Mmmbeats

I notice he uses the H.265 mostly. Possibly briefed to do that by Canon. I reckon it might turn out to be the best codec for acquisition. Better than the All-I even,

Not sure about that. That's 3 bits of colour-tainted polarised glass before the light even hits the front of the lens. I'm not keen!

Yep. Was going to post similar. I've had the step up ring from the outgoing lens stay stuck on the VND a few times during a change. I've been in a VND vs lens cap conundrum a few times. Also, there's no zero ND option with VND; you have to keep screwing the thing on and off. Annoying. Plus internal ND is closer to fixed ND than variable ND (complicated by the 'extended range' thing you get with Canon). From what I see the colour rendition is fantastic. I wonder if they are able to further tweak the internal filters knowing that they are optimising for just one sensor? For example they could add a bit of IR suppression I'm guessing? In any case it's a blessing, and as you say - worth quite a bit in the heat of fast-moving acquisition.

For quick changing frames it's a disaster. I was shooting tightly framed footage of a moving carriage (from the side). There were massive blocky compression artifacts. Here's a funny thing - I was quite stressed out about this, because it was clearly a mistake on my part, and something I had anticipated but forgot to compensate for. The shot, which was acquired vertically funnily enough, was part of a large-scale museum installation. As is, I'm assuming, general practice, I sent a low-quality file to the client for approval. To my horror, this low-quality file was programmed into the installation 'show' (the central controlling mechanism), and the client subsequently neglected to even download the fully mastered file from me. I kept reminding him that he had the wrong file up, but he kept insisting that it looked fine (they were working to a tight deadline, with lots of other physical and media-based elements to install). Anyways, the exhibition has had rave reviews (including the train segment specifically) and just ended up winning a very prestigious industry award! 😅 So perhaps sometimes our pursuit of perfection is somewhat idle!

I'm wondering which of the codec options is going to be the highest quality option, all things being equal? I suspect that the headroom afforded to the Long-GOP codecs is going to make them superior for most situations than the All-I. Here are the bitrates and recording times (per 64Gb) for the top settings: XF-AVC All-I - 410 Mbps (19 mins) XF-AVC Long-GOP - 260 Mbps (30 mins) MP4 / H.265 - 225 Mbps (35 mins) It seems to me that the headroom afforded the Long-GOP codecs is more generous (proportional to their compression ability) than the All-I. I'm only going by my experience of Panasonic's implementation of compression in which 400 Mbps All-I is virtually visually identical to 150 Mbps Long-GOP in most situations. Also, H.265 is touted as being much more efficient than H.264, so I would expect the headroom afforded it may well yield the best results overall. Obviously there are times when you would want to use All-I in any case (as I was recently reminded when shooting moving underground trains having forgot to switch back from Long_GOP! 😬). Any thoughts?

That's really good advice, thanks.

I've used the DMW (if I'm getting it's name right) and it's a really good unit. I'll probably pick one up even if I get an external recorder, and even if I demote the GH5S. The thing is though, I'm pretty sure you are still going to want to strip the camera from time to time, whether for transport, or for a top handle, or for a smaller package. This makes it one more thing to manage and set up, one more thing to forget to pack! (I only very rarely have a packing incident!). Mini XLR is not as much of a deficit as micro HDMI as the connection is still locking. I'll probably just have a pair of short adaptors permanently attached if I can find a good way to secure them ( though I admit, that's just the kind of 'riggy' stuff I'm trying to get away from). I do generally plug a rented Zoom recorder into the sound desk for redundant sound, but end up using the camera feed just for convenience. Events are not my main line of work, so my gear is not yet optimised for it really. Managing to service the jobs fine though, so it's not a big problem.

Just to temper the excitement a bit - is anybody seeing any good footage from this camera yet? The first people to get their footage out always seem to be the camera stores, and unfortunately their films are not great. The film that seems to show what the camera can do so far has been the Give This Heart a Pen one, which is an over-saturated look I'm not super fond of, but it demonstrates the cameras capabilities well. A lot of my excitement is based on seeing C300III footage and assuming or hoping that a similar level of excellence can be achieved, tempered by the fact that some of the C300 footage was shot in RAW.

Yes, either an external recorder or the DMW XLR adaptor would have been a better set up than the one I rigged (using a Beachtek preamp). But for ease-of-use plugging multiple sources directly into the camera is the winner. That's something that none of the smaller units can do - even the Pocket cams have only one balanced audio in if I recall correctly. Of course quality, and control, are different matters, and I do have my eye on the Mix-Pre series recorders to be honest. But there are times when you just want to plug and go. I'd much prefer to own a C300III than the C70, but financially I don't think that will happen for a while yet. There's the value proposition that I'm trying to highlight - as you say, the C70 is closer to the GH5S in price, but it appears to be closer to the C300III in features and output.

Point 3 is the one that I disagree with the most. The results from using a cinema camera over a DSLR, mirrorless or similar are indeed 'magical' if you look at the target user. For a working professional in virtually any area of moving image acquisition the advantages of using something like the EOS line over something like (say) the Sony Alpha line have included: Reliability Built-in ND Professional audio connections and controls Additional Customisable buttons Video-centric form factor (admittedly not the case for the C70) Of course there isn't the image quality gap between the top-tier prosumer models and the professional cameras that there used to be, especially when you look at the image coming from cameras like the S1H. The emergence of high-quality tools at an relatively entry-level price has been great for all of us! But there does come a time where a purpose-built fully-resourced industrial machine is what's required for the job. A while back I did an event shoot with my GH5S. I'd checked my audio setup well in advance, but developed a problem just before the event was about to start. What followed was a panicky troubleshoot through my audio-route going into the camera. I had to unplug and replug 9 different connections (running from mic receivers to preamp to camera, back to preamp, and up into my headphones) before isolating the problem just in the nick of time - not a particularly comfortable experience! The real moral of this story, as I'm sure @IronFilm will agree, is to always hire a proper sound recordist! But the other thing it taught me is that you need the right tools for the job. Of course there are times when a mirrorless or similar is great - when you're just starting out, when you're trying to look civilian, when you need to be ultra-lightweight, etc. But sooner or later you are going to want more facilitation, and you probably won't mind too much paying a bit more to get it. That's my view.

I'm not so much talking about making considered (though in my opinion, misguided) points like you have done. I'm talking more about calling everybody else cunts, and then trying to pass it off as 'ironic' or a joke when called out about it 😉.

I'm going from memory so I can't verify where I saw these info segments, but I'm fairly confident that: Yes, you can do punch in while recording (Panasonic have been killing me with the lack of this for years now!). Yes, the speedbooster does impede the AF to an extent. I believe it works just as well, but the coverage is reduced (from 80% to 60% of the screen real estate). No, there aren't any EF-S-style crop RF lenses as far as I know. Plus I doubt there will be. Though perhaps 3rd party lenses (like Sigma) might be adapted? (I'm not so confident on this last paragraph).

Why do people get so worked up about this stuff? Seriously - it would be an interesting psychological study.

I pretty much agree. Unless it drowns out the thread (my goodness the howls about AF whenever Panasonic releases a camera get tedious as hell) then I'm all up for hearing people's opinions. I just reserve the right to be dismissive about them if need be. There are still a number of things that are potential pitfalls with this camera, even though I expect it to be great. Will the new design ND system hold up to practical use over time? Will the model look impressive in real life (actually important to me for professional reasons)? Will the codec options work as well as expected? Still lots to discuss and discover. At this point in it's launch I was fully in love with the EVA-1, but that didn't pan out for me in the end.

Cars are annoying sometimes when you're searching for cameras. Stupid cars.

I expect that B&H have got this wrong. This is from Newshooter and reads a bit more convincing to me (though I'd prefer you to be right) :

A good balanced overview in my opinion. I think that if the shortcomings of the camera don't suit your needs then that's understandable. If you're a Gratical Eye EVF owner for instance (SDI input only) , then you might be feeling a bit left out. But I think that questioning the actual value proposition with this particular release is short-sighted, I honestly do.

No, I believe they are providing some set LUT choices in-camera but you can't load your own for monitoring unfortunately. If I recall correctly there is the ability to burn-in LUTS (never an attractive idea for me).

Eta: Perhaps the C100 mkII was similarly priced? I don't recall. I'm pretty sure the mk I was quite a bit more.

Is anybody labouring under the notion that any of these major corporations are offering prices, features and services for any other reason than to drive profit? I can't see anything in Rinad Amir's post that suggests that. The price is unique. It's an eye-catching £3,999 (ex VAT) in the UK. There's never been a major cinema camera release with that badge that I can remember. I'm really not taken by down-market comparisons with either the R5 or the A7SIII. Just different kinds of machines. Hybrids, with all the advantages and compromises that brings. I honestly think they belong to a different (but obviously overlapping) market segment. I take your point about 'fully-equipped' - I really meant dedicated high-end video camera.

From what I can see this is literally the least expensive fully-equipped cinema camera by any of the major manufacturers currently available in the market. (I'm not including the z-cam range and things like that). Apologies in advance if I've missed anything.

I actually agree with this, but I don't think it shines as much of a bad light on Canon as people think. The various strategies also reflect how companies attract customers. Varicam is Panasonic's successful cinema range at this point. Despite it being a decent camera I doubt the EVA1 has been very successful. I'm not exaggerating when I say the only ones I've seen in the wild are the ones I've personally rented. Whereas Canon have had huge penetration with their EOS range, with C300's and C500's widely used in mid-tier and high-end professional productions, and the C100 and C200's serving their purposes well also. So it's not that surprising that Panny has gone hard after the 'low-hanging' mirrorless fruit, while Canon has done everything it can to protect it's lucrative EOS line. If the fortunes were reversed I imagine the corporate cultures would reflect that. And is Canon so wrong-footed? While everybody else has been R&D'ing towards making the boldest and best mirrorless hybrids possible, that whole end of the market is being viciously chomped from below by mobile devices, to the point where a) sales have disappeared across the board, b) Sony seem to be seriously reconsidering their camera division going forward, and c) Panasonic may well be abandoning MFT sometime soon. Perhaps the smartest strategy was Canon in saying let's make limited products for entryists and fully-facilitated products for arrived professionals, but provide a roadmap that takes them from A to B (to C...). In all of this, I'm not defending the R5 heating stuff. That was lead by deception, and is inexcusable in my opinion. There's enough about that on other threads, but I just wanted to make it clear that I don't include that release as part of a reasonable segmentisation policy.

I guess I'm used to it. I think of it a bit like doing a rush print or something like that. The cameras I use currently only shoot acquisition codecs. I like zoning the edit - technical-creative-technical. I get as much of the technical pain out of the way first so I can just 'flow' in the actual edit as much as possible. I was interested in the C200, shooting RAW Lite with a transcode workflow, but the transcode times I tested were too long! (my machine wasn't up to editing RAW) This is probably turning into a bit of a derail so feel free to ignore!

I have to admit, I transcode all of my footage routinely regardless of camera, so I just consider them as acquisition codecs.

When your starting point for the grade is a better quality image than the RAW coming out of previous cameras, I doubt you'll be missing much in terms of gradibility. Perhaps if you're doing quite extreme colour isolations for effect, or if you need to rescue a mistake, then you might miss RAW. But for most applications this sensor + codec combo is probably going to provide a better graded image than most previous RAW cameras (in the price range, obviously). Canon have made a doozy of a workhorse cinema camera in the C300 III. It really does look the business, and I wish I could afford one! Of course a lesser release is not going to share it's full feature set. What would be the sense in that for Canon? So you just have to ask - is this a reasonable compromise at the price point or not? Personally I think it's a very generous offer. A truly top class image. Very decent codecs and frame rates. Bold new form factor. I don't think RAW is such an unreasonable omission.