C200: Tell me why; C200 or AU-EVA1

G

ggrantly

Veteran
The cams are close in price by the time you add a VF to the Panny, so no real advantage there. The Canon AF will likely be superior. Seems like the Panny will have an advantage with codecs (IMHO). Each company has their color science fanboys.

So: why would you choose one over the other?

Best Regards,
Grant
 
Just figured this out; they are about the same price at the moment, so the Panny would be a bit more after the addition of a VF.

My Bad,
G
 
Frankly I'd lean toward the EVA1. It will have Timecode input, oversampling, less aliasing, higher framerates, removable IR-cut, and 10bit 4k codecs. C200 non-raw recordings are all UHD 8bit 4:2:0 only and especially HD codec options are pretty rough, where the EVA1 has a whole lineup of HD/2K record options from 21Mbps 8bit 4:2:0 to 200Mbps 10bit 4:2:2. Frankly 120MBps 10/12bit RAW that uses a separate single media slot with small media just doesn't sound that enticing to me. Seems fairly likely EVA1 will have more DR as well if the VaricamLT vs C300mk2 comparison is any indication, but the question is still how "almost as good as the LT" the EVA1 actually is.

Just add a quick release loupe to the LCD and you have a much better placed and adjustable EVF anyway. The inexpensive Kinotehnic BMPCC Loupe will likely fit since it's a 3.5" LCD.

Only thing Canon has is probably much better AF, probably somewhat better noise performance at the highest ISOs, and brand/productline popularity in certain applications.
 
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Might depend on market/application...i.e. whether model matters to clients etc, whether your colleagues/rental outlets are buying into one or the other eco-sysytem for when you need a second. Like Morgan says, flavor du jour seems to be FS7.
But longer term? We'll see ;)
 
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I think it's a really tough decision at this point without having seen any footage of the EVA1. You can't always trust specs on paper either... Look at the C200's 8 bit mp4 codec - it's pretty damn good. One could easily mistaken it for 10 bit.
 
To me the c200 is a clear winner.. If you work in certain environments.. Those that can stand the data load - mainly feature or short form high end advertising.

For less formal work -news corporate wedding reportage conference - then the paper specs are of little value.

Of value is
Lack of mass
speed of hfr engagement
Exposure tools
Egronomics
Audio simplicity
Menu simplicity
Having a real iris
Having an ISO wheel
Nd options
A record button you can find
Scrubbing playback for your director
Simple codecs for the editor

Bm Ursa offers much of the above of course


And lens options

The 200 and Eva are - to me - basically not purchasable without an 18-80 too - costly. The Sonys offer similar zoom range with a booster 24-105
Yep I'd prefer an 18-80 but it is not a small purchase
 
And of course AF- but I've not seen anyone use Canon af without bumping the camera which makes it useless :)
 
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ggrantly said:
The cams are close in price by the time you add a VF to the Panny, so no real advantage there. The Canon AF will likely be superior. Seems like the Panny will have an advantage with codecs (IMHO). Each company has their color science fanboys.

So: why would you choose one over the other?

Best Regards,
Grant
Click to expand...

It'd be good to see the EVA1 footage before you even decide this, specs alone just don't cut it, if it were only based on specs then the GH5 seems pretty amazing on paper but it's no way in the same league as the C200 image.

10bit 422 vs raw internal 12bit is the only question here. What will work for you in a real situation.

Personally I think the C300 MKII and C200 is great combo for A and B cam offering the best of both but internal raw is pretty future proof and 8bit 4K 60fps suits the low end of conference/event quick turnaround shooting perfectly.

We'll have to wait and see what the EVA1 looks like though and it could well be a winner for Panasonic, I just haven't fallen in love with a Panasonic camera in the past like I have with a Canon or say a Red so it needs the extra sauce over the specs to win me over.
 
morgan_moore said:
The 200 and Eva are - to me - basically not purchasable without an 18-80 too - costly. The Sonys offer similar zoom range with a booster 24-105
Yep I'd prefer an 18-80 but it is not a small purchase
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What servo zoom setup are you currently using since you consider that mandatory to have with a C200 or EVA?
 
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Dont laugh.. I use a nikkor 28-85 1989 manual with a speedbooster. (and a 50-300 and a 10-24 and a 50 1.8 in my 'RNG' Bag)

Its not a servo.. I dont really zoom in shot, just need not to be swinging lenses all day.

With a Sony I have the option of the $4k? 18-110, or the MK zooms should I decide to upgrade.

The canon zoom has less reach and costs more. (but of course AF)

My nikkors all have real mechanical focus and iris which are very important to me. The Canon (Ive not touched it) I guess feels like my old 70-200 canon - Ok but only just.

Even using a Speedbooster does a couple of things.. protect the sensor while swinging lenses.. and putting the lens release lever on the operator side (it is there with canon but not with MFT or Emount)

--

Overall I think, ref this thread that..

1) Features specific to your job will lead to the least bad camera choice.

2) The URSAmini and FS7/5 have to be in the equation

3) All of them are pretty good and all have huge design flaws through stupidity or specific marketing strategy.
 
Clearly the topic thread is not properly set up.

'Tell me why'

I shoot short high end adverts.. C200

I often roll for 40mins at weddings .. EVA

My client demands 10bit_50p .. FS7

I like to climb mountains with my camera in my bag.. EVA?

I shoot loads of moving stuff.. C200 and AF lenses?

My client loves proRes .. Ursa

We always jam our TC on our multicam shoots.. EVA..


--

Clearly this is all known and obvious.
But.. many of us shoot a sport on a tuesday, high end on a thursday, TC jam on a Saturday night and want to go climbing with our cam on a Sunday.
 
That EVA is still a mystery. No footage and no one has used one yet and can tell if it's good or a turd?

Or maybe someone have:

 
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Right now is not the time to make this decision, the time will be in a few weeks once we all see footage from the EVA 1. I bought the C200 because I needed a 4K camera right away for some projects under way and so far, it's pretty good. I am working on a big review for HD Video Pro but just quickly:

Likes
1. DPAF is killer, it's like magic at how good it is. I shoot a ton of interviews, often the producer likes shallow DOF so as to minimize marginal looking BGs that have not been art directed. I often get people in the chair, really high profile people, who are like a caged cat, they "pace" within the chair while sitting down, meaning they are moving side to side or toward the interviewer and away, sometime even rocking. With one touch AF on the C100/C300, I was still occasionally missing focus when the subject moved forward 10" and in the EVF, on the flip out LCD and on my Ninja Blade screen, they still look sharp. But looking at the footage on a large monitor, at times, the focus was slighly off. DPAF with face tracking is a Godsend for these subjects, the camera does all of the work for you. This is worth a lot to me.
2. Overall, if you are a Canon shooter, you'll feel right at home. The menus mostly make sense and are logical.
3. On body XLRs are really, really nice, I hated having the XLRs on a handle with the C100 and C300/300 MKII
4. While I have only played with Cinema RAW Light, I actually have two ongoing projects that we have decided we are going to shoot on Cinema RAW Light. So far, I bought three 256GB CFast 2.0 cards. At 34 minutes each, that gives me 102 minutes of recording time. THe 512GB Ego disk cards are shipping in a couple of weeks, I am picking up two of them and one more 256GB so I will have a total of 272 minutes of RAW recording times, 4 hours and 32 minutes. That is enough for my average shooting days on documentaries. We wil shoot Cinema RAW Light, archive the CRM files and edit everything pretty much with the 2K proxies in C-Log 3, conforming for the RAW at the end of the process. it's like money in the bank. Sure, we'll have to buy more hard drives but the Cinema RAW Light footage looks pretty great.
5. The built in 8-bit .MP4s, as others have said, look really nice. Yes, they are 8-bit so you have to get your WB and exposure really close but I've been doing that for years with the C100 and C300 so not a big change for me. I shoot plenty of material for clients who don't care about 8-bit versus 10-bit and like the convenience of skinny .MP4 and if it looks good but is "under spec", they really don't care. I rarely shoot for broadcast and I have shot a lot of broadcast in the past with the C100/300. I would rather have 10-bit, of course, but there is always the option of shooting Cinema RAW Light or hooking up my Ninja Blade for 10-bit 1080 or renting/buying a Ninja Inferno for 8-bit to 10-bit recording at 4:2:2. I just think the lack of an internal 10bit is not a deal breaker for me, although if it is for you, get a 10-bit internal camera, simple. So many people huffing and puffing on how the C200 SHOULD have a 10-bit codec internally. SHOULD is a useless none word, all it symbolizes are people's wishes and I like the word wish much better than should. The internal on the C200 is 8-bit. Accept it or move on.
6. Nice having AES/EBU inputs on a camera again.
7. REALLY nice having extended NDs like the C300 MKII. I feel Panasonic missed an opportunity by only giving the EVA 1 six stops of ND. Often in bright daylight, I would have to add an external ND3 or ND6 to get the exposure I want without setting the camera's gain down, losing dynamic rannge, usually when you need it most, in nuclear bright sun.
8. I've been doing some shoots lately with a borrowed C300 MKII and the C200. They can match pretty well in C-log 3 but it is striking at how much taller and heavier the C300 MKII feels, I really am happy with the size, footprint and weight of the C200 in comparison.

Dislikes
1. No more quick menu access to WB, ISO, Gain by pushing the grip joystick in. Loved this on the C100. But the C300 MKII doesn't have it either so oh well.
2. Whenever I switch from shooting .MP4 to CFast, then switch back to .MP4, the camera defaults to 60p, not 24p where I was shooting both the .MP4s and CFast. Hasn't stung me yet but it could. Easy firmware fix.
3. The LA-V1 LCD Attachment Unit is flimsy and fiddly. I can't want to replace this with something from Zacuto, Wooden or Small HD. The idea is good, a bracket that lets you position the LCD touchscreen wherever you want, but the execution is not good. As Morgan noted, unless you have a really light touch, you can see the tapping on the screen in the image. It can be mitigated somewhat by centering the LCD screen over the handle upside down, like where the screen is on the C300 MKII or by just using the grip joystick instead but that negates having the touch screen. Not a deal breaker but it could have been better thought out. They do get points for putting to 1/4" 20 mounts on the screen itself, you could mount it off camera on your tripod handle possibly or on a gimbal?
4. The DC power in jack is flimsy and occasionally loses power when being fed by a V-Mount on my camera, when I move the camera. Battery plate, battery, cable connection and camera are brand new, there is really no excuse for this to happen. So I have to keep the BP-A30 on the camera, charged as a backup for then the camera momentarily loses battery connection. This is lame. It has also been a complaint on the C300 MKII. So Canon should re-engineer this power connector and retaining sleeve for the next camera.
5. The camera's defualt is to ship with the control menu set so that Magnify goes out the HDMI and SDI connector, ruining any external recording by recording the Magnified screen. Setting the camera to NOT do this is unintuitive and I have noticed that even when I reset it, once the battery has been removed from the camera, it defaults back to magnifying the output and I have to manually remember to go back and set the assignable button to NOT send magnify out the HDMI and SDI. Could easily be remedied through a firmware upgrade.

No camera is perfect and overall, it is a great camera to shoot and work with. The AU-EVA 1 looks to be a different approach and mindset, which could be better or worse for you, depending on your priorities and style. Honestly, everyone pissing and moaning why the C200 SHOULD have an internal non-RAW 10-bit option, just buy the EVA 1. It does. The C200 doesn't and apparently never will. Get over it, move on with your life. It will be interesting to see if the EVA 1 has a quantifiably better image than the C200 with it's higher resolution oversampled image and Panasonic Varicam-like color science. The dual ISO is really cool and a very useful feature. Everyone I know who has shot with the Varicam LT or 35 raves about the dual ISO, it is that good. Native ISO 2500 is a killer feature that no Canon camera has. Varicam color is a feature that no Canon camera has. For me personally, I am enjoying the C200, it is making me money. I plan on getting a hold of the EVA 1 as soon as one is available and trying some shoots with it. If it turns out to be a better fit for my needs than the C200, I will sell the C200 and buy an EVA 1. If not, I will keep the C200. The only real things about the EVA 1 that give me any hesitation are the lack of DPAF, it will be interesting to see how useful the one-touch AF is on the EVA 1, and the lack of EVF. If you add a good EVF to the price of the EVA 1, you are knocking at $10k. Then again, the higher end SDXC cards for the EVA 1 are cheaper than the CFast 2.0 cards for the C200, I already have $900.00 into three of those and plan on adding another $1,400.00 worth. The Canon batteries for the C200 are just plain not a good value but there are no alternatives other than feeding it V-Mounts and Gold Mounts. The batteries for the EVA 1 cost less and are a better value.

So many pluses and minuses for each camera but the EVA 1 needs to prove itself by generating impressive images, which I think it will. If I had the money, I would love to own both cameras and use them for different purposes. But as it is, I will be a C200 owner until probably the end of the year. Then will see if the EVA 1 can sway me back over to Panasonic (I have owned several Panasionics P2 cameras, the DVX100A and I shot with the Varicams as rentals for years). Just depends on how it performs.
 
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morgan_moore said:
Dont laugh.. I use a nikkor 28-85 1989 manual with a speedbooster. (and a 50-300 and a 10-24 and a 50 1.8 in my 'RNG' Bag)

Its not a servo.. I dont really zoom in shot, just need not to be swinging lenses all day.

With a Sony I have the option of the $4k? 18-110, or the MK zooms should I decide to upgrade.

The canon zoom has less reach and costs more. (but of course AF)

My nikkors all have real mechanical focus and iris which are very important to me. The Canon (Ive not touched it) I guess feels like my old 70-200 canon - Ok but only just.

Even using a Speedbooster does a couple of things.. protect the sensor while swinging lenses.. and putting the lens release lever on the operator side (it is there with canon but not with MFT or Emount)
Click to expand...
Guess my only point is is that the 18-80 may not be mandatory if you're shooting with a Nikkor 28-85 and getting by with that. I guess if you're shooting say Sony with a .7 crop with the Speedbooster, that makes your 28-85 a 20-60. You could get a Nikon 17-55 f/2.8 or Nikon 16-80 f/2.8-f/4, which have similar focal lengths as the 28-85 with a speedbooster, and use a Nikon E-mount to Canon EF adapter which has manual aperture control on the adapter which controls the lens' aperture.
 
puredrifting said:
1. DPAF is killer, it's like magic at how good it is. I shoot a ton of interviews, often the producer likes shallow DOF so as to minimize marginal looking BGs that have not been art directed. I often get people in the chair, really high profile people, who are like a caged cat, they "pace" within the chair while sitting down, meaning they are moving side to side or toward the interviewer and away, sometime even rocking.
Click to expand...

I get this all the time. My solution; B-roll.

:-)
 
Liam Hall said:
I get this all the time. My solution; B-roll.

:-)
Click to expand...

Yeah, not so much on this particular project. Intimate stories by legendary musicians and producers about another legendary musician. We have to stay on them, b-roll would not be appropriate here, a lot of personal experiences being related where no b-roll or even stills exist ;-)

If it was my film, b-roll would be an easy fix but not my film. Face tracking has solved it anyway.
 
Eric Coughlin said:
Guess my only point is is that the 18-80 may not be mandatory if you're shooting with a Nikkor 28-85 and getting by with that. I guess if you're shooting say Sony with a .7 crop with the Speedbooster, that makes your 28-85 a 20-60. You could get a Nikon 17-55 f/2.8 or Nikon 16-80 f/2.8-f/4, which have similar focal lengths as the 28-85 with a speedbooster, and use a Nikon E-mount to Canon EF adapter which has manual aperture control on the adapter which controls the lens' aperture.
Click to expand...

Don't want to derrail thread completely but trust me I've tried every af lens going and in comparison to my proper manual lens they are just horrible :)
 
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