herein2020

Yes, I turned it up all the way, they rarely show up. Are you using the EF adapter and EF lenses? It probably works better with native L mount lenses. I didn't have this problem with the GH5 and native MFT lenses.

I am not a dedicated videographer either for most events, but I still think even as a dedicated videographer with the S5 it is impossible especially on a gimbal. I say that because the focus peaking is so hard to see on the screen of my S5 even indoors that I would have a very hard time manually focusing on a moving object. The little dots show up so rarely and they are so hard to see that I just use one-shot AF then just try to keep the same camera to subject distance. Maybe with an external screen that does its own focus peaking and a lens with a good focus throw it could work with MF.

That's why there's never a budget here, none of the big name designers come here, and the smaller local designers have no budget either. Many larger cities in the USA try to keep the fashion scene alive, but without budgets to match, they never make it to the level of Paris, Miami, NY, or LA. I think the camera makers just don't care, their margins are razor thin, I imagine that 32bit float chip costs a few more dollars than a standard chip and they just don't see someone buying their camera over their competitors just because of 32bit audio. I think the only way we will get it in camera is if someone like Panasonic or Blackmagic puts it in one of their bodies and advertises it heavily. I used the XLR inputs today and I will say, the audio is the cleanest in camera I've ever heard. I never realized how much circuit noise my S5 and GH5 with the XLR adapter was adding to the signal until now. With the S5 I had to do a lot of audio work in Davinci Resolve and always felt like I was "fixing" the problems with the audio; with the C70 today straight out of camera with the same Sennheiser setup I've had for years everything sounded better and I don't think I need to do a single thing. The location wasn't even ideal and was outdoors with a heavy crosswind blowing. The automatic track was too conservative, so I am glad my A track was set manually because the auto track had a gain lower than I would have liked. You are right, the user manual states that the digital stabilization in the C70 works best at 1/180s or higher shutter speed. Funny how none of the Canon reps (or YT talking heads) mention that for the R5C or the C70 when they say lacking IBIS when hand holding isn't a big deal because there's still digital stabilization.

Paris France? Paris is legendary in the fashion world, along with Milan, NY, and Miami. I am in Tampa FL, so the shows here are nowhere near the Paris league. Even Miami is a massive difference, I shot the Miami Swim week show last year and the lighting was picture perfect. Here in Tampa FL, I've literally had to light the models with not much more than an on camera light. Since COVID hit, it has been even worse because most of them are held outdoors now and outdoors at night there's no guarantee of a power source to power my bigger lights. That video looked great, I have the 50mm F1.4 so with the speedbooster and a little fill light I should be able to make it work. I will definitely do everything I can to stick to 800ISO, but when you are shooting wide open sometimes your only choice is to start cranking the ISO if it is still too dark. I've even had to drop my shutter speed to 1:1 in the past just to get more light. The increased motion blur was worth the alternative. I remember that discussion, personally I'd just be happy with 32bit float audio, but it wouldn't really help me in many situations. When using wireless lavs/mics the audio can clip at the transmitter or receiver before it even reaches the camera so even with 32bit float audio, it wouldn't help my typical audio scenario. My main problem is there's not that many stabilized EF lenses, so I will be stuck with no stabilization or digital stabilization for lenses like the 50mm F1.4. I don't know how good Sony's stabilization is, but I know my GoPro's stabilization is incredible as well. The latest GoPro also performs horizon leveling which mine does not have. The C70's stabilization on the other hand is nowhere near as good. I noticed that as well, I never shot ALL-I with the GH5 but when I tried it, the cards failed almost immediately. I do think the C70 will be fine at 4K30FPS which is only 160Mb/s, 4K60FPS is 260Mb/s and it is the main framerate I use when handholding or using a gimbal, so I will need to do a lot of testing with that one. Longform talking heads stuff is all 30FPS anyway, so I already ordered the 1TB cards. Everything I've read says don't ETTR with the C70. Just shoot down the middle and it will be fine. For lowlight use CLOG3, for everything else use CLOG2. For my first shoot I literally just kept everything in the middle of the WFM and the Buttery LUT turned it into something useable. That was the same way I shot with the S5 and VLOG. I also like to crush the blacks for lowlight shots, to me blacks should be black, not shades of grey, the camera does not have night vision, so where there truly is no light there should not be any ISO gain noise so once I crush the blacks they look clean to me.

Here is what I consider a great test and it shows the C70 holding its own at 3200ISO even against the A7SIII. I don't think I've ever gone above 6400ISO in all of my years of shooting so if it is clean up to 6400ISO in CLOG3 that's all I need.

Yes Dual ISO is definitely different from DGO but I'm hoping there's still a chance it performs well. I saw some reviews up to around 3200ISO look clean to me so with the speedbooster and the 50mm that might match the S5 at 4000ISO. I will definitely have to experiment, most of what I see on YT is all over the place and I have no interest in sitting in front of charts testing things so I'll just get out there and shoot and let you know for my particular projects how it performs. My main concern is fashion shows with no lighting which are typically held at night. If it performs well there I'll be good to go since everything else I shoot is easier than that. It is just a generic warning stating the card is not compatible with the chosen resolution and compression settings. I do have a plan though; I am going to use dual slot recording and keep a V90 card in one slot and a V30 card in the other for awhile before trusting two V30 cards. When one card's buffer overflows it does not affect the second card (I just tested that with ALL-I and a V30 in slot A and a V90 in slot B) so that way I can fully test the V30 on shoots without impacting the footage. The R6 actually has higher bitrates at 4K60FPS 10bit than the C70's 260Mb/s so it would make sense that you have issues with V30 cards. I think if I format the V30's before every shoot they might work. The one thing I am not sure about is if heat affects the sustained data rates. It will be awhile before I trust going solo with the V30's but it will be great if I can.

Correction, the read speed for a Sandisk V30 card is 170MB/s the write speed is 90MB/s. The data rate for 4K60FPS XF-AVC is 30MB/s so that's why it should work. Now if a vendor such as Lexar overrates their sustained data rates (probably by a lot) then obviously it won't work.

I honestly felt like the S5's DR was sufficient for me, of course looking at the DR chart it is right up there with the best Canon has to offer and it is a BSI sensor as well not to mention FF so who knows it could be close or even with the C70 which means I won't be that impressed with the C70's DR. I love being able to push the mids since I rarely get to work with proper fill lighting so I care more about the mids and clean shadows in low light situations. The S5 is awesome at 4000ISO since it is a dual native ISO sensor so if the C70 is just as clean at 4000ISO then I'll be happy. The S5's screen is definitely not as good as the GH5's and I can tell you that the C70's screen is a few steps down from there. Even my Canon Rebel T6S feels sturdier. I still found the S5's screen to be sufficient, I never really thought about it being flimsy since everything about the S5 IMO is not as well built as the GH5; the C70 on the other hand is definitely the worse tilt/flip screen I've ever used. Yes that's the video that I saw that said the fixed versions are better than the original. The screen on mine is so bad that I really can't tell if it is "fixed" or not since I don't have anything to compare it to other than cameras with better screens. I hope mine is not the "fixed" version of the hinge, because what I am thinking I will do is as soon as I don't have any jobs lined up I will preemptively file a complaint with Canon and send it in for repair saying the screen feels too flimsy. If they send it back without repairing it then I'm screwed and the way it is now is as good as it gets. I do have some awesome news (for me anyway) regarding the storage problem. This truly had me concerned considering the data rates at 4K60FPS when shooting XF-AVC......so I did some testing today with my Sandisk Extreme Pro V30 cards and what do you know.....I filled up the card with 4K60FPS HEVC footage and not one problem other than the built in Canon card warning. This morning I kept doing the math and couldn't figure out why a V30 card wouldn't work for everything except ALL-I and RAW. The Sandisk V30 card is rated at 170MB/s and the XF-AVC 4K60FPS data rate is 260Mb/s which equals only 30MB/s so as long as the vendor's card ratings were accurate there's plenty of room for overhead there. Sure enough, I was able to shoot until the battery died at 4K60FPS XF-AVC and it stopped recording after a few seconds when I switched to ALL-I or 120FPS. So, what I think I will do is keep the V90 cards in case I decide to shoot RAW (which will probably be never since there's no way to store it) and get 1TB Sandisk Extreme Pro V30 cards. If you do not care about dual card redundancy (I do), you could put a 1TB V30 SD card in one slot and a 256GB V90 card in the second slot and if you want to shoot RAW, ALL-I, or 120FPS you could switch to that slot and for everything else use the 1TB V30 card. I personally care more about dual card redundancy so I will order 2 1TB Sandisk V30 cards and in the rare cases I want to shoot 120FPS or RAW then I'll use the V90 cards. It would have been really nice if Canon had pushed the boundaries a bit with this camera and added some internal NVME storage accessible via USB-C (but there's that upfront price increase to think about). I also have a new one for the quirky list....if you shoot 4K120FPS using the F&S menu then the camera disables one of the card slots and you cannot save the footage to both cards. No idea why, since it does not do that for ALL-I footage so I don't think it is a data rate issue. I thought maybe it was a bug, but it is documented in the owner's manual. Not that big of a deal but still surprising.

Yes it does seem like I am in this same situation each time I get a new camera body. Or maybe we are just justifying the purchase due to the big shoot/trip that is coming up. I will say after digging around in the audio menus the features are quite impressive. It creates 4 tracks and you can set it up to use a second track for each XLR input as a safety track so I have my first track set to manual control and the safety track set to automatic level control and it works pretty well that way. I don't think it's a QC issue as much as it is deliberate cost cutting decisions. Using higher quality components for the body probably would have added $500-$600USD to the price which would have pushed more people away. Even Sony did not take a sensor from a $11K camera and put it into a lower cost cinema body. Canon developed the sensor in house (which had to be incredibly expensive), then they put it in a camera that cost half the price of the original. To me, the C70 is like a budget sports car....you are mainly paying for the engine and accepting the sacrifices that were made to keep the costs low (poor interior quality, less than stellar handling, etc.). With the C70 you have to accept the low quality buttons and screen while hoping none of it breaks. The lack of stabilization was very hard to accept, stabilized lenses are pretty amazing though, if you can get them. My 24-105mm lens may become my new favorite lens which is unfortunate because the 50mm Sigma is much better for details and shallow DOF. Sony doesn't do it for me either, the footage I feel could be fixed in post and with the right LUT could probably be fixed with minimal effort especially out of something like the A7S3, but its a whole different ecosystem and I don't like how Sony makes so many proprietary decisions. Even their flashes aren't compatible with any other camera. I definitely do not agree with Canon's business practices, and even thought about getting the C70 used just to ensure they did not get my money, but at the end of the day I have to focus on my own business first and make my decision based on what makes the most financial sense. The used bodies weren't much if any cheaper and I need that original warranty plus I got a full 4yr insurance coverage from BH separate from the Canon warranty.

Looks pretty incredible, they can keep that crown, no way am I going that far underwater or taking my C70 with me 🙂

I agree 100%, I just don't have time to do that at the moment, looks like every shoot will be a learning experience 🙂. I am already familiar with the Cinema OS from owning the C200 and already familiar with exposing CLOG2, as well as using CAF with my 5DIV so its just going to take some small adjustments here and there to refine my C70 shooting style. I have a much bigger shoot on Tuesday and it will need everything plus audio so I plan on testing all of the audio features today and tomorrow to prepare for Tuesday. My work really is seasonal and I shoot a wide variety of both photography and video so it varies. My most frequent work used to be events but with COVID that's changed a bit, I still shoot some events but I also shoot a lot of modeling and fashion work as well as commercial real estate (photography and video), social media commercials, and small business promo videos. I also shoot b-roll for larger commercial projects so it really just all depends. In FL it rains a lot so during the rainy season and winter months I tend to do more studio photography and video work (talking heads, corporate headshots, modeling shoots, etc), in the spring before the rainy season there's more outdoor events that need photography and video, during the rainy season I shoot more indoor events and promo videos, and the occasional music video or wedding. I gave up residential real estate because the pay was awful even for residential real estate promo videos, and real estate photography was even worse.

I can tell already this post will be long and probably ramble a bit so I will apologize in advance 🙂. For me, purchasing the C70 was a years in the making decision because I do not make new camera purchases lightly. My goal with a camera body purchase is that it fits with minimal additional investment into my existing camera ecosystem, it will perform its purpose for at least 5 years, and it will handle my specific type of projects. Everything in this post is based on my own personal style of shooting, the types of projects that I get hired to do, and the gear that I already have. I am also posting this after owning the camera for less than 48hrs so my views may change over time. After using the camera on a single shoot, I thought about how I would describe it in a single word.....and quirky keeps coming to mind. I'll get to more on that later, but in comparison to my current favorite camera, the Panasonic S5 I would describe the S5 in a single word as frustrating. The S5 is so close to being perfect, yet the AF finally pushed me back to Canon. Since I have called it (and continue to call it) quirky, let start there. Here is my list of things that I just find strange about the camera: The Mount - the mount is without a doubt the strangest mixture of FF, crop sensor, RF, and EF that I've ever encountered. I bought the 0.71 Canon speed booster so that I can use my EF lenses but with it mounted I cannot use my EF-S lenses. For EF-S lenses I also need to buy the straight through adapter. I have no RF lenses and probably won't have any for years so EF and EF-S is it for me. I would like for the speedbooster to live on the camera so I bolted it on because I like the extra stability, but that means I can't use the Sigma EF-S at all unless I want to either leave the speedbooster unbolted or or fiddle with removing it while on set. Speedbooster - Yes, the speedbooster gives you a stop of light with EF glass, but the DOF remains the original DOF. Additionally, I saw some sample videos where the speedbooster decreases contrast and saturation in strongly backlit scenarios due to the extra glass elements, it also decreases the AF area for EF lenses. Not sure if this is also the case for EF-S lenses. It is great for providing a FF FOV, but it still falls into the quirky category for me. Storage - this one hit me before the camera ever arrived. I planned on buying 1TB SD cards due to the data rates but discovered that there is no such thing for V90 cards. In fact, the largest V90 cards I could find were 256GB which means now I have to worry about running out of space; something I haven't even thought about for years. Speaking of V90 cards, they are actually crazy expensive when compared to the typical V30 cards. So now I have a camera that can go up to Canon RAW yet no way to store the footage in the camera. I know I could use an external recorder, but I like the dual slot redundancy and the compactness of doing everything in body. Even V60 512GB SD cards are nowhere to be found. Such a strange problem to have in 2022. Lens IS + Digital IS - The C70 does not let you turn off lens IS and keep the digital IS on, no idea why but I discovered that during my brief testing. I wanted to test the difference in lens IS vs digital IS with the same lens but you can't have digital IS on and lens IS off. OK, so here for me is what I find is just bad about the camera so far. Once again, this is due to my own personal workflow and my shooting style, for bigger crews and different shooting environments this may or may not be something you care about at all. Firmware Bug - Yep, within 20min of turning it on I found what I believe is a firmware bug and I currently have a Canon CPS case open for it. I shoot a lot of content that goes on both YT (16:9) and IG (4:5), so instead of shooting vertical which would mean it would only work on social media, I shoot landscape and display 4:5 aspect ratio guides on screen so that I know what would fit perfectly on IG. My customers love this, I deliver them two versions of the video and both fit perfectly on their respective platforms. I set this up on the S5 and I checked before buying the C70 that it had the capability to configure custom aspect guides as well. So while setting up the C70 I went into the aspect guide menu > custom > and started inputting my guide ratio. What I found out is that there is a bug and you can only change the left side of the guide. So I can set up 2:1, or 4:1 but there is no way to change the 1 on the right side. I called CPS and they couldn't figure it out either, so they opened a case for me. Fortunately, I have been using the guides with the S5 for so long that I kind of know from memory how to frame 4:5 within 16:9 but it is very annoying to say the least for this not to work. Flip Screen Quality - This is a real thing, terrible quality, very flimsy and the worst physical part of the camera. I can only hope it does not break and if it does I hope it breaks when I don't have a job lined up and while it is still under warranty. I avoided flip screens for years because I thought they would be flimsy, my first camera with a flip screen was the GH5 and now in 2022 Canon found a way to confirm my worst fears about flimsy flip screens. By comparison the R6, S5, and GH5 all had great high quality flip screens. Stabilization - this is a big one and anyone who knows me knew this was coming and I know cinema cameras do not have IBIS, I knew the C70 did not have it before buying it, but it is still a downside in my book for this camera. It's one thing to not have it for cameras that are too big to hand hold, but when you market a cinema camera as being handheld and give it a DSLR form factor IBIS would be great. I will say that I never knew how good lens stabilization was until I shot with the C70, if you have a stabilized lens and turn off the Digital IS it is almost as stable as IBIS. When it comes to digital IS, I simply do not trust it and feel like it makes the footage jittery so I only use if I don't have a stabilized lens on the camera. Speaking of stabilized lenses, I discovered my favorite video lens (Sigma ART F1.4 50mm) does not have lens IS which makes the S5's IBIS even more impressive in my book. I had no idea that none of the 50mm EF lenses offer stabilization and neither does most Canon EF lenses. So now I am stuck with no IBIS, and only the Canon 24-105mm F4 and the Canon 24mm F2.8 for stabilized lenses options. Horizon Level - Yes I know no Canon cinema camera has this (I think the C500 does but not sure), but it is still really annoying to have to keep checking the edges of my screen and guides to try to keep the camera level. It is easy when it is on a tripod and there's plenty around to line up with, but when you are hand holding it is one more thing to try to guess at. I use the horizon level religiously with every other camera. I would think this might be able to be added via firmware, I'm guessing it has a gyro since it provides digital stabilization but not certain of this. Flip Screen Visibility - The flip screen looks great indoors but completely disappears outdoors, no possible way to see much more than an outline of what you are shooting even with a monitoring LUT enabled. This means an external monitor is almost required and for gimbal work you pretty much just have to hope you are pointed in the right direction. Indoors it is great. The Fan - I know, I know, it is required to keep it cool...but I live in FL (where everything overheats so the fan is even more important lol), but living in FL I also shoot a lot on beaches with the wind blowing and sand going everywhere. That fan is my worst nightmare in that scenario. I really don't know yet what I am going to do for those shoots, I may just use the S5 whenever a dusty or sandy environment like that is required. The Joystick - the joystick is nearly impossible to use. You can navigate left/right/up/down ok, but if you try to press it to select a menu item it typically jumps to a different screen, very hard to precisely press it. I started using the Set button in the thumbwheel instead to select menu options. It is not all bad, and I will say up front that I do not regret my purchase (not yet), so for me (so far) the good outweighs the bad: Internal ND Filters - those glorious internal ND filters make me smile every time I press the button. I almost like them more than I like the sensor and image quality. Being able to dial in an exposure with the press of a few buttons is nothing short of awesome. Gimbal Balancing - I watched a ton of YT videos and bought counterweights and a clamp for my Ronin S because I didn't think it would balance otherwise. Well, it turns out that with my gimbal lens (Canon EF 24mm F2.8) it balances with no problems. The arms are at their outer limits, but it does balance properly. I was able to balance the Sigma EF 50mm as well but not properly and the motors had to engage just to keep the horizon level...not a good situation. Sensor - This one is a given, all of the spec charts and YT videos in the world can't compare to just shooting with the camera with your style of shooting. The sensor is more than sufficient for everything I need do and I tested right away a model backlit by direct sunlight and the image was good enough for me. It did wash out a bit but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. CODEC - Yesterday I shot mostly 30FPS and 60FPS and the XF-AVC codec was actually easier to edit than the H.265 footage coming out of my S5. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to edit it and Davinci Resolve along with my editing setup handles it with no problem. Ironically the hardest footage to edit on my system is GoPro footage. Ecosystem - This one is important to me and since I have a lot of Canon glass and XLR audio equipment it was important that it fit into my existing ecosystem. I picked up a shotgun mini XLR mic for on camera work, a cage, a DTAP to C70 power cable, the speedbooster, v90 cards, and that was it. It fit perfectly into the rest of my gear. Integrated XLR Audio - Obviously this is great to have, no more finicky adapters to deal with. The mini-XLR jack isn't that big of a deal to me, my new on camera mic is mini-XLR, and I bought adapter cables for the rest of my equipment. Build Quality - I was actually expecting worse build quality than it has after seeing so many people complain about it. It's not great, it definitely is not as nice as my S5, GH5, C200, or 5DIV, but for what you get I think its not bad. The buttons feel a bit cheap when you press them but as long as they work I don't really care. Auto-Focus - having AF is just wonderful....ANY AF is better than NONE, and this will be the first video camera I have owned that I can somewhat handhold and have AF at the same time. I know everyone is saying it is not that good, but to me it is great. I just set it to large area AF and kept the box on the subject and it did the rest. I already know in lowlight it won't work well or with certain skin tones but the focus peaking is so good that I am actually looking forward to MF for those situations. Exposure Tools - Obviously there are a ton of them, I thought I had my setup all figured out but during the shoot I ended up just using the WFM because it was the only thing I could see in the sunlight and it worked well. Battery Life - The battery life is decent, 1.5hrs shows on the meter when I first turn on the camera. With the DTAP to C70 cable I can connect the camera to my VMOUNT battery which can probably power it for at least 4hrs. OTHER CAMERAS Before buying the C70, I did a lot of research and comparisons to other cameras that I felt could meet my needs, the list below is arranged from closest to furthest for how close they came to what I was looking for: Canon R5C - This was the number 1 contender, but for me there were too many compromises. No internal ND filters, adapter required for XLR audio (the adapter BTW that even further shortened the already terrible battery life), the weird USB PD power requirements, the terrible battery life, and no IBIS ruined this one for me. If it had IBIS or an eND filter system I probably would have picked it over the C70. Canon R3 - Interesting camera but no ND filters, would need the adapter for XLR audio (adding to the price), no video exposure tools, no good codecs, and cost a ton of money for that fast readout sensor that I would never need since I don't shoot sports. Canon R5 - No XLR inputs, no ND filters, no video tools, terrible codecs, and that horrible overheating issue that just won't go away after all the firmware updates eliminated this one from my list. Panasonic - All of their cameras have no useable AF, so as much as I love my S5 in every other way, there's no way I am buying another one unless their AF system changes. Sony - that's a whole different world for me and different ecosystem which doesn't interest me at all. Nikon - looked interesting but I know nothing about Nikon and feel like they are one foot from the grave (kind of like Panasonic for that matter). I am sure they make good cameras but I don't feel like learning their ecosystem, also I would have been paying for that sensor and XLR adapter similar to the R3. FIRST SHOOT EXPERIENCE My first shoot was almost comically bad. I got the camera late on Friday, went through all of the menus and watched YouTube C70 setup videos until 3AM, then got up and did my first paying shoot with it at 10AM. Also, the cage did not come on time so I really felt out of place hand holding it without a cage or side handles and nowhere to mount a top handle or mic. I thought I had figured everything out....I was going to use the Zebras at 45% to expose the skin tones, use digital IS for the 50mm, and use only lens IS with the 24-105mm. I set up my favorites menu with AF mode, Zebras on/off, and framerate. I also balanced it on the Ronin S with the 24mm F2.8. As soon as the shoot started I realized the zebras were impossible to see in the sunlight, I forgot to turn on digital IS when switching to the 50mm, and without the zebras I had no idea if I was exposing properly. So I switched to the WFM, gave up on the skin tones, and kept it in the middle of the WFM. After the shoot I checked out the handheld and gimbal footage and it wasn't as bad as I thought. I ended up throwing away much less shaky footage than a typical S5 shoot where I have to throw away out of focus footage. The subject for this shoot moved around quite a bit and my S5 keeper footage rate would have been way lower. I also ended up buying the Buttery C70 LUT pack to get the initial grade. Sound It Out Films did a great YT review on LUTS and the Buttery one looked like it had the best starting point for the Rec.709 grade. I do not like their creative LUTS though because they added them into the Rec.709 grade vs separating them so you can't use them for all of your footage from different cameras from a shoot. But their Rec.709 primary grade is the best looking to me. LEARNING EXPERIENCE I still really need to learn how to properly expose CLOG2 with the C70. I think I did OK on my first shoot, my false color LUT shows me that for the most part I was able to get the exposure where it needed to be, but I definitely need more experience with CLOG2. The totally confusing area for me is the AF, I watched tons of YT videos but the whole area AF with subject tracking turned on confuses me. When whole area AF is on and subject tracking is on, boxes are flying all over the screen, it seems to be tracking things even though I did not tap the screen so I am not sure if it is just showing me what it decides should be in focus or if it is actively tracking something. I also don't really understand the logic behind whole area AF, how it works and when it breaks so I need to test that feature a lot more. WRAP-UP For my needs the C70 is a great "quirky" camera that I think was worth it. I hope to get at least 5yrs of use out of it, but TBH with you my main concern now is how to get V90 cards big enough to store long form content. I don't see 256GB cards lasting through an 8hr day. I may actually test V30 cards at its lowest bitrate settings or even 2K @ 30FPS for long form talking head content. An annoying problem to have in 2022 and out of all of my problems with this camera, that's one I never saw coming. So far it definitely seems like it was worth it, but time will tell. I still don't think it can replace my S5, when I need to travel light, work in dusty environments, or I'm on a shoot with a budget that just isn't high enough to bring the C70, I will probably still use the S5.

The upcoming RAW update, the sensor, the touch to track AF update, the codecs, etc. finally sold it for me. I went ahead and ordered it to replace my C200 for long form content. I will also get to see once and for all how well handheld works with just lens and digital stabilization.

I will admit that I had completely written off the C70 due to the weak screen, cropped sensor, weird relationship between EF and RF glass, and no RAW option. But recent YouTube videos have been saying Canon fixed the weak screen hinge in later models, if you do get one with the problem they will fix it and return it free of charge with approximately a 2wk turnaround, and now it will soon offer in camera raw. I have put my C200 up for sale and am very close to replacing it with the C70. The R5C doesn't have ND filters or integrated XLR inputs and from what I've been reading the XLR adapter is very large and heavy and yet another power hungry draw on the tiny battery. It would actually cost me more to outfit the R5C than it would to buy the C70; according to my math I would need the XLR adapter, dual battery grip, camera cage, and some exotic power solution to use the R5C the way I use the C200....ending up with a frankenrig, less DR and 8K that I would never use. I am still not a fan of the weird C70 RF/EF mount relationship. If you buy the C70 you are stuck with EF glass and the expensive focal reducer but you would also never be able to use native RF glass without a serious crop so if I ever wanted to go all in on RF glass I would still be stuck with EF glass for the foreseeable future or have to replace the C70 within the next 3-5yrs. I get the feeling that the min I buy the C70 Canon will release a FF RF cinema camera such as the C50 that addresses all of my problems with the C70.

I also use all Godox. I use the Canon version and they worked just fine with the S5. I only use all manual settings though so I do not know if the TTL features work with the S5 and the Canon Godox flashes. I only use my S5 for video so I only briefly tested the flash functions, but they all worked with my current setup. I have almost every flash Godox makes including the V860's (on camera or off camera wireless flashes), the AD360 (off camera) the AD600 (my favorite and most used flashes for off camera fashion and studio work), and Godox QS 1200's for studio work. I trigger them all with the Godox Xpro-C (Canon version) wireless trigger. Keep in mind that if you are going all in on Panasonic that the S5 has a builtin wireless flash radio system that I think can control up to 4 flashes natively, so if that's important to you then you may want to look into lumix or Olympus flashes. I have too much invested in Godox to turn back now and I would rather use a hot shoe mounted trigger vs digging through menus when I need to change flash settings, but I know a lot of people probably don't know the S5 has this capability. I also recommend that for any flash you buy that you verify that it has a wireless receiver, I shoot about 95% off camera and wireless is critical for that. I do love my V860's though, I can throw them on a light stand and shoot everything from real estate to weddings, then put them on camera when I need to run around a venue at an event.

I don't have an opinion either way on 8K...until I have to sacrifice battery life, camera ergonomics, and standard USB-C power options to get it; after all of that is taken away its no longer the camera for me.

Here was my impressions of the R6 after a day of using it. Admittedly, a lot of FW has come out since then so it's possible the overheating issue isn't as bad as when I wrote that post. The crop is pretty annoying for real estate, so FF would be a nice change, but I've heard that Canon's IBIS is not good at all with wide lenses and possibly not even good on a gimbal as well with wide lenses so there's that. I haven't tested or seen this first hand. Maybe renting the R6 prior to deciding would be a good idea, I'd assume a 3 or 7 day rental of the R6 wouldn't be too expensive.

I might get a lot of hate here for saying this....but he came across as a complete prick to me and I personally will not miss him one bit; I will miss the rumors site and information itself but his behavior towards me IMO was not much better than the behavior he is saying he received from others. When the Canon R5 overheating fiasco happened I was the first one on that site to really tell it like it was. I wasted many hours getting into endless debates with the Canon fanboys on that site who swore the overheating wasn't a big deal and wouldn't affect the camera's useability. I kept everything respectful, simply stated my opinion and basically said the camera would be completely useless for even light professional work (which turned out to be right in a big way), and Craig banned me for it and labelled my account a troll. Incidentally, getting banned from there helped me discover this site so for me it all turned out fine. Craig made it clear that on his site any post that wasn't worshipping at the feet of all things Canon would get the user banned; not even a warning.

We all know the benefits of 8K on a 4K timeline, they are the same benefits that you get from putting 4K on a 1080P timeline, my only point is that they made so many sacrifices just to wear that 8K badge that ended up removing much more useful features that many more people would actually find useful. I couldn't care less if Canon went with 8K and it wouldn't bother me one bit if the R5C offered up to 8K resolution, but the sacrifices to me for that resolution really weren't worth it in my opinion. Power - What other camera do you know that's marketed as a hybrid mirrorless camera that needs a laptop power supply just to use with external power? IBIS - I know this has been beaten to death, but everything about a hybrid mirrorless screams run and gun and handheld, not dollys, gimbals, sliders, etc. Sure, wide angle lenses have problems with IBIS but IBIS is practically a necessity for professional looking handheld footage and with wide angle lenses that's when it makes sense to use a gimbal or other stabilizer. Let's not forget that the RAW modes don't even support digital stabilization so you have no stabilization at all for raw modes unless you use some sort of HW solution. The Fan - A fan is fully expected on a cinema camera along with the supporting crew needed to keep dirt, sand, and dust out of it, but due to the 8K sensor a fan was needed to overcome the R5 fiasco. How well that is going to work over time and how quiet that stays remains to be seen. Without that 8K sensor a fan would not be needed. Battery Life - One of the videos I saw said you only get 30min of recording time when using the internal battery, without 8K that would be a lot longer. So now for internal power just to make it through a day you are looking at 8-10 batteries at $80USD each. My list goes on and on, but at the end of the day that 8K came with a lot of compromises for a resolution that no one was really asking for. Is it useable now that it is here....of course, but it doesn't change the fact that they really dropped the ball on the things that are important to many users just to offer it. 🙂 You are definitely right, actually I think it is more than half empty in so many ways.

I saw the drummer video, but each clip is less than 3s and he is already waving the camera around all over the place so although that is fine for a music video it does not show stability when it is needed for other types of shoots. I am sure there are compatible power banks, but the fact remains that I can power my S5 and many other mirrorless cameras continuously for 6-8hrs with my current setup but wouldn't even be able to power the R5C at all. My current setup was almost $2K and works perfectly and is interchangeable with my C200 and S5. Yes there are ways to resolve the limitations for the R5C but that's another expense that I wouldn't need to spend with my current setup. I think a better approach would have been for the R5C to accept any USB-C external power source and simply prevent 8K60FPS and some other modes I will never use vs. not accepting any external source that was not USB PD compliant. I would be perfectly happy with 4K30/60FPS and my non USB PD power setup. Canon just really missed the mark with this one IMO.....they focused on a spec that no one was asking for or cared about (8K) and made the camera unusable for shooters like me with complicated power requirements and no IBIS. 4K60FPS, IBIS, unlimited recording, multi-function hotshoe, and exposure tools along with no overheating and DPAF along with around 30Mp of photography resolution would make a lot of shooters very happy me included.

I actually think it further proves my point that handheld without IBIS is terrible, if you closely watch the edges it is very jittery at times, admittedly I think OIS was off for a lot of the tests and I think it can't be used at all in the RAW modes which is another limitation when the camera does not have IBIS that the Canon reps conveniently don't really discuss openly. I think most if not all of it really was handheld, you could see the videographer's reflection in the sunglasses at times and he was shooting handheld. Let's not even forget that some or all of this was slow motion......of course footage will look steadier when shooting in slow motion. I do think its possible to fix the shakiness in post processing but the fact it was shaky like that, even after slowing down the footage, and it was visible even when the background was so heavily blurred, and despite the fact the videographer was barely moving really proves my point there's no way this camera would perform well for events without a gimbal. On an unrelated topic, I did some research into my current S5 V-Mount setup and discovered that my USB-A mount plate for the V-Mount adapter only puts out 5V 1A which is not enough to power the R5C so for me that further eliminates the R5C as a potential S5 replacement.

I am equally shocked that the "g" word was ever mentioned by you 🙂. I will admit I went through the full gambit, started out on a tripod (real estate work), moved to a monopod (events), discovered gimbals (tried to shoot everything on them), then got fed up with how fiddly they are and with the IBIS being so good I now love handheld. The S5 is so steady that I add camera movement just to add back some motion to the footage. Mind you, that's for standing only or taking one or two steps at most; anything more than that and I suffer through the gimbal rigging and setup. I absolutely hated the R6 for anything video related but that's just me. For short un-complicated gimbal work it could be a good solution though. If you can, I'd try to go to a local retailer and hold one and play with the menus a bit in the store. Unfortunately, you can't find all of the problems that way, but the R6 is really cheap feeling in the hands. The grip is great but the material is several notches below the S5 IMO. With the Sony, would you need to buy Sony lenses to use the CAF?

Well you know the best answer to that right now is the R5C.....IF you can hand hold without IBIS which for me remains to be seen. Of course there's always the Sony camp as well. I don't think you will find a good solution with any Panasonic camera. I do make mine work with people though, I've shot weddings and plenty of events with my S5.......you just have to be prepared to throw away whatever you can't keep in focus.

That's at 16mm, walking, and no gimbal....something I would never do with any camera without a gimbal. The wobble I've seen from the R5 is when it is on a gimbal with lenses wider than 35mm. My S5 is rock solid on a gimbal at 16mm with IBIS still on and I've read the S1H's IBIS is better than the S5's.

Do you mean Lens IS or digital IS? With lens IS I would agree, it is pretty reliable, but the digital IS I have seen out of the C70 and R5C so far looks less reliable and more random than IBIS ever does at 35mm+ in the R5. I'm with @MrSMW no IBIS is a complete deal breaker for me.