C500: Rise of the C500

Combined with the 7Q I think the C500 offers a really thorough package, albeit one that lags behind the competition a fair margin in terms of DR.

That said, I'm well and truly tired of external recorders - for proxies? Sure. But having to rely on BNC cables for your master files just isn't as safe and rock solid as internal recording options, and it's just one more thing to have to fret about on set. My next camera is going to have onboard recording - we've come too far to have to fret about tethering things anymore.
 
For clarity, the Odyssey7Q currently captures 4K RAW files from the Canon C500 from 24-60p.

Coming later this month (February 2014), it will also capture

- QHD RAW up to 60p
- 2K 12-bit 444 in .DPX up to 60p
- 1080p 12-bit 444 in .DPX up to 60p
- 1080p 10-bit 422 up to 120p

That's what we are highly confident we will have completed for the upcoming firmware release. We plan to support everything the C500 can output. Yes it is true that Canon's 2K RAW file implementation is "unique" but we believe that we can engineer our way to a solution.

While I cannot give further timelines for implementing the rest of our Canon C500 support, I will share a bit of insider perspective. When Canon dropped the price of the C500 on January 1st, we recognized that this wouldcreate an increased interest in our clients to get more Canon C500 support on the Odyssey7Q. Within a week we had many inquiries about it. We adjusted our coding schedules, hired additional programmers and just a few weeks later are able to announce that we will have a great deal of the camera's outputs supported within this month. Take this as an indication as to where our priorities lie and our capabilities extend.

I will state again that we intend to fully support all outputs of the Canon C500.
 
Grug said:
Combined with the 7Q I think the C500 offers a really thorough package, albeit one that lags behind the competition a fair margin in terms of DR.

That said, I'm well and truly tired of external recorders - for proxies? Sure. But having to rely on BNC cables for your master files just isn't as safe and rock solid as internal recording options, and it's just one more thing to have to fret about on set. My next camera is going to have onboard recording - we've come too far to have to fret about tethering things anymore.
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What do you mean by "lags behind"? I mean really I want to know what I have to be aware of, thanks.

And from my perspective it was brilliant on Canons part to rely on an external recorder. Look what was available last year for 4k and compare price wise and features wise to what you get with the q7. I was turned off to the camera until the q7, bulky monster, now sleek city.
 
At any one time, the C500 will show 12 stops of Dynamic Range. Change the ISO and that 12 stop window will move up or down, but it is still 12 stops. The window can move so far that it is roughly equivalent to almost 20 stops, but only 12 are available at one time.

Honestly, I consider the C500's implementation of sensitivity and dynamic range handling to be quite effective. But it is different from ARRI or RED. And Sony is different from them all.
 
lightstrum said:
What do you mean by "lags behind"? I mean really I want to know what I have to be aware of, thanks.

And from my perspective it was brilliant on Canons part to rely on an external recorder. Look what was available last year for 4k and compare price wise and features wise to what you get with the q7. I was turned off to the camera until the q7, bulky monster, now sleek city.
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I mean that with 12 stops of total DR and not a huge amount of that allocated to the highlights, the overexposure latitude on the C500 (and the C300 for that matter) lags behind the F3 (13.5 stops), Alexa (14.5 stops) and the F5(5)/F65 (14 stops). It's certainly not the end of the world, but it can be the difference between a bright splash of sunlight on someone's face or a harsh highlight clip on someone's face, so it's something to look out for.

Of course, though it may not fair as well in bright light, in low-light scenes it's the king of the hill. Just something to be aware of. The 7Q is undoubtably a far more elegant solution than most external recorders - I just don't like having to rely on 'external' recording. It's better to keep the media integral and the monitoring external IMO.
 
One really shouldn't just go by a number. X stops of Dynamic Range is just that, a number. What do all of those stops really look like? Where is the noise floor? How is color rendered throughout this range?

Each of the cameras handle these factors a bit differently, which muddies the statistics of "X number of stops of Dyamic Range" considerably. In practice you would be surprised just how close or functionally close they can really be.
 
I have a question: when can we expect some other recording format other than canon raw and .dpx which looks nice but isn't as post friendly as pro res or dnxhd? Until that time I have a really lovely low power monitor with some SSD drives.. C'mon Mitch throw another log on the programmers and lets get the party started . . Dpx is a trifle unwieldy .
 
Amen to that! Convergent has a poor record of delivery. Working options talk, BS walks.
i bought mine according to the listed specs and discovered all the caveats.
We love you Mitch--clean up the BS fact over there!


Mark Smith said:
I have a question: when can we expect some other recording format other than canon raw and .dpx which looks nice but isn't as post friendly as pro res or dnxhd? Until that time I have a really lovely low power monitor with some SSD drives.. C'mon Mitch throw another log on the programmers and lets get the party started . . Dpx is a trifle unwieldy .
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guys one question ..... some of you owned c300 before going to c500.... but how do u handhold your c500 now, when u dont have the handle anymore? i am sure many of you got used to handhold c300 stripped down, but how do u do it now? did u find a solution?

Regards
 
As far as DR goes, I shot some 1920x1080 4-4-4 recorded to a pix 240 as 12 bit 444. There were some very saturated colors in the shot and even at +4 stops over normal exposure I still had a very useable, gradable image in FCPX ,even the over exposed saturated colors were quite easy to reign in without any harm. And yes I have one solution for a hand grip on the C500. I'll have to get you some pix.
 
P2080669.jpgP2080670.jpgP2080671.jpg Basically I got the shortest Z arm from Zacuto and a zacuto grip adapter and and plugged the z arm into a 15mm point on my movcam hand. There is quite a bit of range of adjustment and the camera still has the low profile groove going though not quite as low as the C300.
 
thanks for the images! interesting solution
sorry to bother , but i see u use the 24-70 f4 lens.... how noisy is the IS there? my 100mm macro IS L is very noisy ...
 
A friend rented my C100 and fell in love with the design. So he thought about buying one.
I told him, if money wasn`t that of an issue, IMHO the C300 is worth the extra money, just for its better screens and broadcast ready codec (he´s a doc shooter).
Next time we talked, he asked why not just go with a C500 over a C300 then and be 4K ready.
I said, well if you even have THAT much money to spent, sure.
He said, what kind of money, the C500 is just 40% more expensive than a C300.
Which I never noticed.

To make it short:
I always thought the C500 was around double the C300.
While for myself I can´t afford a 300 or 500, for someone who can, the 500 right now while more expensive could be a more future proof purchase.
4K was a buzzword and now is a reality for many higher-end jobs.
So if the C-series makes sense for a shooter, the 500 looks like a great option and as with the 100, which was kind of frowned upon at first, the C500 is a sleeping beauty that may experience its second coming right now...
 
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The C series cameras have a lot of resilience. At the moment they have lot of life in them and I think they will age gracefully and will have their roles to play in future even when better cameras are around.

In 2012 for a project I had to send an SOS to Canon India and borrowed a C300 for a month and a half in 2012. No wonder immediately after that I placed my order to buy a C300. At that time C500 was out of my budget. Also, at that time I was not into feature films, so the decision to go for C300 was primarily from a documentary perspective and hence was easier. And I should emphaise the budget aspect again.

These days I find a lot of feature film producers have bought into the high resolution 4K hype and ask me whether the C300 can shoot in 4K. They agree to C300 when they realise that they are not going to finish in 4K and the overall cost of 4K editing and finishing is going to be of a higher order. However the thing that hurts is no slow motion at 1080p in the C300. When a director explains a story, I can't tell him that certain scenes require a different camera. The lack of slow motion really hurts. It is a big pain. So I when I tell the producer that I have to hire another camera and immediately you know what they say... And the lack of slow motion hurts in documentary situations, especially the wildlife documentaries.

I agree with spartacus that the C500 is a sleeping beauty as it has all that we need most to do our projects. The producer/directors like the colours and the files from the C series cameras. Low light is a big big boon so less people carrying lights. Workflow is simple and editing can easily be done on location. If I were in the market today to buy a C300, then I would definitely have looked at the C500.
 
Mark Smith said:
View attachment 82064View attachment 82065View attachment 82066 Basically I got the shortest Z arm from Zacuto and a zacuto grip adapter and and plugged the z arm into a 15mm point on my movcam hand. There is quite a bit of range of adjustment and the camera still has the low profile groove going though not quite as low as the C300.
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Wow, great setup :) How much it weights all together?
I am also curious about Canon 24-70 lens that you've got there. Does this lens breathe? Is that aperture really constant? (not like on 24-105, on the longest end is actually darker).
 
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I haven't weighed this rig but it is heavier than the C 300 simply because the 500 body is heavier, then add the weight of the z arm. This was the closest approximation I could get to bring the 500 into the c300 realm of handheld that I like. There might be some other solutions for mounting the grip in a similar position but the I think the weight difference will be small.
 
BTW- I got the dual pixel AF upgrade for my 300 done today and definitely like it. The DP upgrade is not smart and doesn;t replace an AC or an operator with a sharp eye, but since I have been shooting a long form doc with my 300 I can definitely see the advantage to the upgrade and assigning a comfortable button to activate the 'one shot' function. Here's hoping canon will bring the upgrade to the 500 , since it too is capable of the DP AF .
If the DP function could control a Canon cine lens AND had a moveable focus area it would be killer.
 
Many thanks Mark for information!

I did some calculations:
Body: 4 lb (1820 g)
Grip: 8.1 oz (230 g)
Monitor Unit: 1.4 lb (645 g)
Lens: 28.40 oz (805 g)
Zacuto stuff: 7.15oz (250 g) - guessing
So all together you've got about 3.75kg (8.27 lbs) which is really not bad.

With C300 it would be:
Body: 3.2 lb (1.43 kg)
minus zacuto stuff it would be abt 3.11kg (6.86 lbs) so when you consider all that additional stuff that you get with C500 it's really a minor difference.
But I guess this minor difference on paper can be significant in real life.

Please if you could give some feedback about this 24-70 lens. Does it breathe when focusing? Is it really constant aperture or it loses light on the longest end? Is it noisy? Basically is it really any better then 24-105...?
Thanks in advance!
 
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