Camera advice. Best image, ignore rest. $3000

[Shield3]

5 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Yeah a C100 mkII has to be at the top for the money.  It is just laid out so well, both for tripod and run n gun, no way you can beat it if you don't need 4k. And since it is down sampled from 4k to 1080p in camera that saves a step in post. ISO 320 to 80,000 is crazy good, built in ND filters, and to be able to record two different formats at the same time is a crazy good idea.

Yep, I have made up my mind, that is the camera I am buying. I don't want to have 10 things hanging off a camera to make it work.

And the dual record feature for instant backups, or relay recording, or the punch in while recording ability, the fact you can set the EVF to B&W only (or both it and the LCD).  I have my punch in set to enable peaking.  I wish they would have set the waveform in the viewfinder as well, but that's really the only downside.

For me personally in high contrast scenese I overexposed C-log by about 2/3rds to 1 full stop and get really nice results in post.  I do try to stick to the native 850 ISO and use the built in ND whenever possible.

I love my little A6500 for quick snaps and a much smaller footprint, but man do I ever have to think when I'm using that thing.  Sony has got to copy Canon and come up with a quick menu of the most used settings - the C100 I have my framerates, media record mode (AVCHD/MP4), metering options (spotlight etc) and the APS-C mode all quickly accessible.  I'm not sure I'd get that much more out of a 4k C100 unless it oversampled like 5k/6k and then I'd worry the rolling shutter would be a problem.  The C100 is just amazing.

If you're getting one, I highly recommend the 10-18 STM and (believe it or not) the 55-250 STM.  Both of those are cheap and punch above their weight, even if not "fast" lenses.

[mercer]

Has anyone used OIS lenses with the BMPCC and EF Speedbooster? I briefly had the Sigma 17-50mm f2.8 for my D5500 and I couldn't believe how steady it was... am hoping it works just as well with the Pocket.  Also looking at the Canon 35mm f2.

[Tim Sewell]

I have to plus-1 for the C100 mkii. I recently sold my other cameras to buy a secondhand one (GBP3000) and although I've been pretty much confined to quarters due to a combination of work and bad weather since it arrived, what little I've been able to shoot has given me an experience I never had with any of the others. I loaded the log footage into FCPX, applied a technical LUT and felt my jaw hit the floor. Just an all-round gorgeous image. Experiments in the kitchen in low light were also mandible-lowering, it simply knocks the socks off anything I've ever used before in the way the IQ holds up at high ISOs. Add to that the ease-of-use, the astonishing battery life, the parsimonious-yet-gradeable codec, the NDs and you have a machine that you just want to pick up every time you have a moment spare.

I have the 55-250 and 18-135 STMs arriving over the next few days and, weather permitting, an afternoon filming my son in a tennis tournament at the weekend and I just can't wait.

I'll just also add that I've had an idea for a micro-documentary brewing in my mind for some time, but just couldn't figure out a way to do it single handed with my previous gear. Just my around-the-house experience so far with the C100 mkii has finally given me the confidence to set to work on it and I have a meeting soon with the subject to get it all in place - so thanks, Canon!

[zerocool22]

The c100 is a handy camera, but the image is nowhere near 5D III RAW, I even prefer the c300 I image to c100 II. 

[Tim Sewell]

Wow! The 55-250 just arrived. DPAF with STM is virtually indistinguishable from magic.

[Kisaha]

@zerocool22 You must be joking, right?! Apples to donkeys comparison..

@Tim Sewell Is the 55-250 that good for C100? I have used the 18-135 and I am using a series of L zooms, but they are heavy (even for or especially with, Sachtler L) , they crop a lot, and did I mentioned how big and heavy they are? I would seriously prefer having 3 APS-C ones. What APS-C ultra wide zoom could anyone suggest?

The main problem is the f stop of these cheap lenses though, it is good to use 2.8 or stepped down to 4f with L lenses, but DPAF speed is very important too (but f stops are more important!).

[zerocool22]

Just now, Kisaha said:

@zerocool22 You must be joking, right?! Apples to donkeys comparison..

@Tim Sewell Is the 55-250 that good for C100? I have used the 18-135 and I am using a series of L zooms, but they are heavy (even for or especially with, Sachtler L) , they crop a lot, and did I mentioned how big and heavy they are? I would seriously prefer having 3 APS-C ones. What APS-C ultra wide zoom could anyone suggest?

The main problem is the f stop of these cheap lenses though, it is good to use 2.8 or stepped down to 4f with L lenses, but DPAF speed is very important too (but f stops are more important!).

Well I am not joking, this topic is for best image. (I owned these 3 camera's, and that is what I personally feel). 

[mercer]

5 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

The c100 is a handy camera, but the image is nowhere near 5D III RAW, I even prefer the c300 I image to c100 II. 

Did you mean C100i or C300i? And yeah, 5D iii Raw really is something special... and your Tokyo video is more proof of that.

Hell even the 70D with ML Raw, and DPAF, has some special sauce to it that cameras twice its price can't touch.

[zerocool22]

Yes I mean c300 I and c100 I(II seems somewhat the same image as the first one). Thanks

[hyalinejim]

The C100 / C300 1080p image will be sharper than the 5D3 ML is at its native 1080 (I'm disregarding the high resolution crop modes because the preview is too slow to work with) and there is a small amount of aliasing. However, the range of looks you can get from the RAW footage is great.

[hijodeibn]

2 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

Yes I mean c300 I and c100 I(II seems somewhat the same image as the first one). Thanks

Looks like you never used the C100 I or C300 I with a Ninja Star, you get pristine images from this combination, I highly recommend to add a Ninja Star to these cameras, specially in low light....and since the Ninja Star use generation one Cfast cards the cost is very affordable.....

7 hours ago, Tim Sewell said:

Wow! The 55-250 just arrived. DPAF with STM is virtually indistinguishable from magic.

STM lens are incredible with the C100, I am just using the 18-135 and I am very happy.....what are you going to use for night shooting?, I am going with a Canon 50mm 1.4 and a Canon 28mm 1.8, but I would like to hear from other options out there.....

[zerocool22]

4 minutes ago, hijodeibn said:

Looks like you never used the C100 I or C300 I with a Ninja Star, you get pristine images from this combination, I highly recommend to add a Ninja Star to this cameras, specially in low light....and since the Ninja Star use generation one Cfast cards the cost is very affordable.....

STM lens are incredible with the C100, I am just using the 18-135 and I am very happy.....what are you going to use for night shooting?, I am going with a Canon 50mm 1.4 and a Canon 28mm 1.8, but I would like to hear from other options out there.....

No I used a atomos shogun... 

[hijodeibn]

Just now, zerocool22 said:

No I used a atomos shogun... 

And you are still complaining about the image?, could you please share some of your work with the C100 and the atomos shogun and tell us what is wrong with the images?.....could be camera operator lack of skills?

[mercer]

30 minutes ago, hijodeibn said:

And you are still complaining about the image?, could you please share some of your work with the C100 and the atomos shogun and tell us what is wrong with the images?.....could be camera operator lack of skills?

Definitely not that... look at zero's Mark III Tokyo Video and then re-ask your question. 

And I thought most comparison tests concluded you do not gain much with a Ninja on the C100?

[hijodeibn]

8 minutes ago, mercer said:

Definitely not that... look at zero's Mark III Tokyo Video and then re-ask your question. 

And I thought most comparison tests concluded you do not gain much with a Ninja on the C100?

well, I guess you have not checked the following test comparison:

In low light situations I will definitely go with an external recorder....

[Tim Sewell]

Quote

what are you going to use for night shooting?

I've got a set of Samyang/Rokinon primes and they're mostly around T1.5, so should the need arise I'll probably have to go with them. The only fastish EF lenses I have are the nifty fifty and the 85 1.8. I also have the 17-55 2.8. My feeling is that with the camera's fairly stellar low light performance super fast lenses, while nice to have, aren't quite as important as they might be with other cameras. Of course I'm very aware that - as I don't have to earn my money doing this - a super noise-free image isn't a priority as I'm generally applying fairly stylised grades anyway.

[HockeyFan12]

11 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

The c100 is a handy camera, but the image is nowhere near 5D III RAW, I even prefer the c300 I image to c100 II. 

This just isn't true if you know how to expose properly. There's a tendency to over-expose the CX00, but its image is better overall than the 5D III RAW (and yes I've owned both since they were released, and no I don't think either is TOTL amazing, either). The CX00 is cleaner, has better DR, has better noise texture, is sharper, has better color rendering for video and holds highlight saturation properly, etc. The lack of "full frame" look is subjective and that does favor the 5D for most users who like that look.

This is a common myth spread by people without light meters lol. Having owned both and used both on the same shoots, I'd frequently hear this myth repeated and was dumbfounded. Had any of these people actually A/Bd the cameras with proper exposure settings and proper handling of super whites? You'll quickly notice that the 5D RAW's highlights desaturate in an unsightly way when pulled back in ACR whereas the 100-109 IRE range from AVCHD recovers very cleanly, leading not only to better DR overall, but to proper color retention in the highlights without chroma clipping (as Sony and Panasonic exhibit). The issue is that people tend to vastly overexpose the CX00. C LOG puts 18% gray at 32 IRE or something, VERY low. RAW is gamma agnostic, but exposing the 5D like you'd expose a normal dSLR works well and leads to a pleasant over/under even exposing by eye. You can't do this with a log gamma and WideDR has its own problems.

That said, it also shows how a more difficult workflow leads to a better image. I work with a lot of poorly shot CX00 footage and most of the 5D RAW footage I see online looks great. I think it's more intuitive to expose the 5D but harder to do everything else, its workflow demands attention and the practice of shooting with it is a little more rigorous. People get better results because they put in more work setting up shots and in post and because the exposure is more intuitive for those making the leap from a dSLR. 

[hyalinejim]

21 minutes ago, HockeyFan12 said:

The CX00 is cleaner, has better DR, has better noise texture, is sharper, has better color rendering for video and holds highlight saturation properly, etc.

 

I agree about noise, DR, sharpness but not about colour - the RAW file is malleable and limited more by the user than its inherent colour information. Whatever you can get out of a CR2 on the 5D3, you can achieve with ML DNGs.

I'm not sure what you're referring to in relation to highlight saturation and ACR. I don't hear photographers complaining about this. In any case, I normally gently roll off the saturation from the midtones to the highlights. Is this what you're talking about here:

29 minutes ago, HockeyFan12 said:

the 100-109 IRE range from AVCHD recovers very cleanly, leading not only to better DR overall, but to proper color retention in the highlights without chroma clipping

How can you avoid chroma clipping? If a channel is blown, it's blown. Maybe C-Log is doing an in-camera saturation roll off in the highs. If so, you can just do this yourself in post for MLRAW.

Don't get me wrong, I think that the CX00 cameras overall are better cameras. However, there are some things they just can't do (at least the ones without RAW). I'm working on a piece at the moment which has a very slow and subtle 60 second film fade up from total blackness, by differently keyframing gain and gamma. It is perfectly smooth with zero banding. I couldn't get a slow, banding free fade like that with the internal codec on the C series cameras, and I doubt I'd get it perfect from the external ProRes. I know that's an extreme example, but I regularly find myself pushing MLRAW footage into territory that would be impossible with a lesser codec,and I'm extremely grateful for it. And this is one area where 5D3 ML kicks ass in the sub three grand price bracket.

[zerocool22]

4 hours ago, hijodeibn said:

And you are still complaining about the image?, could you please share some of your work with the C100 and the atomos shogun and tell us what is wrong with the images?.....could be camera operator lack of skills?

Dont get me wrong, I am not complaining about the image, the c100 is a good image. I just prefer the 5D III RAW image over the C100 (could be just a personal thing, but that is just how I feel about it). It could be the full frame look, It could be the lack of pro lighting. But I ofter find myself just shooting run and gun at night. And though the iso on the Cx00 can be cranked higher, I feel like the 5D III RAW has some secret sauce on it and works just better for my taste as its softer then the sharp Cx00 series. 

[IronFilm]

On Sunday, February 26, 2017 at 8:27 PM, Riadnasla said:

On higher quality projects, I run the F3 with native battery and 6" rods to hold the Gemini out back. On 4:2:0 projects I typically just have the camera and handgrip, as light as she gets. For a cinema camera she's light, but in my market I'm typically competing against people running DSLRs and the light (and cheap) support gear that couldn't support the F3. I agree that it is light on the shoulder, but I can't afford the gear I need to get the shots clients in my area are looking for. Side-point: any that can afford to rent support gear for the project typically have enough to hire a RED owner/operator. 

 

Don't take this wrong because I'm actually pretty cheerful, but honestly: I'm broke. What little money I had was spent getting a more-expensive-than-was-assured camera operational. The potential clients that I can and have reached (and even one of my close work colleagues) have no need for something with the heft and (amazing) image quality of the F3, especially when 5Ds and XA30s will will do perceptively the same job for less weight, support gear, and data storage (not to mention proprietary parts hassle). 

 

.......W-w-ould you like a fourth? :P Seriously though, I agree with all of what you said in that post. I'm not selling the F3 and Gemini to get a "better camera", as I'm really impressed and excited at the stuff I have been able to film with it, and I don't think I could find a better image in my price range. For the work that I've actually been able to get profitable gigs though, I don't need uncompressed recording, nor 13.5 stops of DR. I need something that doesn't require a bunch of proprietary-gear workarounds (SxS? FZ-mount?). If it has a nice image with some ability to colour-grade, SD recording, can be flown on glidecam, and use commonly-available lenses, then it does the kind of work my typical client wants. 

 

Thanks for the responses, it's really good to be able to bounce this off people who aren't Sony fanboys or evangelists. 

 

Also of note: For many reasons, personal and financial, my wife and I are considering the move to NWT where I would work an hourly job and leave full-time video behind, at least for the time being. While it is true the F3 hasn't worked out as well as I originally hoped for all the reasons mentioned, my filmmaking environment would also be drastically changing. We would be in a highly remote location, I would be completely solo for anything I film, with no budget for DPX sequence storage, and other factors. I would also be filming mainly for personal reasons (my son growing up, micro-films, scenic landscapes and wildlife, etc) with the odd wedding/grad/funeral as foreseeable paid gigs on weekends. For these circumstances, it is more important to have a more agile camera with good internal recording than it is to have an inexpensive cinema camera. If I still have the F3, then I'll bring the F3 up. But if I can make this change, I'd like to do it before it becomes impossible to sell the camera with enough leftover to get another. 

 

 

 

Riadnasla, neither the SxS or FZ should be an issue!!

As a Nikon F to FZ adapter is cheap, & Nikon F lenses are cheap and plentiful. 

Ditto SxS adapters to use SD cards inside them :-)