The other issue with the C200

[Oliver Daniel]

I've always adored the Canon image - preferring my wife's stills on her 700D compared to my A6500. 

I'm pretty much ignoring camera announcements / gear stuff right now - however the C200 has peaked my interest as an A-camera. 

The DPAF, higher frame rates, Canon image and the option of internal RAW are all reasons to be attracted to the camera.

I have an FS5 with RAW upgrade - 4k 100fps, CDNG, 10bit ProRes etc. Hard to beat, but looks a bit weaker against some of the C200's main assets. 

The C200 does have a big problem - the vacancy of the middle codec. Hopefully fixable in 2018. But there's another one.

It's a professional camera, used for professional jobs that pay well. (or it's an expensive hobby camera!)

For this purpose, you then have to start thinking about smaller B and C cameras - and this is where the prospect falls. 

Sony has an A7S II, A7R II, RX10, RX100, A6500, A99II, A9.... many options in different sizes and purposes for an easy multi-camera workflow. 

Canon has..... erm, Canon 5d mk IV? XC10/15? Both great at some things but limited compared to Sony. 

I'd love to go Canon and I've thought about it many times, but the compromised features of their smaller cameras make it very difficult to consider, when multiple cameras are being used or you need a backup. 

I see no financial or professional reason to switch from Sony, I'm just curious about the C200 because I love working with canon images. It's an emotional thing really. 

Overall, how much of an issue do you think this is? 

[fuzzynormal]

It is an issue for me.  Im part of a documentarian team that shoots, with my wife, an A and a B.  

As such, I'm frequently looking to rent or buy camera pairs and lenses.  

Typically, for our own self-financed films, I'll purchase the gear on deferred credit --and then re-sell the stuff 4 or 5 months down the road when everything is shot and in the can.

The depreciation between the purchase and resell is what I consider my "rent" fees.  Gear comes and goes this way and the cost of having the stuff while the work is happening is very reasonable.

Cheaper and more flexible than actually renting.

For instance, we bought another GH5 recently simply to pair with the initial one (purchased for another gig) and now we'll be using those GH5 cameras for the summer.

Id love a bigger budget, eventually, to possibly employ this strategy for higher end cams such as the Canon C's, but the low overhead of the hybrid gear is effective for doing this sort of stuff on the cheap. 

Also, I like shooting doc video on a photo camera.  I think it offers a certain comfort among subjects/people. It does often seem that they aren't indimidated by that as much as they are with "big" or "real" gear. 

[Trek of Joy]

1 hour ago, Oliver Daniel said:

Overall, how much of an issue do you think this is? 

I think its a big deal too, outside of the 5d4 and 1dx2 you have the XC15 and .....

And all of those have shortcomings that aren't as appealing to me, the 5d4's crop and no EF-s lenses (unlike E-mount that can use FF or APS-c lenses), the 1dx2 is a lot to carry for one stretches, the obnoxious file sizes of the mjpeg 4k are a few things that stick out in comparison to Sony.

If you're looking to shoot stills and video from the B-cam, something like the A7r2 makes for a much better B-cam IMO. Plus you have a63/500 and the RX1005 among others as B/C cams. Or you could use the A7s2 rigged up as your main video camera, the r2 as the B-cam and the RX1005 for cutaways, slo-mo and so on. Many more possibilities with Sony for sure.

Personally I like the C200 and will rent one when it comes out to test for a couple docs I want to shoot, but I shoot a lot of stills (easily 25k a year or more) and its hard to go back to a Canon sensor after Sony's DR. Now if the 80d's replacement has 4k, and the next Eos M has 4k it'd be a different story as we'd have great B-cam options, but that's just not the case. 

For C100 shooters looking for 4k, the C200 is a no brainer. For hybrid shooters (like me) and those looking to keep a smaller kit, its a tough sell compared to Sony.

Cheers

Chris

[Mattias Burling]

I would call it a non issue I guess. Cant see a scenario where it would be any major problem.
Matching cameras isn't that much work if its important and no work for when it doesn't matter.

But if I just had to have a camera cheaper than a A7sii that matched it perfectly without effort (and I for some reason could just use a 5Dmiii or XC10) I would just buy a used $1500 C100 and be done with it.
 

[Jonesy Jones]

I think Oliver is looking for a 4K B cam.

I have an out of the box B cam idea, and that is the BMPC 4K, or URSA mini 4K. This sensor matches EXTREMELY well with Canon. Like amazingly well. I've owned and used the BMPC 4K and big URSA. I've never had trouble with FPN. They were rock solid with never a glitch. You can pick up any of the above for next to nothing these days. I guess if you're looking for a stills/video combo B cam then that wouldn't work, but these would be an inexpensive and solid 4K B cam for a Canon. 

[fuzzynormal]

2 hours ago, Mattias Burling said:

Matching cameras isn't that much work if its important

Matching is absolutely do-able, but I found it somewhat laborious in post when working with hundreds of hours of various footage.  When the production is smaller, those considerations are not so important.

I finished a big gig last year wherein I had to match from numerous cams/lenses and doing so under a time crunch...well, the results ain't pretty.

If I'm working on my own projects and I'm going to can tons of footage, then my attitude is: "let's make it consistent from the get go and save the hassle in post."  For me, that's a worthwhile investment and getting cam-pair/lens-pair is part of that decision..   

[BenEricson]

3 hours ago, Mattias Burling said:

Matching cameras isn't that much work if its important and no work for when it doesn't matter.

A "match" is also subjective. 

The C200 does do 10bit/422 to a recorder, so there's that. Throw a video assist or a 200 dollar ninja on top and you're good. The 10 bit/422 images out of the C300ii look like alexa, so I am sure the C200 will look absolutely amazing. Clean images. 

I wish the C300ii had the low bit rate 4k codec the C200 has. I shoot a lot of projects in 1080 because of the space requirements. Shooting a full day of b roll and interviews is an insane amount of CF card space. 

[Oliver Daniel]

Good replies. 

For my clarification, with my FS5 i also shoot with a 2nd and sometimes 3rd camera in the bag. They all have different purposes for various scenarios, and dependent on the job, switch between the A7S II, A6500 or one of the RX cameras.

So while the FS5 will grab many of the key shots in super duper quality - the A6500 for instance will live on the Zhiyun crane, with the RX in the pocket for a quick shot, and the A7S II to shoot at a different angle, or grab something in low light. So it's a differentiation of size and features to cover all predicted scenarios. 

The beauty with the Sony's is that they all have Slog2. I'll dial in the modified picture profile to all the cameras, use the same LUT and do some little tweaks. Smooth!

The Canon is emotionally desirable due to it's lovely imaging. Prefer it to Sony no doubt, however the versatility I can get with Sony just isn't there with the C200 as A-cam. 

While this is not trivial for many users, when you depend on multiple cameras - the C200 and it's smaller family don't cut it as a working family. Pretty frustrating. But whatever, the Sony's will do fine!

[Inazuma]

I had this same problem when i had a C100

[tugela]

Why not just buy a second C200, if that is what you use to earn a living?

This does not seem like a real problem to me.

[fuzzynormal]

2 minutes ago, tugela said:

Why not just buy a second C200, if that is what you use to earn a living?

This does not seem like a real problem to me.

To each his or her own, but I feel I can do more with less. 

If I had a lucrative gig, no problem I'd certainly rent if that's what the client wanted. But for my own projects I'll keep the expenses tighter...I feel like I can get (realatively) comparable IQ from cheaper gear. 

[hijodeibn]

6 hours ago, Oliver Daniel said:

Overall, how much of an issue do you think this is? 

You are the only one who can answer that question at the end,  I suggest to rent a C200 during a weekend, go wild and get tons of footage, then later in the editing room play a bit trying to match it with Sony footage, if you are not happy, then rent a XC10/15 or C100 and see if that combo works for you.....I am planing to get a C200 if I am able to raise the money and use a C100 as B cam, I will also use a Red One as a C cam for fiction, all of them shooting with similar canon glass, I am pretty sure they will match well using DaVinci....

[ntblowz]

Not a problems, at work we used C100MKIIs and 5D for photo/timelapse. 

for my own I use fs5/a6300/a7s/a7rii, though soon will be all panasonic

[HockeyFan12]

I think it's pretty irrelevant. Granted it was a few years ago when I was still working in camera department but stories about 7Ds on techno cranes being intercut with Alexa were commonplace. Go Pro is still intercut with Alexa/Film/Red all the time, not that I think it looks good. I would intercut C300, Alexa, and Red all the time and they intercut fine so long as they're well shot and competently graded. Mad Max was largely 5D. For the b camera it doesn't really matter so long as you shoot carefully with it and have good color transforms. There's a reason the ACES workflow was engineered and there are plenty of equivalents on the low end. Look at the long list of cameras used on any feature these days.

The Alexa's B camera is an Alexa Mini. But it's intercut with just about everything. So while the lack of a cheap Alexa seems like a problem, it really hasn't been.

The 5D Mark IV looks like a great b camera anyway. 4k. Same FOV (well maybe a 10% crop on the 5D compared with the C200). Same gamma/matrix settings (Canon Log). Easy to use. Good stills. Great ergonomics. The XC10 looks okay, too. Switching systems is always expensive when you need to switch both A and B camera, of course. But it seems like a complete non-issue to me.

[Jonesy Jones]

Other options are Fujifilm XT-2 and Olympus E-M1. I have a feeling the Fujifilm will intercut with the C200 super well. Don't know about the Olympus, but I've been impressed with it's colors too. 

[jhnkng]

I guess it depends on where you are and what people are shooting in your area, but here in Sydney lots of photographers and assistants shoot Canon, and Canon has an excellent professional support network in place, so it would be easy for me to beg/borrow/hire another C200 or any other Canon if I had a job that needed a B Cam. I'm pretty seriously considering a C200 (plus Canon finance has a 2% finance deal at the moment that's hard to beat) but how it might match with other cameras is a pretty big consideration.

That said, I almost never use a second camera. Maybe a GoPro, or a timelapse. I pretty much only shoot 1080p anyway, so a C100 would be perfectly acceptable for me to use as a B Cam for an interview. But I'm hearing clients talk about 4K, so I'll be pretty crazy to enter a 5 year finance agreement for a HD only camera now.

[Kisaha]

Eventually I would like to move to C200 or C100markIII (C200 is a bit too much for my line of work, most of our jobs are C100markII/JVC LS300 70% of the time) and got a worthy Canon M, but until they have the bodies and the right native glass (I like mirrorless glass for mirrorless cameras) I decided to keep my NX1/NX500/NX3000 and lenses combo, they offer almost everything I need right now, and I have a full set that I can do from pro photography (28mgpxls sensor) to continuous video (73minutes per take) and the NX3000 with the native NX fisheye is my specialized camera.

It isn't exactly true that companies offer similar options from photography up to pro video form factors.

Nikon/Olympus doesn't have video cameras.

We haven't seen anything from the EVA yet, we are not sure if it is a Varicam LT B cam, or a GH5 A cam and certainly GH5 is a m43 camera, while the EVA a S35 EF one. A lot of differences here.

I am not following latest Sony developments recently, but A7S cameras are full frame and it is kind of difficult to mix and match with a6300. I do not know the rest, I hear a lot of people having one of the 1" ones. How is it possible to match a full frame camera with a 1" one?

Canon seems more complete, except their middling to cheaper dSLR/Mirrorless are well behind in the video department.

I just wish C200 is the indication that Canon is waking up.

Mirrorless is the future, can't protect cheap dSLRs anymore, and I doubt that 399$ dSLR are cheaper to make than 799$ M6 without an EVF!

[Jonesy Jones]

Oliver, one more consideration. This is off topic but I think worth considering if you haven't already.

The URSA mini Pro is an outstanding camera with an outstanding image. I currently own this camera and just love it. It not only does internal RAW (in fact 3 different versions), but every flavor of prores you can think of. It does greater than 4K (even in prores which is pretty unique). 120 fps at HD and 60 fps up to 4.6K. They have not promoted this, but I think the sensor and processing are improved over the original 4.6K cam. No magenta corners or crosshatching. Obviously it has the internal ND's now. And the one achelles heel that everyone gripes about, lowlight, is not nearly as bad as rumored. Not to mention, it comes with the full version of Resolve which packs an amazing noise reduction feature. I've not yet tested myself but I've been told you can lift several stops and still have useable footage using Resolves noise reduction. 

Again, I realize this is totally off the topic of Canon. Yet again, it would make an incredible shooting buddy to the C200 and would intercut brilliantly, at less the cost. 

EDIT: Hold off on the magenta corners as a non issue. Just running some tests now with potentially unsatisfactory results.

[spinkscapes]

Pound for pound the Canon 5D mkIV has lovely video. Better, IMO, than the Sony offerings as a B-camera.

It's just that it is not purpose-built for video, has an intense codec and doesn't have a slow motion UHD option which seems out of place compared to cameras like the Panasonic GH5.

1 hour ago, Jonesy Jones said:

Oliver, one more consideration. This is off topic but I think worth considering if you haven't already.

The URSA mini Pro is an outstanding camera with an outstanding image. I currently own this camera and just love it. It not only does internal RAW (in fact 3 different versions), but every flavor of prores you can think of. It does greater than 4K (even in prores which is pretty unique). 120 fps at HD and 60 fps up to 4.6K. They have not promoted this, but I think the sensor and processing are improved over the original 4.6K cam. No magenta corners or crosshatching. Obviously it has the internal ND's now. And the one achelles heel that everyone gripes about, lowlight, is not nearly as bad as rumored. Not to mention, it comes with the full version of Resolve which packs an amazing noise reduction feature. I've not yet tested myself but I've been told you can lift several stops and still have useable footage using Resolves noise reduction. 

Again, I realize this is totally off the topic of Canon. Yet again, it would make an incredible shooting buddy to the C200 and would intercut brilliantly, at less the cost. 

Isn't the Ursa Mini Pro (when properly kitted out) a very similar price to the C200?

[DBounce]

I think the 1DXMk2 is a great B-Cam. It is perfect for situation where I need something rugged or need to go low-key. The video quality looks great. Granted the 12bit raw from the C200 is much more robust, but I'm sure there will be little trouble matching the two. This solution offers the best of both worlds.