific details about performance aren't published.

But this is how it works, in general:

You pay more for better hardware/software and for testing.

If a card costs $1, it's probably not using the best hardware/software and most likely has zero stress testing.

If a card costs $100 - and that's the most expensive card (just an example) - then it's probably using better/the best hardware/software and the company has engaged in a lot of testing (you'd hope).

Some people will buy a $1 card and insist it has never failed them, and some people will purchase a $100 card and say it failed them at least once.

Then there is everything in the middle; other companies, prices and a variety of stories.

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Regarding card failures, rarely will you ever hear about an entire card failing and losing all of its footage. Has it happened before? I don't doubt it. But for the most part, when a card fails it randomly drops frames somewhere on the card (could be freshly formatted or close to its capacity), and that file may become corrupt.

I think the users whom have to worry the most are the ones filming very long-form video in which if a file becomes corrupt it's possible to lose it entirely. (Usually you can recover a lot of it, but that possibility is there.)

When you're thinking about some more well-known companies like Delkin Devices or Lexar or Transcend, etc. (even with any issues or changes in ownership they may or may not have had), 99% of users will be OKAY based on how they use their cards.

But if you're capturing long-form video and would like the best-of-the-best then usually SanDisk is considered one of them but it's more because of their longevity and reputation rather than numerical figures/results.

If you have back-up recording available, use it...the chances of both failing are astronomical and you'd have something rather than nothing (even if it's lower-quality).
 
This is a great point NorBro.

If your camera offers dual slot recording or proxy recording, do it! The cost of an extra card or two (especially CFexpress) can sting, but nothing stings more than losing footage.

I'm not working huge feature films, but I can't imagine any scenario in my past work where having to use a compressed proxy in a pinch would have been a deal breaker to any project.
 
Great info all around...thank you! I think I will be going with the 1TB Delkin cards and since I will be recording proxies to SD I should be covered should the worst happen.

Thanks again!
 
This is what I ended up going with:

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Decided to ditch the Core SWX batteries and went with two of these instead: https://www.intellytechusa.com/collections/pocket-v/products/pocket-v-155wh-v-mount-battery-1
Will see what the real world performance is. May pick up a 98wh version as well. Want to have enough power for a full day of shooting, but still be able to bring everything when traveling on a plane.

Ordered a Zacuto Z-Finder as well and may try to re-create my exact C200 Z-Finder set up, but want to tinker around and see if I can find something that works ergonomically without adding all the weight of the Axis Mini set up (going to try to keep everything in weight range of my EasyRig Minimax).
 
I gotta ask...

You're purchasing gear in THIS market, possibly the worst market for video production in all of our lifetimes?

Things are so bad I've darn-near lost interest in gear altogether.

[ I'm not saying it is a bad move for you. I just find it curious to be buying gear at this time. The economic slump has caused many to sell gear, not buy. ]
 
JPNola said:
I gotta ask...

You're purchasing gear in THIS market, possibly the worst market for video production in all of our lifetimes?

Things are so bad I've darn-near lost interest in gear altogether.

[ I'm not saying it is a bad move for you. I just find it curious to be buying gear at this time. The economic slump has caused many to sell gear, not buy. ]
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Zig when everyone else is zagging?

For what it's worth I had lost all interest in gear for the last 6 months, but mentally I'm coming out of the covid mindset/slump and am looking to the future. Might not be the best time to buy for a lot of people, but I'm looking forward to using this down time to know the camera inside and out, practice my operating techniques, and be ready to rock when (not if) production picks back up. Plus this camera at this price seems like a very safe bet for me - I highly doubt anything like this camera will come out in this price range for a while (Sony & Canon have already shot their shot this year) so I could either buy it now or buy it 6-months or a year from now - price will probably be the same. Might as well get it now and start practicing.

I've had a fairly rough last 6 months (got covid, a lot of jobs dried up, had all of my cameras stolen just to name a few), but I've decided to make plans for an optimistic future instead of dwelling on the past.
 
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