C200: Thinking about buying one...

Spartacus said:
Like … and Andree mentioned: Nothing WOW! about the image and more or less the same look as the rest of the Cs.
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I don't think I said it didn't have 'wow'. My opinion is that the C200 delivers a 'filmic response' to light in an appropriate codec. The image coming off the camera will be pretty neutral, but can go in any direction. Anyone who understands light well can use the C200 to capture pretty much anything while enjoying these well known benefits:

  • Compact size
  • Internal battery and no "brick" haning off a 'mount'
  • Internal NDs up to 10 stops
  • State of the art auto focus and focus assists
 
NorBro said:
I think we're in a time now where most people, the majority of independent inematographers/videographers will only be buying a camera below $10K and eventually only below $5K...
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And then below that.

On the Cinematography page, there was a question about the lenses used on the Human League music video from the early 80's. So, just out of curiosity, I began to seek info on the time line for the digital camera progress (digicamhistory, I believe, was the site). The practical application started around the 1984 Olympics/Political season, when an analog or a CCD sensor info was converted into digital and a 300 KPX (that's kilo pixels) photo could be sent over the telephone lines across the globe. The newspapers went for it since it was better than whatever they had before even though it took six minutes to download a single low-res shot. The resolution slowly kept creeping up and, by the early 90's, 1 MPX Kodak cameras (based on Nikon 35 mm) were quite popular among the pros while the 30 MPX studio systems ran upwards of $30,000. But a few years down the road, 300K-500K cameras were being sold for as low as $300 and 1-2 MPX models were down to the $2,000-$3,000 range.

It's also amusing how quickly 4k came down in price. Four years ago, the lowest priced 4K model was 1D C at $12,000 retail and now one can buy a 4K off-brand camera for under $200 and a 4K bridge with a pretty decent video quality for under $400.

The next step will have the pros owning as many cameras as Jimmy Page has guitars. And each will run under $2,000.
 
cpreston said:
Having worked with CLog 2 in the C300 II proxy recording, I can guarantee you that you would regret ever using it at a low bitrate. It will completely fall apart if you try to push it into a normal exposure range at 8bit 4:2:0.
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Just in case you didn't know, you can bake the LUT into the proxies so then the proxies are usable. I believe it defaults without a LUT so for awhile when shooting LOG I would shoot Log to the proxy too, until I found out you could bake the LUT in which makes it a more usable backup and for quick viewing.
 
AndreeOnline said:
I don't think I said it didn't have 'wow'. My opinion is that the C200 delivers a 'filmic response' to light in an appropriate codec. The image coming off the camera will be pretty neutral, but can go in any direction. Anyone who understands light well can use the C200 to capture pretty much anything while enjoying these well known benefits:

  • Compact size
  • Internal battery and no "brick" haning off a 'mount'
  • Internal NDs up to 10 stops
  • State of the art auto focus and focus assists
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I referred to Dan and you in a particular order, hoping it made clear Dan said "no WOW" and you "like all Cs".
Sure, a RAW(lite) recording with Log gamma will give you plenty of information to start with and push around.
Still there are certain cameras who can deliver a certain "look and feel" most like (like the Alexa or the F35)
while others don't create a huge following (like the F55).
Given no budget restraints I would always choose the Alexa Mini over any Canon (saying this as a C300/100/200 owner...).
 
FWIW I think this camera has plenty of "wow". And that's coming from someone who has owned an Ursa Mini 4.6k and a RED Scarlet.
 
can someone here do a comparison and share your thoughts and results? is C200 internal RAW without a shadow of a doubt look much better IQ wise than the 405mbps of C300 ii internal 10 bit codec? or are they fairly similar to the naked eye?
 
Amira-user said:
can someone here do a comparison and share your thoughts and results? is C200 internal RAW without a shadow of a doubt look much better IQ wise than the 405mbps of C300 ii internal 10 bit codec? or are they fairly similar to the naked eye?
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These might help, but in my opinion RAW is about gradability more so than pure image quality. I found this out back when I had the first Blackmagic Cinema Cameras (I miss that one, but still have the pocket). ProRes looked almost as good/nearly identical, but with RAW you can pretty much do what you want. That's why I wonder why someone would go through the trouble of RAW if they're shooting talking heads or care so much about 10-bit if you don't have clients that do. It's all for grading.

C200 vs C300 II:

C200: RAW vs 10-bit vs 8-bit MP4:
 
Amira-user said:
hey dan, since you mentioned you haven't found the right PP, have you tried dropping an arri LUT to 709 picture profile? according to some users, setting it to production camera matrix and cinema gamut seems to hit the sweet spot, that is on the C300ii, but i assume with C200 it will be similar... or is that not the case?

also when you export your choice of codec, let's say prores out of the canon raw software, how long does it take? is it fairly fast? just curious; for the touch screen monitor, if you crank up the brightness to 100, is it useable outdoors?
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Have not tried much in the way of LUT experimentation yet, but it's on my to do list.

The Canon Cinema RAW Development software, at least on my older hardware (Late 2012 iMac 3.4GHz i7) is NOT fast, it's pretty damn slow actually. I am looking forward to FCP X and Premiere internal support of .CRM and I am delving into the world of editing with Resolve as I have seen some tests that show the rendering times on Resolve blow FCP X and Premiere out of the water. With Resolve adding Fairlight technology for sophisticated audio capability and we already know it's CC capability is the best on the market, I can see a lot of advantages to editing in Resolve. The cost is amazing for what you get and if the rendering times are 50-70% faster than FCP X or Premiere Pro, then why stay on those editing platforms?

As far as the touch screen, it has two luma boosted settings that "go beyond" putting the brightness up all of the way. Those combined with the Hoodman H400 and it is semi-usable in daylight of the reflections on the screen aren't killing you.
 
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laverdir said:
Just to correct our common knowledge, Resolve's CC capability aren't the best on the market.
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What's better at a similar price? I don't know, I am far from a colorist. I used to CC at places like 525 Post, Laser Pacific and Company 3 where they had CC bays with multi-million dollar hardware tools to do stuff like CC and grading at $500.00 per hour. I know very little about software grading tools but have been told Resolve is amazing for the money or even for free.
 
You are right that Resolve is the most used color correction software.

But it's not the best.

"My nephew uses Resolve, what do you use?" is question I hear more frequently this days.

And, in combination with Premiere, it's more and more popular veteran camera-mans choice of tools.
 
laverdir said:
You are right that Resolve is the most used color correction software.

But it's not the best.

"My nephew uses Resolve, what do you use?" is question I hear more frequently this days.

And, in combination with Premiere, it's more and more popular veteran camera-mans choice of tools.
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Well don't keep us in suspense... What do you think is the best?
 
IMO, I don't think you can refer to software as being the "best" in terms of superiority.

A sector of a program might be written to produce a desired cosmetic look/workflow or more efficient results based on a certain task, but they all have their strengths and weaknesses.

What's best for me is what's BEST FOR ME.

Some might think Premiere is the best NLE, but I would never use it or attempt to learn it because of how comfortable I am with FCP X.

---

This is the place to go to learn more about other options - http://liftgammagain.com/forum/index.php
 
Best? There is no such thing.
Depending on the segments and budgets, there are just optimal solutions.

I would mention a few names, in no particular order: Baselight, Mistika, Lustre, Rio and Colorfront Engine based products.

Last time I checked Resolve wasn't (much) cheaper then competition, DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panel is 5 dollars short of 30k and linux license with cluster support was 5 dollars short of 20k.
Bad news is that they will drop support for multiple server systems and good news is that v2 panel will be just quarter of the v1 price.
And what does that tells us?
 
Maybe break off color correction into another thread in a more appropriate location? At least the parts that don't relate to the C200.
 
laverdir said:
Just to correct our common knowledge, Resolve's CC capability aren't the best on the market.
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Stating subjective point of view as fact is just...tiring.
Yes, there are many alternatives out there with their own strengths and weaknesses.
I have seen nothing that suggests that Baselight for instance (amongst others) is necessarily better, just different.
However, there is definitely a snobbism that exists in Hollywood now, that since Resolve is essentially free, they need to move on to other expensive applications. Baselight being one of the favorites.

On another note, the C200 RAW definitely looks sharper and with greater internal contrast than the C300II. Darn good output.
 
Jim_Beam said:
OK then, so what IS the best CC on the market, in your opinion ?
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In which segment, theatrical releases, live, on-set, dailies, conversion, restoration etc?
And more important is the question of workflow, in context of accompanying applications.

To finish my point, the best one is the one that will enable you to get the result in shortest amount of time.

So, move on folks... nothing to see here... buy C200...
 
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