C100: First use of C100 for wedding & feedbacks for improvements

S

shemster

Member
Ok, just got back home after a wedding shoot with the C100 for the first time. Has been using 5D2 intensively for the past 3 years and the operation has become a 2nd nature to me. Unconvinced of the quality of 5D3, I decided to plunge my hard earn cash into the C100. My feedback after using of this new boy for the first time is "amazing"! The low light capability of this cam really kick ass! During the wedding dinner, the light is terribly dim as the couple do not wish to brighten up to ballroom in order to maintain the ambience. I was shooting at f2 using my 50mm & 135mm with ISO jacked up to an incredible high of 8000-10000. Yes, incredibly high as these kind of ISO is impossible on my 5D2. The image maintain its color balance without any significant noise being induced. As least I couldn't spot any from the LCD and is there is noise, it is organic and it is easy to clean up in post. What a great sensor this cam has! I also love the ergonomics of this cam. Holding in hand, it feels very at home like my trusty 5D2 yet has the functions of a regular video cam. The button control of ISO, Aperture and WB is very diff from 5D2 and I feel pretty slow initially but managed to pick up speed the more I use it. The form factor is excellent too. I removed the top handle as I am using Rode Videomic Pro instead of my NTG3 and it looks like a slightly oversize DSLR. Overall I am very impressed with this cam and there is a high chance that I will picked up a few more sets to replace my aging 5D2.

For those that feels this cam is over priced and its features not worth the $, well, my opinion is that it is worth every single cents. For those comparing c100 to FS100/700 or BMCC, I would say c100 is built for event shooters like myself. No doubt the other cams has very impressive features but impt things that they are lacking are the ergonomic form and ease of usage and these factors are very important for event shooting. Canon is charging a premium for me to be able to use my whole range of EOS lens with full compatibility, excellent image quality (avchd 420 is good enough for me as I don't push my image too far), amazing low light capability and great ergonomic form and I think it is worth every single cents. Nothing beats the factor of ease of usage in my field of work. If you are into short film or commercial, image quality may be a more impt factor to you and BMCC may fits the bill more than C100. I don't require slow-mo for my works so only able to shoot at 25fps is good enough for me.

Now for the bad features about this cam and I hope it can be improved thru firmware updates or future models:
  1. Unable to assign buttons to control manual audio level when I am using Rode videomic pro thru 3.5 inch jack with handle removed. I have to enter the menu to adjust the level and it very cumblesome and slow.
  2. No standby switch only on-off switch
  3. No auto switch off after a certain period of non activity. I had my battery drained flat after I forgot to switch it off.
  4. Can't view audio level and waveform at the same time.
  5. Switching from camera mode to media mode takes a pretty long time.
  6. Poor EVF, really poor. Come on Canon, if you are afraid of cannibalising your C300 sales, you should not even be thinking about it. I will not change from a C100 to C300 just for the better EVF. The price difference is simply too great to even be a choice.
 
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Thanks for this post. Did you try any hand held stuff with the IS turned on? I'm wondering whether the ergonomics of this camera make it any better for hand held stuff....
 
Exact said:
Thanks for this post. Did you try any hand held stuff with the IS turned on? I'm wondering whether the ergonomics of this camera make it any better for hand held stuff....
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Oh yeh....I did quite a number of handhelds to test its stability and useability for longer period of shooting. I did not use any lens with IS though. On my 50 f1.2, it becomes 75 due to the crop factor. It is stable enough. Right hand on handgrip and left hand supporting the cam body with fingers on the focus ring and could shoot for around 1+ min before I could feel the slight strain on my shoulder. If I need to shoot longer, I will surely be on my monopod. If you do not want to use monopod yet wish to shoot for extended period handheld without strain, you need to carry the cam with the top handle. It is very comfortable to carry the cam using the handle but the negative point is that your shots will be lower than eye level. If you are a tall guy this may not be an issue to you. I am so used to hand held 5D2 with just a Zacuto Z-finder. So if you are into hand held, I will recommend you to get a c100 z-finder once it is launch within the next few mths. The C100 EVF is good enough only for a few seconds usage. Anything longer, forget about it.

Other than 24-105 f4 which most ppl recommend for run and gun works, another great lens which I find useful is 16-35 f2.8. It effectively becomes 24-52mm which is the most used range when I cam operating 5D2. I use 24 f1.4 and 50 f1.2 a lot. However zoom lens can never beat the quality of prime lens.
 
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For the 24-105 f4L do you think it would have handled the low light in the ballroom? Or did you switch to the 50mm because f4 was not good enough? I'm guessing the ISO would have had to have pushed past 10000 which would have introduced more noise.

Also did you experiment with the Noise Reduction in the custom picture settings? Or was it OK at 10000 ISO without turning that on? I want to experiment but haven't had the time yet.

I ask because I want to try out a wedding with the C100 but all I have is the 24-105 f4L and the 35 f1.4L. The prime will be great in low light but only gives one focal length option!
 
Matt Turner said:
For the 24-105 f4L do you think it would have handled the low light in the ballroom? Or did you switch to the 50mm because f4 was not good enough? I'm guessing the ISO would have had to have pushed past 10000 which would have introduced more noise.

Also did you experiment with the Noise Reduction in the custom picture settings? Or was it OK at 10000 ISO without turning that on? I want to experiment but haven't had the time yet.

I ask because I want to try out a wedding with the C100 but all I have is the 24-105 f4L and the 35 f1.4L. The prime will be great in low light but only gives one focal length option!
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Every ballroom has different lightings so it is hard to comment on that. For usual weddings, we normally request the ballroom manager to brighten the lights to 50%. With my 5d2 on glidecam, usual settings on my 24mm f1.4 are f2.8-f4, shutter 30, iso 1250-2500. Iso2500 is the max i will use on 5d2 n the noise is still manageable in post. So with c100 24-105 f4 will work fine with me. The low light is really amazing. For my last wedding the lighting is being maintained at 25% and u can imagine it as having fine dinning kind of ambience. If im on my 5d2 aperture will have to be f1.2-1.4 with all other settings maintain the same. I was trying the wide DR profile and couldn't make any fine tuning to it so i guess the NR is off. I've just reviewed my footage in post. I can see noise at iso10000 but it looks beautiful! It looks more like film grain than noise. Very organic unlike 5d2 which look patchy and disgusting. Frankly speaking i suggest u to take another prime, either 24 f1.4 or 135 f2 to the wedding. You never know when you will need it. 24-105 is good but could be too slow for dinner sometimes.
 
what do you think of using 17-50 Tamron 2.8 lens with IS, I find it a working horse, on crop DSLRs, seems logical to have this lens as all around!
 
OlegKalyan said:
what do you think of using 17-50 Tamron 2.8 lens with IS, I find it a working horse, on crop DSLRs, seems logical to have this lens as all around!
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I've just gotten myself a canon ef-s 17-55 f2.8. I put it into a test with my 35 f1.4 of which both will have an equivalent of 52mm+/-. Both lens are set at f2.8 and the same focal length to be fair. I have to say the 17-55 is very impressive considering that it is not categorize by canon as L lens. No doubt the prime is very very sharp at 2.8 but considering that the zoom is wide open (wide open normally will be soft), it is pretty sharp too. It gets sharper as I step down to f4.
I've not tried the tamron but in terms of aperture and focal lengths, yes, it is a very useful lens!
 
I have the non-is version of the Tamron 17-50 2.8. I love it.

I sold my Canon 17-40L to buy it as the Canon lost/gained a stop at either end of the zoom range (which drove me crazy on my 550d wile shooting video) even though it is supposed to be a constant aperture zoom. The 24-105 does it too..which is a shame.

Even though the build quality is far less than the Canon, the Tamron image wise is close to, if not as, good. Plus it's 2.8.

Phil
 
+1 Agree.

shemster said:
I've just gotten myself a canon ef-s 17-55 f2.8. I put it into a test with my 35 f1.4 of which both will have an equivalent of 52mm+/-. Both lens are set at f2.8 and the same focal length to be fair. I have to say the 17-55 is very impressive considering that it is not categorize by canon as L lens. No doubt the prime is very very sharp at 2.8 but considering that the zoom is wide open (wide open normally will be soft), it is pretty sharp too. It gets sharper as I step down to f4.
I've not tried the tamron but in terms of aperture and focal lengths, yes, it is a very useful lens!
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