Interview with Canon's Larry Thorpe on C300 - Explains a lot

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Barry_Green said:
They will never respond to any other product quickly, they will always take way too long and will come out with a reheated version of yesterday's technology and they will charge more (or way more) for it than anyone else does.
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That sounds like a derogatory and misleading remark, Barry. While I do agree that they're usually late to the game in regards to utilizing the newest technology, the camcorders they bring to the game typically are some of the best performers in it's category. Let's not forget that the XF300 series camcorders are the first 1/3" chip camcorders to be approved for full HD acquisition by the BBC, use cheap non-proprietary media for a full-raster 4:2:2 codec and have a lens that seems to defy physics (especially when it came to diffraction performance). Who else could claim that in June of 2010?

Maybe to you that's just a simple reheat, but I can clearly see a good amount of innovation in what they develop.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: When speaking to a Canon rep about entering the HD market (back when the XL2 was introduced), he said this: "Canon has never been interested in being first to market with a particular technology, only the best."

From my point of view, they stick by that mission very well.
 
stockfuel said:
Seems like Jim Jannard has alot to see about the C300 and Canon in general.
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?67170-The-industry
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I've followed RED since they started in Dec 2005 and I had high hopes for them. But I think they're on the road to self destruction. Their problem, IMO, is their leadership. Looking at that thread and stuff he's said in the past, Jannard seems very narrow minded.

I'm not sure if he's truly this way or he's just putting on a show for the Reduser crowd. But in business (or in just about anything), you can't be too narrowly focused or your competitors will out flank you. The C300 could end up out-flanking Scarlet because it's faster, easier and more economical to use. But he can't seem to realize this. If he doesn't, he might not improve his products in those areas. Instead, RED is too distracted by their singled minded mission to be number one, often at the expense of being able to execute.

He's also branding RED like the way he branded Oakley. But Oakley is sports performance and a macho attitude works there. Here, all he's doing is alienating and polarizing people in a professional environment. I think this is a terrible strategy that could backfire spectacularly.
 
Piolet said:
The C300 could end up out-flanking Scarlet because it's faster, easier and more economical to use. But he can't seem to realize this. If he doesn't, he might not improve his products in those areas. Instead, RED is too distracted by their singled minded mission to be number one, often at the expense of being able to execute.
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That's my reckoning, as well. Straight to CF Cards, NDs built in, Audio ports that don't need phantom powering, and incredible DR along with rather clean-looking lowlight performance all factor into an equation for today's workflow. I couldn't get behind this with the F3, even less when I learned that the camera's basically an S-Log camera and isn't all that good without it.

IF only it where here now.

One does have to wonder, though, how soon it'll become obsolete. Sadly, not shooting 4K or raw, the lack of dual link and 3D Link are all things to be considered part of the "now" as well. So, how soon until Canon pushes a better camera out of the door at the same price? Is it going to be more expensive after they find a way to prove that the C300 is worth the money?

Hmm~
 
I as well like what the C300 offers, it's what it doesn't offer at it's price point is a turn off to me. If given the opportunity to shoot with it on a project and I wasn't the one buying it, I'd love to work with it. I'm actually on the short list for a ongoing project that Canon is a sponsor of and has been using DSLR's to this point. If I get the gig and they switch to the C300 I'd do a back flip with joy. With that, as someone who already owns a AF100 with a large selection of Nikon glass, two Zeiss ZF's, a KiProMini and no Canon EF glass, the F3 seems to be my most practical choice for the money. Slog firmware can be rented here in NYC for $150 a day or weekend when needed or client is paying.

One question that as far as I can tell hasn't been brought up here, is there any reason one wouldn't be able to use Nikon/Zeiss ZF glass with the EF mount version of the C300 with say a higher end Nikon to Canon adapter like the Novoflex? We've been doing it with the 5D for a couple years now. Not ideal but a option.
 
Kholi said:
One does have to wonder, though, how soon it'll become obsolete. Sadly, not shooting 4K or raw, the lack of dual link and 3D Link are all things to be considered part of the "now" as well. So, how soon until Canon pushes a better camera out of the door at the same price? Is it going to be more expensive after they find a way to prove that the C300 is worth the money?
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My personal opinion is a more advance version could come pretty quickly (maybe in 2 years) based on Canon's 2015 business plan. But maybe this is why they're targeting the C300 more toward the big clients instead of casual users who might be upset about a new model. If you're a big client, in two years the C300 will have easily paid for itself. And even afterwards there will still be a market for a good HD camera like the C300, so they could be sold into the used market.

If we look at digital still photography history, the tech advancement was ruthless. Canon and Nikon routinely released new cameras that were better and better year after year. Many times a lower price model had a better feature than a pro model released the previous year. It all depended on the maturity of the tech and if there was market demand for the camera.

It's just from the interviews I've posted and reading between the lines, I just get a feeling Canon is brewing a lot of stuff.
 
Kholi said:
I saw it yesterday and was pretty impressed. Have to agree, to me the camera looks like it's outputting the closest to Alexa footage that you're gonna get without actually shooting Alexa.

Also, weird how no one's talking about the dramatically reduced Rolling Shutter or Jello effects on the C300. Vincent's short was bumpy, jumpy, all over the place. There was only one instance where I could spot the jello motion. The rest was pretty tame. It'll be interesting to see the versus tests when it comes out.

Right now, though, I want to use it. If I can get my hands on one I'll shoot it over shooting Epic to see how it runs.
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I don't see how you can judge the IQ of the C300 with this horribly encoded example? The cinematography and grading look fantastic in this video, no doubt, but I DO NOT see any IQ in this video that looks great. At 1080p there are issues ALL over the place. And I am NOT saying it's the footage from the C300, I see youtube compression issues that just look HORRIBLE.

Look at the beginning with the moving tree branches, do you see the distortion happening from the encoding? Look at the macro-blocking on the faces, in the out of focus backgrounds. The encoder is just failing to capture the detail. Look at the noise in many of the shots, it's making it through, but you can see the encoder attempting to smooth it out.

There is NOTHING in this trailer that I can extract that puts it ahead of even the 5D. Again, I am not blaming the camera, I am blaming YouTube. Or, the person who transcoded the footage.

When I looked at the Mobius short, it was WAY BEYOND the IQ of this example. Cinematography does not equal IQ.
 
When I saw the trailer, I saw the awesome roll off in both shadow and highlight. There's detail everywhere, the noise you mention are in the daylight shots and are obvious compression artifacts not ISO or processor compression noise, the night shots are clean as a baby's butt.

And yes, I can see how this camera is miles away from a 5D, even in these few shots. It looks extremely cinematic, the shots inside the hospital are just lush. Again, this is not one of those Red commercials with beauty shots from start to finish, this is 'real life'!

For those, just wait until this camera is out, and you'll see people shooting awesome shorts on it, making it shine with those 'beauty' shots.

(Red, we got a problem...)
 
Nuno Dias said:
When I saw the trailer, I saw the awesome roll off in both shadow and highlight. There's detail everywhere, the noise you mention are in daylight shots and are the obvious compression artifacts not ISO or processor compression noise, the night shots are clean. And yes, I can see how this camera is miles away from a 5D, even in these few shots. It looks extremely cinematic, the shots inside the hospital are just lush. Again, this is not one of those Red commercials with beauty shots from start to finish, this is 'real life'!

For those, just wait until this camera is out, and you'll see people shooting awesome shorts on it, making it shine with those 'beauty' shots.

Red, we got a problem...
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haha, the shots in the hospital are really nice, nice skin colors, really filmic. but man, you're so boring ..... i understand why your wife is in the other room watching tv shows.
 
Nuno Dias said:
When I saw the trailer, I saw the awesome roll off in both shadow and highlight. There's detail everywhere, the noise you mention are in the daylight shots and are obvious compression artifacts not ISO or processor compression noise, the night shots are clean as a baby's butt.

And yes, I can see how this camera is miles away from a 5D, even in these few shots. It looks extremely cinematic, the shots inside the hospital are just lush. Again, this is not one of those Red commercials with beauty shots from start to finish, this is 'real life'!

For those, just wait until this camera is out, and you'll see people shooting awesome shorts on it, making it shine with those 'beauty' shots.

(Red, we got a problem...)
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It looks cinematic because of the composition, the lighting, and the grading. Did you actually look at it in 1080p? DVDs look better on my monitor than this did. WHERE is the detail? look at the guys shirt as he's walking away from the camera, the cotton pattern, it's full of compression noise. Look at the sky shots near the beginning, there is TONS of banding, all over the place.

Really, you consider this an example of great IQ? You cannot judge anything out of the C300 with this example because the encoding has destroyed it all. I've seen TONS of material released on youtube with the 5D or 7D that matches or exceeds this.

Frankly, the image quality of this short on youtube looks like complete crap.

Here is a 5D shot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKtXoX5hrlI

I see this as no better / no worse than what youtube has done to that trailer. In fact, there is less compression noise in this short than in that trailer, but more banding.
 
Rick, you look at banding, I look at the overall texture, the way the light works. I couldn't care less about that banding, because its a compression issues. Again, the butterfly short, its exactly what misleads people, its exactly what Red does. Beauty shots. Its a butterfly on a green leaf!

How about a dramatic structure? What about when you have to shoot in places that don't necessarily look nice, like a hospital? What about when you have to edit according to the actors rhythm and not the best or most beautiful part of the shot? What about when art direction is lifeless and mundane and you still have to make it work?

That's film making, or at least, that's the kind of film making industry Canon want's to tackle. And I can tell from these 5 shorts that it will, easily.

Simply because it looks awesome. Its not cold and lifeless as a Red image or a Sony image. Just wait and see. You're dying to kill this camera, no doubt about it, but what you're doing is nothing but an exercise in futility.
 
Rick Burnett said:
It looks cinematic because of the composition, the lighting, and the grading. Did you actually look at it in 1080p? DVDs look better on my monitor than this did. WHERE is the detail? look at the guys shirt as he's walking away from the camera, the cotton pattern, it's full of compression noise. Look at the sky shots near the beginning, there is TONS of banding, all over the place.

Really, you consider this an example of great IQ? You cannot judge anything out of the C300 with this example because the encoding has destroyed it all. I've seen TONS of material released on youtube with the 5D or 7D that matches or exceeds this.

Frankly, the image quality of this short on youtube looks like complete crap.

Here is a 5D shot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKtXoX5hrlI

I see this as no better / no worse than what youtube has done to that trailer. In fact, there is less compression noise in this short than in that trailer, but more banding.
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This is just excessively argumentative and confrontational, especially the tone of this post and the all caps on some words in your previous post. You say things like as if they're absolutes. Like there is no way to appreciate the image aspects of this trailer. Maybe you can't, but it doesn't mean someone else like Nuno or Kholi can appreciate the tonal responses in the trailer. You're free to express your own opinions but the tone of your posts are coming off as confrontational.
 
Rick Burnett said:
When I looked at the Mobius short, it was WAY BEYOND the IQ of this example. Cinematography does not equal IQ.
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I've been looking at footage online for just as long as you have, Rick.

If you can't see the obviousness in it, that's a different story. But even the lower quality Mobius short and yes, this uploaded version of the Howard's trailer, has enough information in it for my eyes to pick up a difference in image quality.

Again, maybe you can't see it, but my eyes see it.

Piolet said:
This is just excessively argumentative and confrontational, especially the tone of this post and the all caps on some words in your previous post. You say things like as if they're absolutes. Like there is no way to appreciate the image aspects of this trailer. Maybe you can't, but it doesn't mean someone else like Nuno or Kholi can appreciate the tonal responses in the trailer. You're free to express your own opinions but the tone of your posts are coming off as confrontational.
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Exactly. I didn't call the trailer cinematic. I'm looking at the material and commenting on IQ specifically, even IF it's gone through the torture of compression. I've done enough and seen enough to know how far compression will go to destroy an image, and I'm perfectly capable of filling in the blanks at this stage of my career.
 
Well, if anything this camera has stirred things up. I read that post by Jim at RED and think that he's like David Koresh. Then I think, RED better be careful. He's outright insulting Japanese corporations, who at the drop of the hat could smash him with their global resources. I like what RED has done technically. But spiritually, Jim needs some prozac with statements that he makes. He could also had some out to his minions as well. Look at Philip Bloom. He has sent back TWO cameras that have failed. I have shot Canons for 3 decades. I have NEVER sent a Canon in for service or repair, much less one that does not work before I can use it.

As for the Ron Howard short. It looks as cinematic as anything else. THe Youtube is highly compressed, for sure. But I've always said about watching uploaded internet footage, "Don't sit too close to the TV or you'll go blind". Back off your monitor about 7 feet. Stop touching the monitor with your nose looking for artifacts. It's YOUTUBE! Back up a bit off the monitor guys when watching Vimeo and youtube.

@Rick. Too funny about the military shooting. I just got done shooting a corporate piece for the same field. They package and supply tactical gear to the Military and police forces. My buddy working with me was shooting the stills on the 5D and I asked him to shoot some video in between sorta as a C cam. The footage look horrible if there isn't a 2 inch DOF.

@Bern (Or I'll call you Black Bloc). I can see by your avatar that you're confrontational. My real name? Take the simple time to click on my profile and you will see. And you will see that I spell out what I do. I don't run around saying I'm a DOP, a cinematographer, director, or anything. I shoot stills and I shoot with video cameras. I've spent the last 25 years lighting and shooting what I call "architorture". I can light anything because of that 25 year run. I have had the great opportunity to transition into moving photography. But I'm no Scorsese, even though I have met and lit the guy 3 times. I'm happy that you have 2nd AC'd with Patrick Dempsey and shot Jessica Alba (who I smoked pot with when she was in high school, only to throw light at her a handful of times later in life). All sorts of people here have careers, opinions, experiences. But if you feel like whipping our manhood out for a pissing match, more power to you. You just keep on hiding in your protestor outfit. You don't show up on the PSA sets dressed like that, do you?

@Piolet ... Rick has just as much right to post as he does as you do. Rick and I have gone back and fourth, but I still respect his right to chime in and do it as he see fit or passionately. There are hundreds of posts where he has been very informative. Whats the old saying? Opinions are like A**holes, we all have them... Take them for what they are worth. ANd by worth, I mean what it's worth to you. Rick, go ahead and use your CAPS all you want.

COme on guys, enough with pecker checking. We are all here to DISCUSS (wink at Piolet) cameras. And there are plenty of good ones to choose from. The C300 is just another tool in the shed that we have the wonderful opportunity to look at, use, see, feel, or pass.
 
How can you comment on something that is not there? The detail is gone. The compression has destroyed all the fine detail in the images. There is noise all over the place. Look in the sky around the windmill. It's a horrible example of showing the C300 work well. As I said, the Mobius short impressed me, this example does not.

Nuno, you say this is a real life example, what does that even mean? You dont't know what they used on set, you don't know what lights they had. If this was a "real world" example of using the C300 in a feature production, they'd have lights, they'd have everything they need to make the cinematic aspects of the production perfect. I'd love to see this BEFORE it got to youtube.

This isn't me tearing down the C300, it's tearing down judgement of a camera's capability by something that destroys what the camera outputs.

Let's say you are putting together a film for a 4K projector. You shoot the same scene with the Red Epic at 5K and the C300 at 1080p. Then you compare them both at 1080p. They are both going to look great, no doubt. But, that's not the target, the target is 4K. If you blow up the C300 to 4K, I have no doubt that the Epic at 5K is going to have more resolution. If resolution is important to you, then it IS going to make a difference, and something you couldn't see at 1080p.

My curiosity is in the IQ of the Canon, not what Ron Howard's daughter saw at the cinematic quality she was trying to achieve. If you post an example here trying to show the C300 shine, wouldn't you expect people to give their critical opinion of it? I mean, one of the BIG things that the C300 offers is MUCH HIGHER 1080p resolution than a lot of 1080p cameras. That's lost here. The C300 offers highlight protection, it looks no different than how the highlights are handling on the 5D, which is fantastic to me. The C300 appears to have a vastly improved rolling shutter performance, none of these shots have any fast movements across the sensor to even show that. I find the XDCAM footage to get less instances of banding in it compared to AVCHD, yet, youtube helped to drop some nice big banding in the footage.

The daylight scenes have noise, the night like scenes have none, but, you don't know if the daylight scenes were filmed darker and just raised and the night scenes filmed lighter and just darkened. Do you remember the Leo test with the Red Epic sensor? When I saw that, I thought the Epic was going to have AMAZING low light capabilities. but that doesn't seem to be the case. The ISO16K shot that was leaked out says WAY MORE about what the C300 can do than ANYTHING in this trailer example.

I'm all for praising a cameras capabilities when I see them, and with the Mobius short we see a nice large DR, we see amazing detail retained, we see great rolling shutter performance, and we see nicely handled highlights. That to me shows the C300 shining in many areas where other cameras have difficulty. This trailer shows limited dynamic range, many scenes with hardly much chromatic content, totally obliterated by youtubes compression. I would NEVER judge the C300 off of this footage because nothing the C300 excels at, other than highlight handling, is shown here.

I CANNOT WAIT for more raw (and by that, I mean straight from the camera ungraded) footage to show up from the camera. That is what I want to see.
 
Rick Burnett said:
I CANNOT WAIT for more raw (and by that, I mean straight from the camera ungraded) footage to show up from the camera. That is what I want to see.
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I use the word native media for this. Raw or RAW refers to pre-bayar and this precedent was set long before red
 
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