C300: EF-S lenses better than EF lenses ?

[Parrot]

David, Sigma Arts looks great but I read on the forum that Canon doesn't support these lenses with the EOS C line. What does that mean? Aperture, DPAF and Focus Assist will not work?

I'm the one who wrote that because that's what I was told, in writing, by Sigma USA Support. What it means is that Sigma will test their lenses with Canon's still cameras, but not the Cinema EOS cameras. And if there's incompatibilities with the Cinema EOS cameras it's not a priority for Sigma to fix it, while f.ex. it IS a priority for Sigma to fix incompatibilities with the new Canon 1DXmk2.

Right now Sigma 20/1.4 Art & 24-35/2.0 Art do not work at all with the C300mk2. (There's no control of iris, f.ex...)
I haven't tested the 50-100/1.8 Art yet. 18-35/1.8 seems to be working fine. So far...

Oh, and I would test any EF-S lens in DCI aspect ratio before buying! I own a C300mk2 too...

 

[Parrot]

True the sensor is 4K, and probably true that you will get a better image by using the EF-S crop mode in camera versus doing it in post, but the manual itself says that noise will be more apparent and image quality will be "slightly effected". I feel like this is happening in the last stage of the image train, and not before the HD Oversampling Process takes the 4K RGB and squeezes it down to 1080...but I could be wrong on that front.

Interesting. You are probably right. I guess Canon is taking some shortcuts to get the lens coverage. :-(

 

[Parrot]

Why not go for...

EF-S 17-55 2.8
EF-S 55-250 STM

The spec calls for shooting 4K, 4096x2160 with a C300mk2. The 17-55/2.8 does NOT cover that sensor size (17-55/2.8 does mostly cover 3840x2160 pixels, or UHD; but not 4K). I don't know about the 55-250.

 

[zwarte_kat]

The spec calls for shooting 4K, 4096x2160 with a C300mk2. The 17-55/2.8 does NOT cover that sensor size (17-55/2.8 does mostly cover 3840x2160 pixels, or UHD; but not 4K). I don't know about the 55-250.

I have both those lenses which I use on the C100 Mark II and 70D (mostly stills). They cover the size of the sensor, after all they are made for it...

I wouldn't worry too much about EF-S lenses. Especially the new ones have great resolving power and were made with 24MP cameras like the rebel series and 7D and 70D series in mind. (that's like double the amount of pixels of 4K)

I do think some L lenses (notably the 70-200 zooms) have a beautiful rendering, but I guess that's subjective.
I think it's more important to have your stuff in focus to begin with, especially with 4K.

L lenses tend to have better resale value.

I love my 17-55 but the image has been getting a bit softer, I think that is as it tends to suck in a lot of dust and many things happened to my lens...
I only notice this with stills though. It still looks fine on video (HD and I suspect 4K too).
One other thing I noticed is that some dust in/on the lens is sometimes creating little bits of distracting flare when filming into a light source.

Hope this helps!

 

[Amira-user]

hwy parrot, since you own the C300 mII, could you tell me if say you use a non canon glass, for example nikon/contax with EF adapter, can the AF boost still work? AF boost is the setting which tells you where to turn, and once its in focus it turns green... and since we are on that subject, do you think a PL mounted glass would work with AF boost assist?

so far i haven't heard much people mention Clog 3, is it not available yet?

 

[Macaholic]

hwy parrot, since you own the C300 mII, could you tell me if say you use a non canon glass, for example nikon/contax with EF adapter, can the AF boost still work? AF boost is the setting which tells you where to turn, and once its in focus it turns green... and since we are on that subject, do you think a PL mounted glass would work with AF boost assist?

AF Boost is a different function. AF Boost is where the camera will only autofocus if the subject is already "relatively" sharp, it prevents the camera from searching back and fourth to find focus.

You're referring to the Focus Guide I believe. That also only works with certain lenses, all of which have electronic contacts. In the new firmware they are expanding it to support Canon's Cinema Primes, and I've actually seen it work pretty well with the 85mm ZE.

In theory I always thought it should just work on any lenses, but Canon being conservative actually seems to want some information back from the lens to confirm everything is kosher and accurate.

 

[drummondb]

Sigma 18-35mm 1.8 and the Sigma 50-100mm 1.8 both work very well with the C100 MKI & MkII, including Dual Pixel Auto Focus

 

[Parrot]

I have both those lenses which I use on the C100 Mark II and 70D (mostly stills). They cover the size of the sensor, after all they are made for it...

The EF-S lenses are made for the size of the sensor in your 70D. The sensor in your C100mk2 is bigger than that (it is matching Super35 film pretty much exactly, unlike certain other Cinema Camera brands that use slightly smaller or larger sensors), and the sensor in the C300mk2 & C500 is even wider when using 4K mode or 2K mode (17:9, same height as your C100mk2, but more width.)

 

[Parrot]

Macaholic answered quite a bit already, so I'll stick to the PL mount part (I own a PL mount for my C300mk2 as well).

There is currently no Focus Aid or AF Boost of any kind on the C300mk2 with PL mount. The PL mount I own does have a hole where Cooke /i contacts would typically go, but currently there's nothing there. I hope Canon is working on this as getting some Focus Aid for PL glass would be a great boost for the camera. And probably an even bigger boost for their next higher end camera.

C-log 3 is scheduled to be available late July 2016.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

AF Boost is a different function. AF Boost is where the camera will only autofocus if the subject is already "relatively" sharp, it prevents the camera from searching back and fourth to find focus.

I think I tried to figure out how to turn that on once but didn't figure it out. How do you turn it on?

 

[Macaholic]

I think I tried to figure out how to turn that on once but didn't figure it out. How do you turn it on?

It's Camera Setup > Focus > AF Mode > AF Manual Boosted

Then, your focus rectangle in frame will be white when the camera says "hey, this looks sort of sharp, I assume you're trying to focus on this I will make sure it is sharp as well as track it forward and backwards"

It'll be yellow when it's thinking "nah, that's waayy too out of focus, I'm just gonna revert to manual focus"

If you start to pull focus from something super out of focus, once it can tell the object in the frame is almost sharp, the square will go white and auto focus will take over.

Also keep in mind the response and speed settings are applied to that moment when the square turns from yellow to white and the camera pulls, so mess around with that to find your sweet spot.