Now the Canon C300 mkII is finally reaching users, the verdicts are rolling in. Who better to venture an opinion than Joe Simon of The Delivery Men, known for shooting beautiful commercial, wedding and documentary films?
He recently put it to the test while leading a documentary shooting workshop at B+H, after a day of prep with it. His twelve students produced this short film on “yarnbomber” London Kaye, who crochets and installs guerrilla art around New York. Everyone on the team took turns in each of the main film-making roles (director, DP/camera operator, sound, PA, editor, music supervisor etc) and they had just one and a half days to shoot and one to edit. It was mostly shot on the C300 mkII, with a few C100 shots mixed in.
As an experienced C300, C100 and now FS7 user, Joe’s particularly well placed to compare the performance of the new camera to other models: he’s an experienced C300, C100 and C100 mkII user; he’s sold all of those except one C100 and now uses a Sony FS7 as his primary camera. Here’s what he had to say:
“The image is beautiful. In comparison to the FS7, it is very similar,” he noted.
The C-Log 2 is much flatter than the original C-Log, he thought; it’s now pretty similar to Sony’s S-Log.
For him, the two biggest interests in the C300 mkII are its autofocus and 12-bit 4:4:4 1080P HD.
“The autofocus works great,” he said; he especially liked the ability to move the focus area to points in the frame that are off centre. That said, Joe found positioning the autofocus frame to be “not the fastest process” and a “bit of an annoyance”. It is done via a small joystick on the grip or via a wi-fi based app.
“Students on the workshop used the autofocus for many of the shots in the video and the results are certainly impressive coming from people who predominantly use DSLRs and haven’t had much hands-on time with the camera.” Joe did point out that the autofocus doesn’t work in high frame rate shooting though.
The 12-bit HD impressed Joe, who prioritises colour space and bitrate for nicer colour gradients over resolution. (His class also wanted to shoot HD with the better colourspace and faster turnaround, instead of 4K).
Is the colour really much better than the FS7, as people say? To Joe, the biggest difference between the two is when shooting inside. Outside, he finds the C300 mkII and FS7 very similar. But step into artificial light inside and that is where Canon has the advantage, in his view.
Joe saw the camera as being good for one-man operations where you don’t have a crew. The autofocus, the good image and the ability to shoot in pretty much any conditions make this possible.
Interestingly, he didn’t think the low light capabilities are as good as the C100. He thought that 10,000 ISO on the C100 was still pretty usable, whereas the C300 mkII started to get unusable at around 6000 ISO. He felt that the blacks were noiser with the C300 mkII with correctly exposed C-Log 2, although he didn’t try any in-camera or post-process noise reduction.
You can also see the difference in dynamic range between the C300 mkII and the C100 on some shots in the video.
Joe loved the C300 mkII’s internal ND filters. The 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 stops expanded ND range makes it easy to work at super wide apertures in bright conditions.
The slow motion capabilities are more of a let down. The mode windows heavily as it is recording a HD crop of the full sensor. Achieving a wide shot is hard to do. Even with a 14mm prime he found it hard to get a full length shot of Kaye dancing on a roof.
The body is heavier than the original but essentially the same design. Joe is a fan of the original C300 form factor and naturally felt at home using the new camera in the hand.
In conclusion, Joe loved the 12-bit colour in HD and the gradeability of the image. That said, he thought not doing 60P in 4K was poor and the pricing “weird”.
He is looking for a new camera for his MoVI and has thought about buying the Sony FS5 instead of the C300 mkII. Even with an external recorder and remote focus, the FS5 still costs less than the C300 mkII. In fact, you could buy two FS5s kits, or a FS5 and an a7S II for around the same price as C300 mkII.
Ultimately, he didn’t think he would buy it: “If I’m going to pay that much for that camera why not just look at a RED or going to an Alexa MINI?” he asked.
As for rental, he noted: “The footage looks great, but is it going to be worth the additional price of rental vs. a FS7 which is half the price?”
When asked what he would use for a high end commercial, Joe said he would still opt for a RED over the C300 mkII, but for documentary he would choose the Canon.
