C100: what b-cam for C100 MKII?

W

wuffer

Active member
Hi,
still happy with my MKII's 8bit, so no need for 4k or heavy grading atm. I'm seriously obsessed finishing a long term documentary and therefore looking for a second body. What's important for me?
Lowlight (a stop less than my MkII is acceptable, maybe 1 1/2, but I really really need to shoot in the blue hours after sunset/before dawn, that's part of the whole story and heavy lightning isn't always possible as we are filming deep in wilderness and hoping to 'shot' some wildlife for some b-roll flavour)
Cache
Autofocus
easy matching
should withstand outdoor shooting in sometimes unfriendly and rougher conditions or shouldn't cost a kidney
XLR preferred

"press this red button..." aka easy 'idiot proof' handling :-) (while I have no problems shooting with DSLRs fully manuel , I would like to recruit interested volunteers to shot from a different angle in certain difficult conditions).
Colour is of paramount importance for me and to be honest, I dislike the colours of Sonys or Panasonics (< 15.ooo,-) for my work.

An obvious choice would be a used C100 MKI or even C300 MKI, but maybe some users have valuable input for me? As much I would like the XC's, I'm afraid of the dark lens. While I could invest in a second MKII, even in a c300 MKII (or varicam LT in theory at least), I didn#t feel it's wise or necessary, as cameras today a more like computers and very soon outdated anyway, also as mentioned we are shooting in quite rough conditions ... :-)

Unfortunately the market for used C300's is quite small here in Europe, most of them are very beaten ex-rental bodies in dubious quality. I would be curious what experienced pro's would advocate in terms of a still acceptable total number of hours shooting time for a cultivated used ex wedding C100 or C300?
Thx for any input!
 
I haven't tested it deeply yet, but my XF100 (for close-up) still holds fairly well against the C100MkI. Never as good and as sharp, but not bad at all.
 
John Foundas said:
XC15 matches up very nicely
Click to expand...


Yes that could be good choice , or X10 . All of them have c-log , wdr , but for this price you will get second hand c100 . From my experience, everything else what has no c-log , wdr ,it is pain in ass when it comes to match with c100 , mk2
 
Go the obvious route and buy a second C100 II. If you ever intend to shoot two different angles at the same time it is worth it to be shooting with the same camera. A b cam that is significantly smaller or lighter than the primary cam can be useful, but there isn't much significantly smaller than the C100. The only possible exception is the XC-15.
 
I think the C100 is very easy for a newbie to pick up and use. "Use this dial to open or close the iris. You can focus the lens here or toggle the auto focus with this button." Compared to the C100, something like a Sony mirrorless camera is like a technical manual in a foreign language.
 
Well I'm no pro, but I do know cameras fairly well and I just sold an XC10 (which part financed a C100 mk2, but that's another story). Your requirement for low light work completely, I'm afraid, removes the XC10 (and by extension XC15) from the list of possibilities. While in theory it can shoot with a fair bit of gain, the actual results are as noisy as you'd expect from a 1" sensor and, worse, you can't dial down or switch off the excessively generous amounts of NR the camera applies. Added to this is a high-ISO ghosting phenomenon that has provided material for a 30 odd page thread over at EOSHD.
 
I really like my XC10. It gives you portability and 4k, and the shots will match very nicely. Use it to shoot a 4k wide, which will be sharper and more detailed than a wide on the C100. Shoot your close-up with the C100.
 
Thanks for the input, Ladies(?) and G'men.

cpreston said:
Go the obvious route and buy a second C100 II. .
Click to expand...

That was my first thought, too.

But than, in a rare moment of sane reflection, I take a pen and started to list the neccessary stuff. Soon I needed another sheet of paper...

(1.) The story: getting there and have enough time. Gear to survive in the wilderness = $$$$
(2.) live and learn: get the shot AND the audio; no compromise in audio this time. Indoor, outdoor, athmo, interview, wireless lav's; have a backup. And best dead cats/wombats available LOL
(3.) Lighting. Need some battery powered, reliable bicolour LEDs. At least one 90W practilite fresnell, plus 50W soft panel (yeah, 100W would be better, but...), at least two Ledzillas (on-cam and to substitute the common ugly blue-greenish headlights of the talents), some small cheapos. California Sunbouncer (did they use platinium for them?). Some manfrotto tripods as light stands (wind, no flat bottom, mud). $$$$
(4.) Computers: A Toughbook for backup and watching footage.
--------------
$$$$

And now add to this a second Canon computer with a sensor... LOL

If we were shooting in daylight: XC10 or 15 as suggested, but a lot of the good stuff will probably happen in blue hours. Same with the other camcorders, they start to break at 3200/4000 ISo.
DSRL's - well, I have allready my Nikon D750 for very delicate b-roll stuff, like "backlighted-waterdrops-in-a-spider's-net", fine for quiet scenes, otherwise just a little bit to complicated for real action. And simply forget about colourmatching outdoor footage. :-)
C300 - maybe to big, still too expensive in good condition

So, the winner is an used C100 MKI, hopefully with DAF.

The margin to a soon-to-be-outdated-too MKII I will simply waste on fishing tackle :-)

disclaimer: I have done crazy stuff like this before... long time staffwriter + photo journalist, later PR (over now, thx god).
 
So we have a strong contender. I agree.
Thx again, looks like you have experience with all the range, Alexsey?

Maybe we should put together a little pro/contra evaluation of the different options, as this question might be of interest for some other C100/C300 users, too, and everyone has different needs. Feel free to copy and edit your insight please, I will paste it into the very first post and update this list.
Following my rough and quite inexperiened personal view at the moment, survival guide for shooting HD.

Canon DSLRs - not really. Pita. While you could achieve a very similar looin post, this came at a heavy price - Canons are more optimized for skin tones and not for true colour rendition. ML shooters are a minority nowadays :-)

Canon C100 MK I and II: Could be matched in post, perhaps even in WR directly in cam. Overall quite similar.
Biggest disadvantage of the older MKI body is the viewfinder.

DC 10/15 : Perhaps the best choice, if you could live with the fixed lens and the reduced performance in really low light. 4K, far superior codec makes this more future proof; the DC 10 misses XLR's allthough. Perhaps a great B- or C-cam for the next years, good value for money if bought used.
The ability to shoot close-ups with a smaller sensor (bigger dof) might be quite useful in a lot of situations.

Keep in mind the tempo of other contenders, too: While they have still a long way to go, Panasony is making progress in the right direction...



Greetings
 
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