Interview with Canon's Larry Thorpe on C300 - Explains a lot
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Rick Burnett
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Why does everything have to be so polarized? There is NO camera that fits everyone perfectly, I can name an issue that bothers me with EVERY camera, and for most cameras, I can name something I *really* like. Just because that feature isn't important for *you* doesn't make it not important for other people, and that goes with ALL features. It amazed me that people have to jump completely on one fence or the other, yet can't understand some sort of gray area in between.
That's what I love about OLPFs that are used on cameras. They are the PERFECT example of picking a balance between the resolution of the green sites (which is 2x) and the red and blue sites (which are 1x), as this applies across ALL cameras. Certain characteristics of cameras aren't there to upset you, they are they for one group of people and not others. There are some that love the size of the Alexa. I've chatted with them. They like a larger camera designed specifically for your shoulder. There are people that already hate the body of the C300, they think it's too small, it's an issue for them. Neither of these people are wrong. They have different needs, different tastes.
I use 60p in action filming, I used 21 to 22p in action sequences. There are tons of reasons why they are used and not used, and it's not always about following trends or what's "hot" at the moment. If you don't need 1080p60, that doesn't make someone else's opinion invalid for them, or others, it just means there is a difference in need. Further, it's a tool in your basket should you happen to need it. I've seen amazing split decisions made on sets due to unforeseen circumstances for whatever reason. It's always nice to know your camera is a swiss army knife which, I have to admit, has A LOT more options today than they have for a long time.
Dustylens, I think I was being a bit liberal with "white paper", I was referring to the technical articles that can be found on the Canon site explaining in detail many aspects of the C300. For instance:
Canon Log Gamma
http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2011/understand_log_gamma.shtml?categoryId=22
On Set Data Management with the C300
http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2011/c300_onset_data_mgmnt.shtml?categoryId=22
EOS C300 for Cinematographers
http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2011/c300_for_cinematographers.shtml?categoryId=22
Again, these are more like articles, but the information does go into depth on certain aspects. They are very educational. I imagine after the camera ships, we'll see more white paper quality information releases from Canon.
That's what I love about OLPFs that are used on cameras. They are the PERFECT example of picking a balance between the resolution of the green sites (which is 2x) and the red and blue sites (which are 1x), as this applies across ALL cameras. Certain characteristics of cameras aren't there to upset you, they are they for one group of people and not others. There are some that love the size of the Alexa. I've chatted with them. They like a larger camera designed specifically for your shoulder. There are people that already hate the body of the C300, they think it's too small, it's an issue for them. Neither of these people are wrong. They have different needs, different tastes.
I use 60p in action filming, I used 21 to 22p in action sequences. There are tons of reasons why they are used and not used, and it's not always about following trends or what's "hot" at the moment. If you don't need 1080p60, that doesn't make someone else's opinion invalid for them, or others, it just means there is a difference in need. Further, it's a tool in your basket should you happen to need it. I've seen amazing split decisions made on sets due to unforeseen circumstances for whatever reason. It's always nice to know your camera is a swiss army knife which, I have to admit, has A LOT more options today than they have for a long time.
Dustylens, I think I was being a bit liberal with "white paper", I was referring to the technical articles that can be found on the Canon site explaining in detail many aspects of the C300. For instance:
Canon Log Gamma
http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2011/understand_log_gamma.shtml?categoryId=22
On Set Data Management with the C300
http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2011/c300_onset_data_mgmnt.shtml?categoryId=22
EOS C300 for Cinematographers
http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2011/c300_for_cinematographers.shtml?categoryId=22
Again, these are more like articles, but the information does go into depth on certain aspects. They are very educational. I imagine after the camera ships, we'll see more white paper quality information releases from Canon.
combatentropy
Veteran
+1. The whole concept of tiered marketing is way overextended.
If this was in response to my comment, you totally missed what I was stating. Anyway, I hope you join in as well. It takes more than just having a fancy piece of gear and making pretty pictures. If the acting and dialogue suck, it doesn't matter how good it looks.
GaryinCalifornia
Veteran
i'd be careful of a challenge with Timur... he might be named after the Persian who had a pretty big empire....
Bern Caughey
Veteran
Seems the WiFi transmits an image at 1 fps, & is probably not responsive enough for pulling focus in realtime.
i'm talking to everyone here man.
I've DPed:
Mark Harris' "Katrina", JDS' "Bonehand, JDS' "Cold calls", Mark Harris' "Bloody Mary", Chris Messinio's "One last message", and Shawn Chittles "This is Death, Your captain Speaking"
and ive worked on and helped out on many more.
That said... perhaps i should finally direct one.
Yeah, you heard the man. Shoot narrative!
I just spent a year working on 30 min short film. Narrative. Why did it take so long?
Because I had no budget and I would rather work with pro's and wait on their availability than amateurs and do it quickly.
There is no making up for experience.
As someone once said (and what I ALWAYS tell potential clients):
Nowadays, everyone wants something Good, Fast and Cheap.
Pick two.
Because I had no budget and I would rather work with pro's and wait on their availability than amateurs and do it quickly.
There is no making up for experience.
As someone once said (and what I ALWAYS tell potential clients):
Nowadays, everyone wants something Good, Fast and Cheap.
Pick two.
That's the way to do it man!
sometimes things happen when you don't overthink things.
Holy cow, we're up to 40 pages on this thread! To celebrate the big 4-0, here's the 4th interview I've found of our good friend Larry Thorpe: http://jtown.tv/
Skip to 107:04 for the interview. Most of the info is similar to what you heard before, but there are some interesting PowerPoint slides for the technical guys and a few new snippets:
Skip to 107:04 for the interview. Most of the info is similar to what you heard before, but there are some interesting PowerPoint slides for the technical guys and a few new snippets:
- The sensor has four parallel readouts...four wires if you will, one each for red, blue, green1 and green2.
- An equivalent to the Hollywood Service center is being set up in New Jersey to service the New York area. Will open by the end of the year.
- By the time the camera ships, there will be a total of 6 service centers in the US that can service the C300.
- Roller shutter at 24 fps is reduced because the sensor reads out at 60 fps (16 ms) which then gets re-clocked back to 24 fps. If you shoot at 60i, the camera is reading out at 120 fields/sec.
- Regarding 60p: again the reason is the DSP and codec from the XF cameras are limited to 30p. But "We are totally aware of what's going on [in the marketplace] and we are working accordingly."
- Explains Canon log with some more detail
- Engineers virtually eliminated fixed pattern noise in the sensor. FPN is what people dislike about video. Beating it way down is what makes the C300 noise seem reminiscent of film grain (although not exactly the same).
- The IR filter and ND unit is a sealed chamber.
- Selling pricing in the US is not released yet because they're still signing contracts with select dealers and rental houses. This will take about another month. Once that's done, we'll know the number.
- The camera can read LUTs through the SD card. Canon is working with 3rd party vendors for the LUTs.
Erich Ocean
Active member
Anyone know what the warranty is on the C300?
I ask because the warranty situation on my Epic-X is just crazy. For starters, it's a one-year warranty (other $30K cameras, e.g. from Panasonic, have a 5 year warranty).
But okay, maybe they wanted to keep the cost down, right? So you spend an extra $2850 to bump it up to three years – better than nothing.
Then I read the fine print.
If I buy Red Armor, I have to use 100% Red accessories, cables, and batteries! Or the warranty is void.
So, anyone know what the warranty is on the C300?
I ask because the warranty situation on my Epic-X is just crazy. For starters, it's a one-year warranty (other $30K cameras, e.g. from Panasonic, have a 5 year warranty).
But okay, maybe they wanted to keep the cost down, right? So you spend an extra $2850 to bump it up to three years – better than nothing.
Then I read the fine print.
If I buy Red Armor, I have to use 100% Red accessories, cables, and batteries! Or the warranty is void.
So, anyone know what the warranty is on the C300?
I called Canon at (855) CINE-EOS and they said the C300 has a 1 year warranty. They seemed very helpful on the phone (and they picked up right away) so feel free to call them with any questions.
Larry Thorpe did mention in various interviews that they would be selling additional service programs.
In comparison, the F3 has a 1 year warranty as well. Sony sells 3 and 5 year extended warranties on the F3 body for $360 and $880 respectively (includes return shipping costs).
Larry Thorpe did mention in various interviews that they would be selling additional service programs.
In comparison, the F3 has a 1 year warranty as well. Sony sells 3 and 5 year extended warranties on the F3 body for $360 and $880 respectively (includes return shipping costs).
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Erich Ocean
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Rick Burnett
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Those numbers don't seem to jive with the ISO16k footage as 16ms would be slower than both the AF100 and the FS100, and the whip pan rolling shutter I observed looked a lot better than what I would expect on the AF100/FS100. Both the AF100/FS100 clock in around ~14ms to read the whole frame. Granted, it's one example, but it seems that number seems off. And rolling shutter is VERY EASY to measure. And it's NOT subjective to the results. AT ALL.
Also, if you are shooting at 24p and your shutter is set to 1/48, the exposure time is 20.83ms. You'd need to expose for longer than how long a frame lasts in 60p (16ms), it's physically impossible to get the exposure length you need for 180 degrees in that setup unless you are adding two frames together. Given that while a row is being read, you cannot record data in that time on that row, you'd have missing light data that would affect fast moving objects across the sensor. That doesn't make sense either, there is no advantage to that. Granted that time is VERY SHORT, but why? You just burn more power. I REALLY doubt it is doing this.
Further, 2.5x speed up compared to what? None of the camera's I've tested the rolling shutter record the frame at 1/24, that's 41.67ms. They have a new frame every 41.67ms, but the sensor reads out as fast as it can, and even the D90 is faster than that. I'm sorry, but there is a WHOLE lot of misinformation being given in that interview as to what the real numbers are and what is really going on, which again, I think are a lot better than he is trying to explain. The 5D has a ~24ms readout in 1080p24 if I recall correctly.
Lastly, this whole revolutionary sensor thing pertaining to the bayer pattern just kills me. Both green pixels CANNOT be shifted half a pixel in terms of 4k photosites, as they'd overlap by 1/4 at the corners. What he meant to say is that the pixel with regards to all 4 that make up a pixel in the final 1080p image are offset, but this has NO advantage to other 4k sensors. NONE. If you look at 4 pixels on ANY 4k sensor with a bayer pattern filter, they have the same advantage/disadvantage in terms of color sampling resolution. The aliasing in the green channel will ALWAYS be less on a bayer sensor. ALWAYS. Given the OLPF is tuned between green and red/blue mostly, you should NEVER see green moire/aliasing on a common OLFP setup. Nothing new, or revolutionary, here.
But that's not even the whole of it. It's the 4k sampling brought down to 1080p that's the real benefit compared to other 1080p sensors. It will suffer the same sub-sampling of light due to lost information across adjacent colors just like ALL OTHER bayer sensors on their own will produce. It's a function of spatial sampling and the resolution of that spatial sampling.
This is why I strongly dislike marketing. They get the buzz words, and then they talk about them in many non-sensical ways pertaining to what is actually going on. Granted, this information is definitely intended for non-engineers, but it really bothers me when people throw out a bunch of technical information that doesn't make sense.
And I am saying that the C300 performs better in what I've seen than most of the specs he's quoting.
And the fixed noise being eliminated?? Please, go download the ISO16k test and watch the image as the camera shifts across the dark face of the dumpster looking thing. As the frame moves, fixed noise patterns remain IN PLACE as it shifts across. It's the first thing I noticed watching the footage. I hardly consider that mostly eliminated. In fact, it has more fixed noise than I've seen on my FS100. It popped out at me immediately. And I am speaking of being in ISO16k. (Note, that camera might not be the final camera and maybe they've fixed it on the production model).
THIS is what I am talking about. (And yes I watched the interview portion of the video). If you want to believe marketing, go ahead, I've done that before, I've been burned and learned my lesson. The real truth is in the camera, when it's released, and we can get our hands on, but if you are planning at this stage of what/where to invest, this information is important to you.
Broadcasters don't seem to say "wow, Canon is right, it's just perfect", no, they use someone like Alan Roberts to evaluate the camera for them and give a rundown of it's technical proficiency. People like Alan Roberts do vetting to prevent someone who does the artistic part wasted time trying to figure out what is wrong with a camera. All this talk about cinematographers not caring about the camera? I bet they care when the camera overheats, or the image sensor goes bad, or thousands of dollars of wasted time dealing with camera problems that delay what they do care about. What happens when you are in a remote location and the camera fails? These things matter and are a part of the technical side of a camera. Reliability is something people are looking too in Canon, and that has NOTHING to do with the image quality. Yet, it's important all the same.
Rick, I think you're taking some of this tech info too literally and trying to analyze it too much and jumping to conclusions. For example, 60 FPS = 1sec/60frames = 16.7 ms. That's just math. They're not necessarily saying the rolling shutter is 16 ms. You have to consider he's not talking to other engineers. Maybe he simplified those slides or some of his wording for whatever reason (like to protect proprietary info for example). Is there something else going on beside the 60 fps readout? Maybe, but would they tell you if it's a trade secret?
Canon doesn't even have any obligation to release any of this tech info. RED doesn't tell you exactly what they're doing.
I personally don't get the feeling that this is some marketing spin. He's just an engineer talking about the tech in a friendly way. These aren't white papers. C'mon man, it's just a casual interview. Relax!
Canon doesn't even have any obligation to release any of this tech info. RED doesn't tell you exactly what they're doing.
I personally don't get the feeling that this is some marketing spin. He's just an engineer talking about the tech in a friendly way. These aren't white papers. C'mon man, it's just a casual interview. Relax!
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Rick Burnett
Section Moderator
Did you miss this sentence in my post:
"Granted, this information is definitely intended for non-engineers, but it really bothers me when people throw out a bunch of technical information that doesn't make sense. "
The question was about rolling shutter, and he responded that it was 2.5 times faster. Than what? Why give a bunch of confusing math based information on frame rates that makes no sense in relevance to the rolling shutter? Sure, it sets an upper bound, but my FS100 at 1080p60 reads the sensor at 60fps. I cannot extrapolate anything other than a max time for the rolling shutter would be of 16ms. If you are gonna go there and quote numbers, then you should at least make them make sense. He didn't have to go to that level WITH numbers to explain it was faster, but he did.
And once the camera is released, it won't be a trade secret anymore as I plan on measuring it to like I've done with all the cameras I've gotten my hands on. It's an easy test and not subjective.
I've never said Canon has an obligation to tell me or anyone anything, but I'm sorry, there is a lot of marketing spin trying to explain certain technologies as if they were something new. Super Green? EVERY bayer pattern sensor has 2x green. EVERY bayer sensor has the same sampling resolution density (albiet different pixel sizes). These things are being touted as revolutionary, but it's the same thing we see in all modern designs. That's called spin. Of course they are trying to do these interviews to try and build up interest in the camera, that only makes sense. But, it's the same thing I felt when Sony kept going on and on about the 3DLUT technology in the FS100. Guess what, it's no better than the AF100 in color reproduction. I shot the same things with both and I felt the results were on par with each other. Even further, at least on the FS100 side, I think the 3DLUT is part of the highlight handling problem.
And actually, Red does tell you what they are doing with some things if you ask. Now, I've not verified it, but Jim told me that the read/reset of the Epic sensor was 11ms. I've not independently verified it, but Adam Wilt has done some Red One measurements, with additions made by me as well in the comments (I did other cameras):
http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/awilt/story/overview_several_first-generation_versacams/P1/
Or if you care for how this is measured, here is me talking about measuring it on the AF100:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?235271-AF100-Rolling-Shutter-Measurements&
In fact, other than size which I do think is amazing, the only revolutionary thing I see that I've not heard anyone else doing yet is that they read red/blue/green out in parallel. That's it. Everything else is tried and true technology that has already existed, and most of it, for some time.
This seems to be a problem with a you know who... regarding the C300, the four teams that shot with it, didn't complain about anything. Nothing. Of course they might be biased since they were shooting for Canon, but still, LaForet blogs regularly and was extremely happy with how the camera performed and how easy it was to work with. There are also behind the scenes on every single film.
Same with the Alexa. Besides me, having shot with it a few times and never, ever had any issue whatsoever, no other DP I care to read about, has complained over anything.
Same story for the Sony F35.
So, the issues you are mentioning, reliability and honest technical information only belongs to this OTHER company. And this is no secret, its all very well documented, especially the overheating issues, reliability and the incorrect (or misleading) technical specs.
No need to all the sudden turn this around to the new kid on the block!
Where have you ever seen the other company have this sort of technical interviews to the public, or made available to everyone? Never. Every time they care to talk, its all about selling it, how great it is and how many Ks it shoots, and whatnot. Never in depth tech talk.
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