C500: Good demos for C500?

Chris Santucci

Chris Santucci

Veteran
Anyone know of any good demos (commercials, films) online for C500 that don't look like they were shot on a Canon XL1?

Thanks for any help.
 
I think the Canon's were mostly for low-light scenes. I saw some of the camera tests he did before the movie years ago, and the Canon still didn't look as good as the Arri for normal stuff.
 
Yeah, I have all his C500 tests, thanks. I also found these in case anyone needs to see good examples of C500 work that are HD:

Need For Speed trailer specifically indicating Alexa and C500 shots: https://youtu.be/ThoC0ItwlVc

C500 Canon demo: https://vimeo.com/63164184

I'm not surprised the C500 never caught on big since Canon themselves released some pretty poor demos. Considering they were asking $30K for this camera initially, they should have spent the dough on good demos.
 
A bit of a side swipe.. releasing tests is not even good enough, you need the DP conentry (because any cam looks good with a bunch of HMI through a 12.12) and the colourist comentary and to see the colourist throwing the wheels.

Like the tapdance.. personally I think they over crushed the blacks and didnt recover the highlights enough, but that doesnt mean that those things could not have happened - without raw footage or a colourist commentary we will never know?

BTW I reckon with the right recorder it is a good cam.
 
Weren't the night scenes on "Wolf Of Wall Street" shot on C500? Other majors too- didn't keep notes.

Michael Cioni of Light Iron raved about the C500 color- but he never mentioned the fan noise issue on location.

I always felt the skin tone shooting RAW were great. But transferring RMF to DPX files resulted in an enormous amount of data. No one ever- ever wanted to shoot Canon RAW once we started talking about IT needs. Referring to low budget features of course.

The C300 Mk2 is what the C500 should have been from the get go. Why still hash it out? At the end of the day the C300 Mk2 isn't really that much more expensive once you put together a full kit. The face detect and tracking actually works- when you have a reasonable amount of light. A working autofocus makes the C300 Mk2 relevant today- when so many productions seem willing to toss a skilled focus puller off the production boat.
 
The C500 is like a C300 on steroids! I was on the fence about picking one up when they dropped to $6,999 Anyway I bought one and the Odyssey 7Q+ It can shoot:
1080 8 bit 422 MXF internal I'm amazed by the clean looking codec.
2K RGB 444 12 and 10 bit to a external recorder.
4K Canon Raw, and to some recorders convert to ProRes.

Very happy with the C500 :)

Be aware if you are using this camera for documentary filming and recording longer interviews, you will need to rig an external fan system to deal with the internal fan noise that is triggered when the camera gets toasty recording in 2K and 4K, not a problem in 1080 internal. There is another thread on this forum dealing with the fan noise.

Here is a thread I opened on EOSHD

http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/20644-canon-c500-is-it-worth-7k-new/#comment-161158
 
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Mitch Gross said:
Man and Beast was the demo film Canon produced, and I thought they did an excellent job of it. Jeff Cronenweth shot it.
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Classic useless. We have no idea how much gear was used or not to make this.

The period opening looked like big lights, the tent looked like yellow puke but may have been so dark that an alexa wouldnt even read - so maybe a huge demo of the camera!

A couple of sketchy sunsets too - sunset edges speak a lot to me.

S
 
I saw this projected in 4K in an IMAX theater in Vegas when they debuted it. The color and blacks were quite impressive at the time. You can get a lot out of such pieces if you know where to look.

Of course I know some cameras that are more impressive now, but I don't wish to be rude. :-D
 
morgan_moore said:
releasing tests is not even good enough, you need the DP conentry

I think they over crushed the blacks and didnt recover the highlights enough
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Exactly. We need to see full-on films to judge the camera from. The short that David Devlin shot for Red a few years back ("Tattoo?"), I thought was an excellent demo. I don't understand why the major camera companies are so lax when it comes to producing demos for new cameras.

NorBro said:
I like these two:

https://vimeo.com/70715892

https://vimeo.com/98379778
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Outstanding, thanks!

klk said:
Weren't the night scenes on "Wolf Of Wall Street" shot on C500? Other majors too- didn't keep notes.

At the end of the day the C300 Mk2 isn't really that much more expensive once you put together a full kit.
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I came across this during my research: https://shotonwhat.com/cameras/canon-eos-c500-camera

I considered C300MKII but then I'm not going full Odyssey route yet for 4K. If I need raw, I'll probably rent that recorder.

B.Berry said:
Be aware if you are using this camera for documentary filming and recording longer interviews, you will need to rig an external fan system to deal with the internal fan noise that is triggered when the camera gets toasty recording in 2K and 4K, not a problem in 1080 internal. There is another thread on this forum dealing with the fan noise.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. I suppose a cold pack would help in that regard. I noticed in 1080 mode, the fan noise is not audible.

Mitch Gross said:
Man and Beast was the demo film Canon produced, and I thought they did an excellent job of it. Jeff Cronenweth shot it.
Click to expand...

Yes, I remembered that from the C500 release, but when I looked for it yesterday, all I could find were low res versions that look like they were shot wide open with plastic lenses. And then I realized it's not as impressive as I remembered it being, haha.
 
Hey Chris, from what I read you will never be happy with the image from the C500. Just get a BM Ursa Mini Pro, and move on!
 
I just found out that a brand new Canon C 500 is being sold for € 3.500, about $ 4.000, which is a € 3.000 reduction on the list price. I mainly shoot documentaries as a one man band, I don't need 4K and I am happy with a good 1080 HD, do you think I should grab this chance?
 
I'm not sure why you'd want that over a lighter, newer, cheaper c100 mark ii (or even mark i) for 1080. The c500 doesn't have a handle on it, even for run and gun. And if it's 422 you want, throw a ninja or ninja star on the c100 and it's prores 422.
 
The C300/C500 have the higher bitrate via XFAVC MPEG2 vs. the lower bitrate in AVCHD...if it matters.

The price difference isn't much and I think having the external 4K for the future would be a good option.
 
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