C300 MKII 2K 60p vs 1DX MKII 4k 60p

[Ty Harper]

Anyone have experience with the 2K 60p on the C300 MKII? Wondering how it compares to the 4K 60p on the 1DX MKII? And is there a clear winner between the two?

 

[Rinad Amir]

6 hours ago, Ty Harper said:

Anyone have experience with the 2K 60p on the C300 MKII? Wondering how it compares to the 4K 60p on the 1DX MKII? And is there a clear winner between the two?

 

2k different between them ?

[Ty Harper]

8 minutes ago, Rinad Amir said:

2k different between them ?

C300 MKII does 2K 422 10bit and 1DX MKII does 4K 422 8bit... so wondering which one might be better... does the 10bit of the C300 MKII give it the edge or does the 4K of the 1DX MKII give it the edge?

[Emanuel]

It depends on your needs or the shot requirements or yet your post processing : ) That is, if resolution plays any role...

Otherwise, I'd keep a C300 MKII for motion picture work as preferred option route anyway.

[Django]

21 hours ago, Ty Harper said:

C300 MKII does 2K 422 10bit and 1DX MKII does 4K 422 8bit... so wondering which one might be better... does the 10bit of the C300 MKII give it the edge or does the 4K of the 1DX MKII give it the edge?

C300 mk2 does 4K 422 10-bit and 2K 12-bit 444. It totally crushes the 1DX2 IQ.

[Ty Harper]

33 minutes ago, Django said:

C300 mk2 does 4K 422 10-bit and 2K 12-bit 444. It totally crushes the 1DX2 IQ.

Didn't realize 60p was 12bit 444, is that internal as well?

[Emanuel]

Yes, 2K or 1920x1080p 12-bit RGB 444 internally but not sure if 60p, reason why if you don't need higher resolution for anything such as hybrid use to extract grabs from, towards printing or reframing at post, you're better going with the C300 MKII, especially for motion picture.

[Ty Harper]

Yeah looks like 2K 60p is 422 10 bit...

[BenEricson]

On 11/8/2021 at 2:01 AM, Django said:

C300 mk2 does 4K 422 10-bit and 2K 12-bit 444. It totally crushes the 1DX2 IQ.

Have you used both? The 1DXii always seemed much sharper to me, but the C300ii has a smoother image. (Soft tho, even the 4K is soft.) 

Those 4K 1DXii files are beautiful. The files are huge, but the resolution crushes the C300 in 60p. 

That being said, the C300 Mk2 is one of my favorite cameras ever. So easy to use and always looks great.

[kye]

On 11/9/2021 at 1:57 AM, Emanuel said:

Yes, 2K or 1920x1080p 12-bit RGB 444 internally but not sure if 60p, reason why if you don't need higher resolution for anything such as hybrid use to extract grabs from, towards printing or reframing at post, you're better going with the C300 MKII, especially for motion picture.

I think you've perhaps missed the original point of the thread - how do these things compare in practice.

I've delved deep enough into the theory of resolution downsampling in post and the more you look into it the more variables there are and the more that you realise the results cannot be predicted.

@Ty Harper is smart enough to not ask for theory-land responses, because (having read their other posts and seen the quality of their work) they have enough experience to understand that theory and practice are two very different things.

[Emanuel]

Indeed, to whom you're saying it ; ) especially between who has made this craft for a living for decades and mere curious or pure enthusiast champs : 3 probably not used to ever extract a large format print from any piece of footage ; )) Just to not call the usual fanboyism, easy to find on Internet boards here or to each wishful list or paper specs higher rez camera announcement : D

[Emanuel]

LOL :- )

[techie]

I agree with others, no doubt C300 Mk2 does the right thing, except for stills or 4k 60p, use the hybrid 1DX Mk2. Duck soup recipe in my opinion.

[Ty Harper]

I'm still kind of on the fence between the C300 MKII and the 1DX MKII, which is why I was inquiring on people's real world experience working with the C300 MKII's 2K 60p @ 422 10 bit vs the 1DX MKII's 4K 60p @ 422 8 bit, in post. I'll admit I'm not tech savvy in my understanding of which combo of resolution/color depth might trump the other.

Aside from that, my instincts are telling me that any camera purchase I make moving forward - aside from having decent DPAF - should at least have 422 10 bit. Over here in Canada I'm seeing 1DX MKII's going for close to 2K and C300 MKIIs hitting sub $5K... and if I was going for the C300 MKII, it'd be with a friend, so I'd essentially be paying about the same price as a used 1DX MKII.

Also, does the C300 MKII do 4K 60p RAW externally?

[TomTheDP]

On 11/18/2021 at 11:43 AM, Ty Harper said:

I'm still kind of on the fence between the C300 MKII and the 1DX MKII, which is why I was inquiring on people's real world experience working with the C300 MKII's 2K 60p @ 422 10 bit vs the 1DX MKII's 4K 60p @ 422 8 bit, in post. I'll admit I'm not tech savvy in my understanding of which combo of resolution/color depth might trump the other.

Aside from that, my instincts are telling me that any camera purchase I make moving forward - aside from having decent DPAF - should at least have 422 10 bit. Over here in Canada I'm seeing 1DX MKII's going for close to 2K and C300 MKIIs hitting sub $5K... and if I was going for the C300 MKII, it'd be with a friend, so I'd essentially be paying about the same price as a used 1DX MKII.

Also, does the C300 MKII do 4K 60p RAW externally?

I used the C300 MKII for a feature recently. It's a really nice camera. We didn't use AF so I can't comment on that. An advantage to it is you can shoot BRAW from an external recorder. The internal 2k is nice. 

My complaint about it is in high contrast situations you can get a sensor artifact which causes vertical lines to appear across the screen. I was disappointed with this as I like to shoot high contrast stuff. You just have to watch out for it. 

I've only used the 1DX MK2 once. Its a nice camera but I'd be hard pressed to go with a camera that doesn't have LOG. The colors are great though as well as the auto focus. Definitely still a solid option. 

[techie]

Real world experience is fine but you'll go nowhere without solid theory.

[Ty Harper]

7 hours ago, techie said:

Real world experience is fine but you'll go nowhere without solid theory.

It was never an either/or... but with theory in mind, what might offer better latitiude in post (for grading, punching in, VFX, etc) when shooting at 60p? The 10 bit color depth of the C300 MKII or the 4K resolution of the 1DX MKII? Or do other factors like bit rate need to be considered as well?

[mrtreve]

I had a C300 II for a while and I think it made a good image in 2k 10 bit. It was always a frustrating limitation that 4k and 2k 4444 are limited to 30 fps.

The raw output is over SDI and limited to 4k 30p. You can now do prores raw to a Ninja V Pro (SDI module) but this is pretty bulky solution and still no slow motion recording.

I would go for a C200 over either of those cameras though if you're interested in 60p. You get the 4k 60p 10bit Canon Raw Lite which I found had less artifacts than the X-AVC of the C300 II. A quick transcode to prores and you have a really capable camera system.

One downside of both the C300 II and 200 was noise in the shadows especially with C-log2. Canon fixed that with the DGO sensor, so it may ultimately be worth just getting a C70. You also get the flexibility of the RF mount which is a huge bonus.

I didn't ever use the 1DX II so can't compare. I think the images look decent if you're happy with shooting on a DSLR.

[Ty Harper]

7 hours ago, mrtreve said:

I had a C300 II for a while and I think it made a good image in 2k 10 bit. It was always a frustrating limitation that 4k and 2k 4444 are limited to 30 fps.

The raw output is over SDI and limited to 4k 30p. You can now do prores raw to a Ninja V Pro (SDI module) but this is pretty bulky solution and still no slow motion recording.

I would go for a C200 over either of those cameras though if you're interested in 60p. You get the 4k 60p 10bit Canon Raw Lite which I found had less artifacts than the X-AVC of the C300 II. A quick transcode to prores and you have a really capable camera system.

One downside of both the C300 II and 200 was noise in the shadows especially with C-log2. Canon fixed that with the DGO sensor, so it may ultimately be worth just getting a C70. You also get the flexibility of the RF mount which is a huge bonus.

I didn't ever use the 1DX II so can't compare. I think the images look decent if you're happy with shooting on a DSLR.

Appreciate the feedback and didn't realize noise was an issue with the C300 too, good to know, thx!

[mrtreve]

On 11/23/2021 at 11:58 PM, Ty Harper said:

Appreciate the feedback and didn't realize noise was an issue with the C300 too, good to know, thx!

Yes, basically the sensor is showing its age a bit. Initially they implemented some temporal NR to clean up the shadows in C-log2 (I believe it was the first camera with that gamma curve) but this lead to some artifacting, so they added firmware to disable this (you set NR to a value of -1) at which point you could see the noise levels that existed there. I usually shot at 400 ISO to clean things up a bit.

Fair play to Canon though, as they did fix this on the C300 III with the DGO sensor. The fact that this sensor trickled down to the cheaper C70 is quite a nice thing. It makes it harder to justify the older C series cameras even if you can get a used deal.

The build quality of the C70 is not quite as good as others have mentioned. I haven't had a problem with my monitor but I only use the camera rarely. The rest of it is solid enough. The RF mount is nice and secure. 

However the tradeoff is worth it probably, as the C300 II is quite large and top-heavy with the clamshell monitor. The cold shoe always goes as well, so its common for the monitor to sag to the side (not be level).

I would personally forget about the prestige of a C300 line camera vs a C70 if that's influencing your choice, as a £5000 camera in 2021 is better than a £15,000 camera from 2015.