C100: Will the A7S put the hurt on the C100?

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draculr

Well-known member
The C100 has always been the camera to get to step up from the 5D3. It offers true 1080P video, Canon Log for 12 stops of DR, focus peaking, EVF (well, it's supposed to be usable), XLR inputs and ND filters.

As far as the spec sheet tells me, the new Sony A7S (which may come in at under $2000) offers almost all of that. No NDs sure, and XLRs only through an option $800 accessory. But the rest seems as good as what the C100 offers. On top of that you get a much better EVF (would beat the C300's also), a 50mbit 1080p codec, 60fps @ 1080p and 120 at 720p, s-log (not sure if this is included or optional however) and the option of 4K 422 external recording. Also, what looks to be at least 2 stops better high iso??

A lot of people are already saying "where does this leave the 5D3" (for video of course). I wanted to start this thread by asking "where does this leave the C100?".

Ain't no better place to ask than here :)

Personally, the C100 has been great and using it for weddings it really does provide the all important "professional camera" look. However, when filming my own projects, I can seriously see myself using the A7S unless it has some serious issues (eg. rolling shutter). Having the option of shooting in full frame or S35 ala 1DC is quite tempting. Being able to use EF lenses makes it no trouble to make the jump also.
 
We shall see when real world examples turn up in the next few months.

A lot of people looked at the Specs and dismissed the C100 until they saw footage and real professional work being turned out with it.

We can all get carried away by flashy Product announcements and nicely done Adverts.
I would wait and see what people like Phil Bloom and Erik Naso make of it.

Great pricepoint if the features turn out better than the 5D3.
 
Looks irrelevant. High end consumer cam vs low end prosumer.

That said, I want one. Sample footage looks better than anything short of the Alexa. But it's an expensive toy/crash cam.
 
I always considered one of the key selling points of the C100 to be that it "just worked". I mean that there are XLR audio inputs, NDs built in, zebras, peaking, decent ergonomics, all the pro features we've been missing on the DSLRs, and most importantly…a beautiful image straight out of the camera. I wouldn't trade it for a BMPC even though that shoots 4k raw. I wouldn't trade it for a GH4 or any of the DSLR type of cameras. I just don't want to go back to dangling a bunch of crap off my camera to get a shot.
The A7s looks nice, and I really hope it delivers all that it's promising in real life, but I'm still going to hang on to my C100 for a while.
 
Well I just bought a C100 today, nothing else came close in terms of total package. Loving it so far. Thanks to Mike at Access AV in NH for a great purchasing experience :)

john.
 
I've been at NAB for the past few days and got a chance to check out the A7s. It looks exactly like my A7. That said, the footage out of it was incredible. They played some footy from the A7s on a 4k TV and it was amazing. There was a low light shot taken in a temple in Japan that was lit by candles and it looked like it was shot at 400 ISO. Plus it's tack sharp at 4K and has no line skipping so I saw no moire, aliasing or even noise (although I only saw footage up to 12800). All the pixels are in use and the camera was designed for 4K.

The reps I spoke with all had different ideas for pricing. Pricing won't be revealed for a bit but they thought it was going to be more than the A7r. Some said less. Some thought around $2k. Since it doesn't do 4K in camera and you need a separate recorder your investment is going to be a lot more than $2k to shoot 4k. Atomos announced the Shogun recorder at NAB this year and it looks awesome. Full HD 7" monitor that can record 4K at 4:2:2 uncompressed at 10bit. The recorder can also do cinema DNG raw, ProRes, and DNxHD. It's under $2k so that'll make the A7s raw camera around the same price as the C100 when all is said and done.

I still love my C100. It just works as an above poster mentioned. But, I will complement it with an A7s for slo mo and for low light work. It'll probably see a decent amount of time on a Steadicam or a gimbal once I decide what to get. Since the high ISO performance is so good, it won't be too difficult to stop down a ton to keep focus.
 
akivisuals said:
I've been at NAB for the past few days and got a chance to check out the A7s. It looks exactly like my A7. That said, the footage out of it was incredible. They played some footy from the A7s on a 4k TV and it was amazing. There was a low light shot taken in a temple in Japan that was lit by candles and it looked like it was shot at 400 ISO. Plus it's tack sharp at 4K and has no line skipping so I saw no moire, aliasing or even noise (although I only saw footage up to 12800). All the pixels are in use and the camera was designed for 4K.

The reps I spoke with all had different ideas for pricing. Pricing won't be revealed for a bit but they thought it was going to be more than the A7r. Some said less. Some thought around $2k. Since it doesn't do 4K in camera and you need a separate recorder your investment is going to be a lot more than $2k to shoot 4k. Atomos announced the Shogun recorder at NAB this year and it looks awesome. Full HD 7" monitor that can record 4K at 4:2:2 uncompressed at 10bit. The recorder can also do cinema DNG raw, ProRes, and DNxHD. It's under $2k so that'll make the A7s raw camera around the same price as the C100 when all is said and done.

I still love my C100. It just works as an above poster mentioned. But, I will complement it with an A7s for slo mo and for low light work. It'll probably see a decent amount of time on a Steadicam or a gimbal once I decide what to get. Since the high ISO performance is so good, it won't be too difficult to stop down a ton to keep focus.
Click to expand...

Awesome, the big question for me is how the 1080p footage looks. Does it compare to the C100? Is it even better?
 
FWIW, the A7S has a removeable XLR solution (XLR-K1M) analogous to the C100 handle, just at extra cost (still likely well below the difference). I've seen a couple of products emerge that place switchable ND or vari-ND in an E-mount adapter (not ideal for multiple reasons, but exists as an partial solution). Naturally the C100 has a huge advantage in battery life and autofocus capability, and likely the A7S is hampered by some EU-appeasing record time limitation, so of course there are pros and cons for each and comparison shopping one vs. the other will vary by person. As to one being competition to the other... anecdotally, I was edging towards buying a C100 earlier this year, but with the introduction of the A7S and GH4 am no longer considering it for how I would use a small handheld large-sensor camera.
 
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draculr said:
The C100 has always been the camera to get to step up from the 5D3. It offers true 1080P video, Canon Log for 12 stops of DR, focus peaking, EVF (well, it's supposed to be usable), XLR inputs and ND filters.

As far as the spec sheet tells me, the new Sony A7S (which may come in at under $2000) offers almost all of that. No NDs sure, and XLRs only through an option $800 accessory. But the rest seems as good as what the C100 offers. On top of that you get a much better EVF (would beat the C300's also), a 50mbit 1080p codec, 60fps @ 1080p and 120 at 720p, s-log (not sure if this is included or optional however) and the option of 4K 422 external recording. Also, what looks to be at least 2 stops better high iso??

A lot of people are already saying "where does this leave the 5D3" (for video of course). I wanted to start this thread by asking "where does this leave the C100?".

Ain't no better place to ask than here :)

Personally, the C100 has been great and using it for weddings it really does provide the all important "professional camera" look. However, when filming my own projects, I can seriously see myself using the A7S unless it has some serious issues (eg. rolling shutter). Having the option of shooting in full frame or S35 ala 1DC is quite tempting. Being able to use EF lenses makes it no trouble to make the jump also.
Click to expand...

is a different pieces of equipment I have to say.
Many people use c100 because they like the form factor, and they have AF for their existing lens.

Same case as Sony user upgrade from their Sony NEX to the VG20/30 because they can change lens.

As for the A7s is a cheat really use a low pixel (12MP ) the cover the whole FF Crop to give it a 1:1 output. also no internal recording because the SD card cannot handle the data rate of 4K.

Is a piece of interesting equipment, if you already have a external recorder, or you have sony lens or you just do MF for filming.
 
cookinghusband said:
is a different pieces of equipment I have to say.
Many people use c100 because they like the form factor, and they have AF for their existing lens.

Same case as Sony user upgrade from their Sony NEX to the VG20/30 because they can change lens.

As for the A7s is a cheat really use a low pixel (12MP ) the cover the whole FF Crop to give it a 1:1 output. also no internal recording because the SD card cannot handle the data rate of 4K.

Is a piece of interesting equipment, if you already have a external recorder, or you have sony lens or you just do MF for filming.
Click to expand...

A guy who played around with A7s said its ISO80000 is sharper and cleaner than 5D3 at ISO 6400, that's interesting
 
cookinghusband said:
As for the A7s is a cheat really use a low pixel (12MP ) the cover the whole FF Crop to give it a 1:1 output.
Click to expand...

to paraphrase Clint Eastwood as Tom Highway in Heartbreak Ridge: "They improvised, they overcame, they adapted..."

I don't think the C-series has a very high-Megapickle sensor either... they use the same sensible lower-MP solution Sony did here, as well as on their FS100.

Even without the 4Kapability, considering it only as a 1080p camera, the advantages of full-frame (plus S35), better lens adaptability, higher internal bitrate, higher framerate options, better EVF, lighter weight, stills flexibility, sensitivity, and so forth for (probably) less than half the C100 cost (even with the ~$800 XLR adapter) are very convincing (ON PAPER). Cripes, I can add a hell of a nice grip to the right side for ~$2500. Eager to see how they compare in real world use.
 
mcbob said:
Eager to see how they compare in real world use.
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I think that's the key phrase here.
Remember how so many people dogged on the C300 when it launched? They all compared it to the Scarlet that was announced and trashed the C300 on the specs. Well…let's look at those two cameras today. Everyone with a C300 is using it and renting it out the rest of the time as it's in such high demand. Ryan Koo was on a C5D panel and basically said that his Scarlet was just sitting around now. It rented well at first, but now there is no demand for it.
The A7s looks nice, and has good specs on paper, but how good is it really going to be out in the field? It's a step back for me since it's a DSLR form factor and it's big selling point of 4k requires another add on. Since we're still delivering in HD, the C100 competes on that point since it too has a 4k sensor but down samples in camera. I know it's not exactly the same thing, but at the end of the day you've got a beautiful image that's hard to beat and you didn't need to put together a tinker toy set and cable jungle just to get it working.
If the A7s image is that good in real world use, I might be tempted, but I just find it really hard to go back from having such a nice all in one camera.
 
indeed, not a comparison at all. the C100 was created to solve just about all of the annoyances of shooting with any sort of DSLR.

the low light sounds great, but as it is, the 12,800 on the c100 is incredibly usable, i just used it last night in a horribly dim park with nearly no light, and i could squeeze out a 1/24 f2 12,800 shot. we're already getting away with murder as it is with c100 low light abilities, more than that of course will have its uses, but i have yet to find a camera i actually want to replace my c100 with, despite it's quirks
 
Based on the hope that the A7S will take Canon glass with the appropriate Metabones adaptor, I'm interested to see that it's using some version of the S-Log gamma that can get spookily close to C-Log. I'm hoping further that this camera may match closer to the C100/C300 than equivalent Canon DSLRs.

However, I did have a chance to play with the Alpha 7R. Aside from the image quality, which I found pleasing but not quite what I'd expect, the menu structure was a little fiddly (!).

It was small. It was shiny. It felt like an iPhone - dense, expensive and slippery.

You can achieve XLR audio with Phantom Power with a £600 K1M - hey, half the price of the YAGH and doesn't require external power.

But it does XAVC-S - that's a nice codec that blows AVCHD out of the water.

The only thing for me that hangs over it is that it's at heart an 8 bit camera.

Until we know about things like 'manual white balance', 'record length', 'battery life', 'Zone focus' - all these little niceties, It goes into the 'Interesting' pile.

I'm working on the mantra that Good quality HD at 4:2:2 10 bit looks great on 4K displays, 4:2:0 8 bit does NOT. This comes from the heavyweights in broadcast engineering, not my examination of navel fluff. The GH4 offers 10 bit, the A7S does not - perhaps to protect the F5/F55 franchise?

Still happy with 'wot i got'.
 
Darren Levine said:
indeed, not a comparison at all. the C100 was created to solve just about all of the annoyances of shooting with any sort of DSLR.

the low light sounds great, but as it is, the 12,800 on the c100 is incredibly usable, i just used it last night in a horribly dim park with nearly no light, and i could squeeze out a 1/24 f2 12,800 shot. we're already getting away with murder as it is with c100 low light abilities, more than that of course will have its uses, but i have yet to find a camera i actually want to replace my c100 with, despite it's quirks
Click to expand...
Seeing as even now, dslr's are being released with severe rolling shutter, it is a good deed what Canon did for many video users. But they fell short on a few other things DSLR's have been getting right.
 
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