C200: Some good C200 footage appearing now!

Stills2HDConvert said:
I've seen so much of the most interesting math on this forum. Used vs new prices. So lets see. The price of the Inferno was left out...That's about $1000. For $200 more you could have bought an hour of CFast. And the price for CFast can be had for about half what you list. egodisks are basically $600 per hour. The price of CFast is high. But lets get real here. 2 hours is $1200 4 hours is $2400 2400/7400=32%. 32% isn't insignificant. But it's not beginning to approach 50%.
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Stills - thanks for the reply but - You Need to do the Math!

Canon must have been out of their mind - they could not have picked a worse media for a low end cinema camera - combined with the fact it has only one slot (ran out of processing for 2 slots) plus the SD card is limited for kiddo YouTube videos!

As I mentioned - for just the price of two (2) hours of Cfast for your C200 - you can easily buy an Atomos Inferno Recorder/ Player (With Prores) and "Ten" (10) Tb of storage for Free!. You also get a 7" display with 1500 nit brightness for a full sunlight viewing - Plus you also get: the use of Luts, waveform, focus peaking, zebra, false color, parade and vector scope.

Canon's biggest fail is the fact they limited the C200’s raw to Cfast. Plus you have to have the 512 cards unless you're going to stop the production every 7-15 min to reload. I would not go to a job with less than 5-6 cards, I don’t erase masters until after the product is delivered, so this means spending another $4000-$6000.

"I could have a spare camera for that!"

Is any of this making any sense now?

Regards - Mike

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Mike Mas, than any camera with CFast slot is bad in your opinion ? Once upon a time, Compact Flash cards were very expensive, and we had to deal with it. "Lowend cinema camera" doesn't mean you are broke and have to buy it because you don't have money for Alexa :) C200 is still very expensive, because it is not the only thing you need for shooting. If you plan to use C200 with only 24-105 lens you are missing the point of that camera. You need at least $10.000, ideally $20.000+ of other gear to support your C200 to be able to shoot cinematic films. $1000 just for memory cards is nothing on that production level, just look how much Redmags cost. Bottom line, if you're cheap, or you really want to own a C200 and every $100 is important to you, just buy one 256 card and take 15 minute breaks every 30 minutes of footage. You really don't need more than 2 hours for any serious shoot day, that's just an hour break you would make anyways. If you shoot 5-6 hours footage in a day, you don't need RAW, and that mp4 is pretty perfect for that..

And we don't need to buy Lexar cards for $1200, there are other brands like Egodisk.
 
guru said:
Mike Mas, than any camera with CFast slot is bad in your opinion ? Once upon a time, Compact Flash cards were very expensive, and we had to deal with it. "Lowend cinema camera" doesn't mean you are broke and have to buy it because you don't have money for Alexa :) C200 is still very expensive, because it is not the only thing you need for shooting. If you plan to use C200 with only 24-105 lens you are missing the point of that camera. You need at least $10.000, ideally $20.000+ of other gear to support your C200 to be able to shoot cinematic films. $1000 just for memory cards is nothing on that production level, just look how much Redmags cost. Bottom line, if you're cheap, or you really want to own a C200 and every $100 is important to you, just buy one 256 card and take 15 minute breaks every 30 minutes of footage. You really don't need more than 2 hours for any serious shoot day, that's just an hour break you would make anyways. If you shoot 5-6 hours footage in a day, you don't need RAW, and that mp4 is pretty perfect for that..

And we don't need to buy Lexar cards for $1200, there are other brands like Egodisk.
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Guru,

Thanks for the reply - My type of work involves moving targets, so a good tracking focus as Canon offers is mandatory. As bad as I want this camera, its not going to happen, so it looks like my trusty GH5 is going to have fill the void until at least the new C300 makes a debut!

While I appreciate your business tips & cost, after 40 years in this business, I’m well aware on what cameras need and the way things works. Where Canon dropped the ball is the fact you can only record Kiddie formats on SD, which is not acceptable because it forces owners to use Cfast for most all work - which is not cost effective from a stand point of work flow and media cost.

Just so you understand I'm not going to a job with only 2 or 3 Cfast cards. Also, I don't erase masters until I deliver a job - So, after I shoot a job - do I just now wait until I post this job before I can shoot another or do I spend another three grand on cards. Here’s another hang up - do I now have to charge my client an extra $3000-$4000 for media cost ??? Guess they won’t be calling me back!

I know my business model better then anyone else and I’m not going on a job short-changing scenes and missing shooting opportunities because I only allocated a few cards for a shoot and have to beat myself up to save media!

Bottom line for the intended market ($10K) Canon blundered this camera by releasing it too soon full of operating bugs, 1 slot, noise, etc. to prevent guys from moving to URSA PM and EVA1's.

While Raw is great, since it has a lengthy work-flow and super high media cost and requires more post, lets only use it when “When We Need To” and allow operators to record accepted formats in 4K on SD like most other cameras do.

Let me be up front - if your really in this business, if you can’t afford to buy 10-12 cards when you order this camera, then don’t buy it. Yes, to do it right - your going to have to shell out $8-10 grand for just media, just about what you paid for the entire camera. Just For the money spent on media for the C200 to work in a business environment, you can go out and buy yourself a EVA1 which unlike the C200, does record “10 bit” at 4:2:2. on SD’s!

Regards - Mike
 
That 7200 RPM HDD caddy is probably pretty much useless for everything.

If the C200 offered external RAW, you would need the best-of-the-best IMO. Even my Sandisk Extreme Pro was sometimes dropping frames with the C500's 4K RAW to ProRes. It was super intensive and I assume the CRL would be too.

So yea, it would still be cheaper, but most people who are buying a $7500 camera are not going to be complaining about the media. Yea, it stinks - but as a professional you deal with it.

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Mike Mas said:
Thanks for the reply however is is still far from cheap media - its $ 800 for 500 that is $ 1600 a TB!

Unless your shooting your cat , there is no way I would trust my job or losing a client over some brand X card failing!

How come their web page shows no availability - maybe problems?

http://egodisk.com/512gb-egodisk-elite-pro-cfast-2-0

Regards


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The Elite cards are so expensive because they're VPG-260, the Pro is only VPG-130, but that's enough for the C200.
 
40 years in this business? Wow! Why don't you share your work here, links to your work and full name. We learn from our peers. I am sure your work will be more eloquent then your words, so there will be no arguments. I mean we will understand more from your work than your words, the context of why C200 is bad or why the CFast2.0 is an absolute disaster decision in the C200 camera etc.

Waiting in anticipation to see your work. It is also a good idea to update the signature with full name and links.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi

Mike Mas said:
Guru,

Thanks for the reply - My type of work involves moving targets, so a good tracking focus as Canon offers is mandatory. As bad as I want this camera, its not going to happen, so it looks like my trusty GH5 is going to have fill the void until at least the new C300 makes a debut!

While I appreciate your business tips & cost, after 40 years in this business, I’m well aware on what cameras need and the way things works. Where Canon dropped the ball is the fact you can only record Kiddie formats on SD, which is not acceptable because it forces owners to use Cfast for most all work - which is not cost effective from a stand point of work flow and media cost.

Just so you understand I'm not going to a job with only 2 or 3 Cfast cards. Also, I don't erase masters until I deliver a job - So, after I shoot a job - do I just now wait until I post this job before I can shoot another or do I spend another three grand on cards. Here’s another hang up - do I now have to charge my client an extra $3000-$4000 for media cost ??? Guess they won’t be calling me back!

I know my business model better then anyone else and I’m not going on a job short-changing scenes and missing shooting opportunities because I only allocated a few cards for a shoot and have to beat myself up to save media!

Bottom line for the intended market ($10K) Canon blundered this camera by releasing it too soon full of operating bugs, 1 slot, noise, etc. to prevent guys from moving to URSA PM and EVA1's.

While Raw is great, since it has a lengthy work-flow and super high media cost and requires more post, lets only use it when “When We Need To” and allow operators to record accepted formats in 4K on SD like most other cameras do.

Let me be up front - if your really in this business, if you can’t afford to buy 10-12 cards when you order this camera, then don’t buy it. Yes, to do it right - your going to have to shell out $8-10 grand for just media, just about what you paid for the entire camera. Just For the money spent on media for the C200 to work in a business environment, you can go out and buy yourself a EVA1 which unlike the C200, does record “10 bit” at 4:2:2. on SD’s!

Regards - Mike
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Mike Mas said:
Also, I don't erase masters until I deliver a job - So, after I shoot a job - do I just now wait until I post this job before I can shoot another or do I spend another three grand on cards. Here’s another hang up - do I now have to charge my client an extra $3000-$4000 for media cost ??? Guess they won’t be calling me back!
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Well let's see here. Say some jobs have a 4-6 month turn around before the edit is completed. Now in those 4-6 months, you go through, oh, 65 shoots, filming say four cards per shoot, so, 260 memory cards. At $600 per card, that's $156,000 of CFast cards.

There is nothing wrong with this workflow or business model.
 
indiawilds said:
40 years in this business? Wow! Why don't you share your work here, links to your work and full name. We learn from our peers. I am sure your work will be more eloquent then your words, so there will be no arguments. I mean we will understand more from your work than your words, the context of why C200 is bad or why the CFast2.0 is an absolute disaster decision in the C200 camera etc.

Waiting in anticipation to see your work. It is also a good idea to update the signature with full name and links.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi
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OK, just because I bring up the obvious problems which are not just reported by myself, but by hundreds and hundreds of creditable others, it now appears as if we've moved from discussing the C200's short-comings, to an attack on my credibility. I have been 100% accurate in all my statements, while I realize that many of you have already purchased a C200 and defending your purchase, you'll just have to accept the C200's many short-comings aside from the important fact, the cost of the media will far exceed the price of the camera.

By the way - my full name is Mike Mas, I'm not looking for any seniority or position on this forum which is why I didn't post my site. However, I would be more than happy to share 40+ years of contributions to the Military and Motion Picture industry at www.rotory.com

Enjoy - Mike
 
Mike Mas said:
the cost of the media will far exceed the price of the camera.
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I think you saying this is narrow minded and assumptive in that everyone's workflow is the same as your own such that they would need a cost prohibitive amount of media for the camera. For one, most people don't avoid formatting their memory cards until a project is edited and delivered; instead, they back them up to hard drives, format the cards, and reuse them, sometimes even during the shoot; DITs exist for a reason. Hard drives are as reliable for backup as memory cards and you can make as many copies as you want for extra backup at a lower cost, and I believe even most high end productions (The Revenant, Avengers, etc.) also format memory cards long before the project is completed. Some people shoot mainly commercials, narrative, and music videos, which RAW is more aimed at, and those types of shoots typically have much lower amounts of footage that is shot over the course of a day than say documentary or event work, so again, it's assumptive to assume everyone needs a boatload of memory cards to get through their day if their days on say their 30 second commercial shoots happen to only ever need at most an hour of footage.

Back in the tape days the tapes were cheap enough that you could keep them indefinitely without having to rerecord over it. Then we switched to digital and the cost of media made that prohibitive in most cases, so we lost an advantage in using tape, but gained many other advantages by switching to digital. While your workflow does have an added safety measure, I feel like it's at too great of a cost (the inability to use any camera whose media is costly).

Then there's also calling the C200's 8 bit codec a kiddie codec which is rather exaggerated. I and many others here make good money off of C100s which have an 8 bit 4:2:0 codec, and unlike the C200, cannot shoot in 4K. C100s are used on professional jobs which people make their livings off of and feed their families with. So aside from RAW, the C200 is basically a C100 with 4K and improved autofocus, and only $1000 more than the C100 was when it was first released, so is quite capable of a large amount of well paid shoots in that capacity.

With RAW, the C200 can fill other markets as well, and can be done so without spending more money on memory cards than the cost of the camera.

It's important to keep in mind when posting on forums that you should often use language such as, "This won't work for me," as opposed to, "This won't work for anyone," especially when there are clearly people that it's working for, who then down-vote your posts when you write as if everyone works the exact same way as you do.

I've spent about $8,000-$9,000 on CFast cards, but I'm not really interested in the C200 as most of my shoots don't want RAW, my Arri Amira's ProRes is significantly better image quality and workflow than C200 RAW, and 8 bit 4:2:0 doesn't give me much better than what my C100s already offer. With that said, it's clearly not the cost of CFast cards that is holding me back from being interested in a C200. I am interested to see what Canon does with the C300 Mark III. I'm also interested in a C100 Mark III as a I like the smaller form factor for a lot of my shoots.
 
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Mike Mas said:
Just For the money spent on media for the C200 to work in a business environment, you can go out and buy yourself a EVA1 which unlike the C200, does record “10 bit” at 4:2:2. on SD’s!
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Panasonic 128GB UHS-II SDXC Memory Card is $500 which gets you 40 minutes of recording on the EVA-1, so $12.50 per minute. Might want to stick with the new Panasonic card because "there is no way I would trust my job or losing a client over some brand X card failing!" Otherwise, the Sandisk UHS-II card is $250, or $317 for a two pack. At $317 for a two pack, that's $4 per minute.

Sandisk 256 GB Cfast card for the C200 is $680 and gives you 34 minutes of record time, so $20 per minute. So, the Panasonic SD card is 62.5% the cost per minute compared to the C200's RAW Cfast. The Sandisk card for the EVA-1 is 20% the cost per minute compared to the C200's RAW Cfast.

All fine and dandy so far. But here's the troubling part, to quote...myself.


Eric Coughlin said:
Well let's see here. Say some jobs have a 4-6 month turn around before the edit is completed. Now in those 4-6 months, you go through, oh, 65 shoots, filming say four cards per shoot, so, 260 memory cards. At $600 per card, that's $156,000 of CFast cards.

There is nothing wrong with this workflow or business model.
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Now let's apply the new math of both the Panasonic card and the Sandisk card for the EVA-1. At just six more minutes per memory card than the C200, the EVA-1 you'd likely need about the same amount of memory cards for. So, 260 memory cards. At $500 per Panasonic memory card, and $158.50 per Sandisk card for the Eva-1, that's $130,000 or $41,210 spent on memory cards, respectively.

Guess that rules out the EVA-1 as well. Best to just stick with the GH5. But wait, it gets worse. Doesn't the GH5 shoot at similar data rates using the same media as the EVA-1? Geeze, scrap that camera too now.

Obviously the only solution is to go back to shooting on tape. Or to just not shoot much, and then complain about the cost of media if you don't shoot often enough or charge enough to make the investment worthwhile.
 
Very well put. We’re all guilty of having tunnel vision from time to time and thinking “our way” is the only way but forums like these should help us see other ways - even if they don’t work for our particular needs it’s always good to learn alternate options just in case the day comes and we need to pivot.
 
Mike Mas said:
My type of work involves moving targets, so a good tracking focus as Canon offers is mandatory. As bad as I want this camera, its not going to happen, so it looks like my trusty GH5 is going to have fill the void
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Scratching my head.
You need good tracking focus.
And you think GH5 has good tracking focus?
I guess for you it does. I skipped the GH5 after I saw how wonky the autofocus was if you were walking along head high hedges.
How's that EVA1 autofocus working?
Now that this thread is already splintered all over the place.
I've seen the most interesting fantasy math about CFast costs in this thread. Worthy of an episode of Dr. Phil.
Is there an EVA1 thread where we can all go and complain about the lack of internal raw etc? Just kidding.
It's like saying I don't want to live in NYC because it's too crowded, the people are rude etc.
Can't you just like where you live and let the people who like to live in NYC alone?
It's like some people can only like what they have by disliking something else.
The GH5, EVA1, C200 were all on my radar. I ended up with a C200.
I'm not interested in going into GH5 or EVA1 forums to say what I don't like about those cameras.
If you really think you need $150,000 in CFast cards; well then you have your answer.
Now I need to find a local CFast club where people pool and share cards. (Just kidding)
 
Sometimes it's good to respond to a post and sometimes you just ignore (considering the source)! This is NOT geared towards any one particular individual, I'm just making a statement!!! Some people, well, you just can't get through to them............

By the way, it never ceases to amaze me how someone ALWAYS finds a way to side track and hijack these threads (look at the thread title)............. Just sayin'.......
 
This has, obviously, been covered ad nauseam before but .... for those shooting a lot of footage and still wanting Canon's DPAF and 4K, there are these options.

1) C200 8-bit MP4 internal 4K
2) C200 8-bit external 4K via HDMI (to Inferno or alike ... this may get your a floating "9-bit" ProRes).
3) C300 MKII (either internal H264 or external Raw/ProRes via Shogun or Odyssey) .
4) C700 (to the external Codex recorder ... the combo is pricey, relatively speaking, but that can be negotiable)
 
NorBro said:
Or 5D Mark IV / 1DX Mark II, which are amazing cameras...
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I use the 1DX II (and lately even the 80D (1080p)) as B or stealth cameras to the C300 II. For max DR and post flexibility, I prefer Canon Log 2 set up for Alexa LUTs in post with the C300 II (should work for C200 as well for the RAW conversion target if available). Lately I've been experimenting on the C300 II with Canon Log 3, Standard, and Rec709 and might further tweak the color matrix to look more like the custom picture styles I'm using with Canon DSLRs (optimized for skin tones). The goal being nearly perfect SOOC imagery with little or no post and/or the ability to use for live streams/broadcasts.
 
How does the canon c300 mk 2 with the Production camera profile combined with Arri’s Rec. 709 conversion LUT in post match up with the c200?
 
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