C700: Does anyone actually shoot with the C700?

Artistically in terms of shots, very well done. DTLA night shot looks excellent.

The BTS talking about skin tones looking great? Where everything is odd colored / blue? It's almost like they are joking, gas-lighting us, The Emperor's New Clothes, haha. For a camera sales demo we need to see realistic, ACCURATE COLOR, especially for skin tones! That's the hardest thing colorists have to deal with. Give us accurate color first, then we can twist the dials to make things artistic. It's super clear why ARRI dominates the pro cinema level camera market.

Everyone talks about story, "How to shoot videos that don't suck", "Save the cat" all say the same thing: if we don't tell a good story, even for something like a wedding video, the video will suck and no one will want to watch it. Great ads tell a good story in as little as 15s!

ARRI LF demo footage. No story, but tons of close ups and skin tones in a wide variety of lighting conditions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMRJwcmlr54
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twobOUE-oy4
The 2nd video isn't hard to produce- how about something similar Canon?
Sure the Alexa LF is at least 3x more expensive as a product but there's no reason a billion dollar company like Canon can't produce better demos.

Canon should hire Wes Anderson to create a short with the C700 FF: bright / wild color, close up skin tones, and story! (probably with a few chuckles). Here's a short (7:45) I recently discovered that Wes did for Prada (shot on film?). Certainly Canon could afford to produce something similar (perhaps shorter) that would get people's attention using content as a promotional tool!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b87B7zyucgI
Note the obvious color temp change at 4:58! (Wonder if that's a nod to Ferrari?)
 
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I shot with the C700FF the other day and verified that the global shutter in the C700 will not be available in the 700FF. You lose considerable DR and sensitivity with the global shutter version as well. We talked about how rolling shutter artifacts have been around and are so commonplace now, I don't think the vast majority of viewers notice them or care anymore, especially now that the sensor scan rates have increased so much. I remember rolling shutter artifacts in my 5D MKII made using it on any moving shots tough versus modern cameras like the EVA 1 and C200 where the rolling shutter isn't noticeable in almost all shooting situations short of radical camera movement or with flashes/strobes going off.
 
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puredrifting said:
I shot with the C700FF the other day and verified that the global shutter in the C700 will not be available in the 700FF. You lose considerable DR and sensitivity with the global shutter version as well. We talked about how rolling shutter artifacts have been around and are so commonplace now, I don't think the vast majority of viewers notice them or care anymore, especially now that the sensor scan rates have increased so much. I remember rolling shutter artifacts in my 5D MKII made using it on any moving shots tough versus modern cameras like the EVA 1 and C200 where the rolling shutter isn't notieceable in almost all shooting situations sjort of radical camera movement or with flashes/strobes going off.
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When's your article due- look forward to reading it!
 
I haven't written it yet, it'll depend on if they put it up on the website or if it's for the print magazine. Print has a huge delay, like four months. Sometimes the web stuff goes up just a week or two after I submit it.

Bottom line, it's a very impressive and versatile camera and I think after discussing with various Canon staff, somewhat mis-interpreted. I'll elaborate more in the article, of course. We shot a resolution chart and a skin tone test (just for you!). We shot to Codex RAW and also shot XF-AVC and took both through the post workflow. There is a HUGE price chasm between shooting the camera natively XF-AVC and shooting Codex RAW so I guess you'd really have to ask yourself "Does my workflow really warrant shooting RAW?" Also thought it interesting that it has three sensor modes, FF, S35 and S16. It's weird to say, but this camera is one of the few pieces of gear I have ever examined that made me think big picture about production and especially the audience more than usual and to even get a little philosophical about certain aspects of it. Usually with new gear it's just all about the specs, specs, specs and "how do the images look?" The specs are great and the images look very good to my eye but there is more to this camera than I can talk about here.
 
puredrifting said:
I haven't written it yet, it'll depend on if they put it up on the website or if it's for the print magazine. Print has a huge delay, like four months. Sometimes the web stuff goes up just a week or two after I submit it.

Bottom line, it's a very impressive and versatile camera and I think after discussing with various Canon staff, somewhat mis-interpreted. I'll elaborate more in the article, of course. We shot a resolution chart and a skin tone test (just for you!). We shot to Codex RAW and also shot XF-AVC and took both through the post workflow. There is a HUGE price chasm between shooting the camera natively XF-AVC and shooting Codex RAW so I guess you'd really have to ask yourself "Does my workflow really warrant shooting RAW?" Also thought it interesting that it has three sensor modes, FF, S35 and S16. It's weird to say, but this camera is one of the few pieces of gear I have ever examined that made me think big picture about production and especially the audience more than usual and to even get a little philosophical about certain aspects of it. Usually with new gear it's just all about the specs, specs, specs and "how do the images look?" The specs are great and the images look very good to my eye but there is more to this camera than I can talk about here.
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Imagine you are drunk. I am sending some virtual beers. :D: Talk.
 
indiawilds said:
Imagine you are drunk. I am sending some virtual beers. :D: Talk.
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Ha, ha, you're funny! If you just want to know everything about the camera, Red Shark News and John Fauer's Film and Digital Times already covered the hell out of the specs and details of the C700FF. I'm more interested in writing about the ramifications of a camera like this, where it fits into the marketplace and an interesting feature, amongst several, that not many others have talked about yet that has to do with Canon's upgrade path. Don't know this for a fact but it makes sense that Canon will eventually update the imager to something higher resolution that 5.9K and when they do, updating your C700FF to the latest and greatest will be possible. I do know for a fact that if you already own a C700, there is an ugrade path in place to upgrade your camera to the FF. RED does this. Sony doesn't. Panasonic doesn't. As far as I know, Arri doesn't, although I know they have had lots of firmware updates that add functionality. Not saying this is ground breaking but it presents some interesting options for the C700 owner, now and in the near future. I really like this coming from one of the big three.

I think that, just like the C200, the C700FF shows that Canon is willing to take some chances and to think outside what their competitors do. I found out that the conceptual path for this camera has been in place for a long time, the C700 or 700FF was not a reactionary, last minute idea to try to capture the high end market, they've thought about it carefully, for a long time. You have to face up to the facts that Canon seems to be the most conservative company of the big three. Taking that into account, they are not always going to be first to the market with a particular idea or concept but once you learn what the details are about this camera, it seems as if it will begin to gain more traction in the market. Canon convinced me that the C700 is not exactly what a lot of potential users perceive it to be, it's really two or three concepts in one, which I find fairly interesting.
 
puredrifting said:
I haven't written it yet, it'll depend on if they put it up on the website or if it's for the print magazine. Print has a huge delay, like four months. Sometimes the web stuff goes up just a week or two after I submit it.

Bottom line, it's a very impressive and versatile camera and I think after discussing with various Canon staff, somewhat mis-interpreted. I'll elaborate more in the article, of course. We shot a resolution chart and a skin tone test (just for you!). We shot to Codex RAW and also shot XF-AVC and took both through the post workflow. There is a HUGE price chasm between shooting the camera natively XF-AVC and shooting Codex RAW so I guess you'd really have to ask yourself "Does my workflow really warrant shooting RAW?" Also thought it interesting that it has three sensor modes, FF, S35 and S16. It's weird to say, but this camera is one of the few pieces of gear I have ever examined that made me think big picture about production and especially the audience more than usual and to even get a little philosophical about certain aspects of it. Usually with new gear it's just all about the specs, specs, specs and "how do the images look?" The specs are great and the images look very good to my eye but there is more to this camera than I can talk about here.
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Thanks that's awesome! Though one or two more folks might be interested in those tests :)

@mrtreve a good test of "cinematicity" would be for the same pro colorist who can make an Alexa look cinematic take footage from both cameras (same scene) and grade them. Another test would be to set up both cameras with a Rec709 output (color and gamma), e.g. WideDR+709 for Canon and LC709A for Alexa, and compare them side by side (same scene, no CC/grading at all).
 
mrtreve said:
From an artistic pov, all the footage looks like great looking content but not cinema (sadly).
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I'm sure you have some finely tuned parameters as to what "cinema" looks like. All I know is that they had the prototype camera for 2 days, did (by my count) 70+ set-ups interior and exterior with a **** ton of production requirements in those two days. Looks like the camera didn't miss a beat to me.
 
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