C300: Initial Thoughts

KyleProhaska

KyleProhaska

Veteran
My C300 showed up on tuesday and although I've been too busy to really get out of the house to go somewhere with it, I have been able to get a feel for it and the image. I love the weight and the ergonomics overall. It fits pretty comfortably in my hand and all the buttons are well placed. The battery life is excellent! The LCD is nice and sharp and can twist and turn pretty much wherever you need it to. In terms of the image, I'm pretty over the moon about it. It's the most detailed image I've had the pleasure of working with. The codec is really strong and can be pushed a lot without falling apart. I haven't done any shots where I've pushed the ISO past 1650 but that'll come. The noise around 1000-1250 is a little more then I would've wanted (shots in our living room) but I think that has a lot to do with the colors in the room which are browns/reds. Those always tend to get a little noisier. I'm still learning to expose the camera properly especially for LOG. It's doubtful I'll use any other gamma. Depending on the contrast in the shot, LOG with just a tiny bit of tweaking gives a look I prefer. I don't like to push things far or over CC, crush, etc. I wish the EVF showed me the waveform, ran into some problems today trying out shots without the handle/lcd unit. I could've used zebras but I still prefer a visual representation of my exposure.

The Tokina 11-16 is absolutely gorgeous on this camera. The Canon 70-200 looks fantastic as well. Overall I'm REALLY pleased with what I'm seeing. I'll get a better feel for it as I get out and shoot with it more. I'll update the thread with more content when I can get out of this office and my own backyard!

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Yeah, that camera is really great. The skin tones on the shots you posted are just splendid. Great good luck with it!
 
It really does look good Kyle. Ours is in Atlanta. Just waiting on the PO to get to them before I can pick it up.
Take care
 
Kyle congrats on the buy and your beautiful family, I am curious on what made you get the 300, I've seen some of your other posts and I think you were considering other options, I'm eager to know what made you decide on the 300
 
aalleexx said:
Kyle congrats on the buy and your beautiful family, I am curious on what made you get the 300, I've seen some of your other posts and I think you were considering other options, I'm eager to know what made you decide on the 300
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You're going to laugh but a big reason why I even started looking at cameras seriously was the need for a tax write off. That and the fact Canon has a fantastic 0% APR financing opportunity available until Dec 31st, it was the perfect way to get the camera, not pay the full amount right now, and write off the whole amount at the same time.

On a different note, I hope to shoot a feature in the fall I'm in the middle of writing, will be fundraising for next year, etc. and the C300 is perfect for that. The budget makes the C300 a good choice, it's a lot of night work so its low-light performance is good, the TC/Genlock, HD-SDI, etc. options make it good for on-set, a monitor to me for review, and proper sync with a sound-man. It's compact and doesn't HAVE TO have a large rig for certain times, so I can just pick it up and grab a shot if need be. Battery life is fantastic which means I don't have to worry about it much, shoots on CF cards which aren't incredibly expensive and I can record to a backup right inside the camera while it records to the first card. The internal codec is enough for me based on what I'm seeing.

Aside from use on a feature, it's the perfect all in one camera for different kinds of work I can go after in 2013 since I have it now. I don't have to own a bunch of different cameras. The C300 fits most things I can think of really well.

So that's some of the reasoning :)
 
the only reason keeping me from buying the 300 is no 1080/60p, that's a deal breaker for me in my personal business



KyleProhaska said:
You're going to laugh but a big reason why I even started looking at cameras seriously was the need for a tax write off. That and the fact Canon has a fantastic 0% APR financing opportunity available until Dec 31st, it was the perfect way to get the camera, not pay the full amount right now, and write off the whole amount at the same time.

On a different note, I hope to shoot a feature in the fall I'm in the middle of writing, will be fundraising for next year, etc. and the C300 is perfect for that. The budget makes the C300 a good choice, it's a lot of night work so its low-light performance is good, the TC/Genlock, HD-SDI, etc. options make it good for on-set, a monitor to me for review, and proper sync with a sound-man. It's compact and doesn't HAVE TO have a large rig for certain times, so I can just pick it up and grab a shot if need be. Battery life is fantastic which means I don't have to worry about it much, shoots on CF cards which aren't incredibly expensive and I can record to a backup right inside the camera while it records to the first card. The internal codec is enough for me based on what I'm seeing.

Aside from use on a feature, it's the perfect all in one camera for different kinds of work I can go after in 2013 since I have it now. I don't have to own a bunch of different cameras. The C300 fits most things I can think of really well.

So that's some of the reasoning :)
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Erik Naso said:
Kyle what lenses are you looking at or do you already have EF lenses?
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I have a 24-105 F4, 70-200 F2.8 IS II, & Tokina 11-16 F2.8

Shooting first gig with the camera tonight. Small event recording. No clue of the environment really. Run/gun. We'll see how it goes :P
 
Shot a little event tonight for AARP. Was difficult but I think it turned out ok. The audio isn't fantastic but that wasn't the C300's fault. Lighting was just overhead florescents, nothing more. ISO 2000, 70-200 @ 200 and F4. I used Cinema Locked Mode and quickly CC'd these but they still need tweaking. I shot 60+GB of footage and ran the battery down to 3min. Camera treated me well. Since I had to lift the camera up and I'm like 5' 10" it was super difficult to adjust the audio levels when needed without interrupting what I was shooting. The magnification feature to check focus was invaluable to check focus constantly.

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KyleProhaska said:
Shot a little event tonight for AARP. Was difficult but I think it turned out ok. The audio isn't fantastic but that wasn't the C300's fault. Lighting was just overhead florescents, nothing more. ISO 2000, 70-200 @ 200 and F4. I used Cinema Locked Mode and quickly CC'd these but they still need tweaking. I shot 60+GB of footage and ran the battery down to 3min. Camera treated me well. Since I had to lift the camera up and I'm like 5' 10" it was super difficult to adjust the audio levels when needed without interrupting what I was shooting. The magnification feature to check focus was invaluable to check focus constantly.

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Dang! Overheads only. Wow! So much room to work with.
 
The C300 is incredible in low light, and what's even better is that the noise when evident is actually very organic in comparison to other cameras I've shot on. It looks and feels to me like film grain -- and as such, I don't have a problem pushing the camera to 6400 ASA if I have to. I shot the entire intro skit of this variety show episode at 3200 ASA and a couple shots were upwards of 6400 ASA:

 
I'm having a very hard time reading this post and probably just need to walk away. I'm too jealous ;)

Screen grabs from your home look great, Kyle. AARP? Well, not so awesome but also not completely horrible. I imagine that the flat lighting and odd background setup were completely out of your control/influence.
 
KyleProhaska said:
I have a 24-105 F4, 70-200 F2.8 IS II, & Tokina 11-16 F2.8
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What is your opinion of the 70-200 F2.8 IS II for event shooting with the C100? I shot an event friday night with the 24-105 F4 and it worked well but I am in the market for a 70-200. Undecided between the F4 IS (much lighter in weight and on wallet) or the F2.8 IS. I'm leaning towards the F4 as it would be easier for handheld/monopod and the C100 should be able to handle the lower light, or do you think the F2.8 is significantly better?
 
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