Canon C70 User Experience

[herein2020]

1 hour ago, Django said:

While S5's DR is solid, the tests I've seen show about a stop under. The latitude tests were good but showed strange iris artefacts.

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.

 

1 hour ago, Django said:

From what I hear it's better to underexpose on C70 to keep closer to base ISO and lift mids/shadows in post.

You'll have to experiment and let us know what works best.

 

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.

 

2 hours ago, Django said:

What does the warning say? I've had too many issues using V30 cards on my R6. Sometimes it works perfect all day, but then all of a sudden I might get the warning card is too slow and the recording stops. Way too risky on a paid shoot. I'm using Sony TOUGH cards and what stresses it most is 4K60p 10-bit Log.

I'd really to some extensive tests before ordering the 1TB V30 cards.

 

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.

 

 

 

[herein2020]

2 hours ago, Django said:

Also dual ISO and DGO work completely different. C70 only has a base ISO of 800 so it will surely not be as clean as S5 at 4000ISO.

 

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.

 

 

[Django]

38 minutes ago, herein2020 said:

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.

Fashion shows at night with no lighting? I'm here in Paris, FR so maybe we do it different out here.. you're in Miami right?

This nocturnal footage is shot at 800 with the speed booster on the 35mm F1.4L (so effectively F0.9L equivalent) and looks so clean:

Obviously not how you'd wanna expose a fashion show but still I'd try and keep closest to base ISO (800) for maximum DR & latitude.

38 minutes ago, herein2020 said:

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.

Heat definitely seems to affect data rates. On the R6 at least. C70 has a fan so maybe different. Test, test, test!

26 minutes ago, herein2020 said:

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.

 Seen that test, but keep in mind the A7S3's dual high ISO only kicks in at 12,800ISO. Your S5 does so at 4000ISO.

..of course dual gain will help the c70 but it's not a super high-ISO camera like a lot of dual native ISO cams.

You should be fine though under 6400. But like you say, tests on YT are all over the place. Only way to know is for yourself!

 

[kye]

 

7 hours ago, herein2020 said:

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 definitely did that to myself.  I messaged @mercer asking for opinions and the "Camera for India" discussion hit triple digits, and I ended up buying the camera locally for RRP and I had one day to test it before I hit the road.  I even had a lens shipped to a post office near where I was staying in Sydney as I didn't want to risk that it would be late and I'd miss it!

7 hours ago, herein2020 said:

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.

This is a huge topic and I'll resist the temptation to rant, but I think this is a hugely under-developed part of camera design.

My ideal camera would have the ability to record all these simultaneously:

• 3.5mm input 1 L&R to two audio channels (ie, normal)
• 3.5mm input 1 L&R to two audio channels (at -20/-30/-40dB as safety tracks)
• 3.5mm input 2 L&R to two audio channels (ie, normal)
• 3.5mm input 2 L&R to two audio channels (at -20/-30/-40dB as safety tracks)
• in-built speakers L&R to two audio channels with auto-levelling

One thing that travel film-making really benefits from is ambient sound, and being able to record a shotgun (at normal gain and also a safety track) plus a stereo track would be killer.  I basically never remember to unplug the on-camera shotgun to get stereo sound, so I'm having to do a lot of work in finding ambient soundtracks to liven things up in the mix and if they were just there then it would be spectacular.

7 hours ago, herein2020 said:

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.

...and yet those people will then have to buy a monitor anyway....   which will just be a monitor because it can now record internal RAW, so no need to go external for better codecs.  *sigh*.  Once again, camera size suffers because people won't do the right thing.

7 hours ago, herein2020 said:

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. 

IBIS is all the rage, and I love it for shooting manual primes (which I use almost exclusively) but OIS can be incredible too.  I chose my Sony X3000 action camera over a GoPro because of the OIS and it's just incredible.  The combination of super wide-angle lens (15mm FF equiv?) and OIS means that if I hand-hold a follow-shot from as high as I can reach looking down then people think it's a drone.

6 hours ago, Django said:

Agreed, not to mention that DGO tech is lifted from nothing other than the mighty ARRI Alexa's Dual ADC design..

And with Canon RAW getting included this camera gets even closer.

The other piece that's missing from ARRI is that it records RAW in LOG format, not Linear.

Is there any talk of that trickling down too?

3 hours ago, herein2020 said:

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.

There can be some tricky stuff in the data pipelines, but also strange manufacturer limitations coming from the "it's all too hard" department.

For example the GH5 uses UHS-II card slots, and the 400Mbps codec won't record continuously onto a UHS-I card, despite using UHS-I cards that are rated for well above that data rate and the fact the standard will allow it too.

42 minutes ago, herein2020 said:

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 might be worth trying to ETTR?

I worked out that it's a bad idea on the GH5 as the HLG profile has a pretty aggressive rolloff and so anything you expose up there ends up pretty thin, but it does give you lots of room in the shadows....

[herein2020]

2 hours ago, Django said:

Fashion shows at night with no lighting? I'm here in Paris, FR so maybe we do it different out here.. you're in Miami right?

This nocturnal footage is shot at 800 with the speed booster on the 35mm F1.4L (so effectively F0.9L equivalent) and looks so clean:

Obviously not how you'd wanna expose a fashion show but still I'd try and keep closest to base ISO (800) for maximum DR & latitude.

Heat definitely seems to affect data rates. On the R6 at least. C70 has a fan so maybe different. Test, test, test!

 Seen that test, but keep in mind the A7S3's dual high ISO only kicks in at 12,800ISO. Your S5 does so at 4000ISO.

..of course dual gain will help the c70 but it's not a super high-ISO camera like a lot of dual native ISO cams.

You should be fine though under 6400. But like you say, tests on YT are all over the place. Only way to know is for yourself!

 

 

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.

2 hours ago, kye said:

 

This is a huge topic and I'll resist the temptation to rant, but I think this is a hugely under-developed part of camera design.

My ideal camera would have the ability to record all these simultaneously:

• 3.5mm input 1 L&R to two audio channels (ie, normal)
• 3.5mm input 1 L&R to two audio channels (at -20/-30/-40dB as safety tracks)
• 3.5mm input 2 L&R to two audio channels (ie, normal)
• 3.5mm input 2 L&R to two audio channels (at -20/-30/-40dB as safety tracks)
• in-built speakers L&R to two audio channels with auto-levelling

 

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.

2 hours ago, kye said:

 

IBIS is all the rage, and I love it for shooting manual primes (which I use almost exclusively) but OIS can be incredible too.  I chose my Sony X3000 action camera over a GoPro because of the OIS and it's just incredible.  The combination of super wide-angle lens (15mm FF equiv?) and OIS means that if I hand-hold a follow-shot from as high as I can reach looking down then people think it's a drone.

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.

2 hours ago, kye said:

 

For example the GH5 uses UHS-II card slots, and the 400Mbps codec won't record continuously onto a UHS-I card, despite using UHS-I cards that are rated for well above that data rate and the fact the standard will allow it too.

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.

 

2 hours ago, kye said:

 

It might be worth trying to ETTR?

I worked out that it's a bad idea on the GH5 as the HLG profile has a pretty aggressive rolloff and so anything you expose up there ends up pretty thin, but it does give you lots of room in the shadows....

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.

[Django]

9 hours ago, kye said:

The other piece that's missing from ARRI is that it records RAW in LOG format, not Linear.

Is there any talk of that trickling down too?

BRAW, ProResRAW, CanonRAW etc all do 16-bit linear to 12-bit LOG.

None of them can compress RAW in-cam due to the RED patent, including ARRI.

7 hours ago, herein2020 said:

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.

Gotcha. I figured Miami because it's also a fashion capital, didn't realise there was a scene in other parts of FL, my bad.

Paris of course is the number one fashion capital. Being that, there are multiple "leagues" here that cover pretty wide range of venue & budgets. Never done/seen an outdoor show at night with no lighting though, that's gotta be rough!

7 hours ago, herein2020 said:

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.

I recently got the Rode Go 2 that records a safety track on the transmitter at 32bit float. Haven't had the need to test it yet but it's nice having that safety net on wireless. Still this is one field that is moving kinda slowly. I do think 32-bit float should be making its way into cameras..

7 hours ago, herein2020 said:

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.

Yep that's what I've heard as well, if anything shoot to the left as there is more latitude on underexpose than overexpose.

7 hours ago, herein2020 said:

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.

Agreed, which is why I'd avoid cranking ISO on C70. On dual ISO cameras it's different.

[kye]

 

10 hours ago, herein2020 said:

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.

Ah, that would be perfect too.  So really then, have a 3.5mm mic jack with two 32bit ADCs, and then have it so that with a switch in settings you can swap the headphone 3.5mm jack to be a second mic jack also with two 32bit ADCs.

I'd happily make a little mic array on the top of the camera by adding a couple of 3.5mm lavs to either side of the shotgun mic.

10 hours ago, herein2020 said:

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.

EIS doesn't work well with a 180 shutter, it's only really good for very small amounts of movement or a very low shutter angle.

Stabilised glass is a real limitation, which is one of the reasons I went to fully-manual primes.  I shoot handheld at (the FF equivalents of) 15mm, 35mm, 85mm, and 400mm.  Those are the primes I use, almost exclusively.

10 hours ago, herein2020 said:

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.

Ah, ok.

Lots of log / codec combos don't get good bit-density on the highlights or shadows, putting more of their bandwidth into the mids where the 'proper' exposure band is, so that makes sense.

2 hours ago, Django said:

BRAW, ProResRAW, CanonRAW etc all do 16-bit linear to 12-bit LOG.

None of them can compress RAW in-cam due to the RED patent, including ARRI.

Interesting, I didn't know that those RAW codecs were RAW log and not Linear.  Even better.  The more bit density you can put in the skin tone range the better!

[herein2020]

16 hours ago, Django said:

Gotcha. I figured Miami because it's also a fashion capital, didn't realise there was a scene in other parts of FL, my bad.

Paris of course is the number one fashion capital. Being that, there are multiple "leagues" here that cover pretty wide range of venue & budgets. Never done/seen an outdoor show at night with no lighting though, that's gotta be rough!

 

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.

16 hours ago, Django said:

I recently got the Rode Go 2 that records a safety track on the transmitter at 32bit float. Haven't had the need to test it yet but it's nice having that safety net on wireless. Still this is one field that is moving kinda slowly. I do think 32-bit float should be making its way into cameras..

 

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. 

14 hours ago, kye said:

 

Ah, that would be perfect too.  So really then, have a 3.5mm mic jack with two 32bit ADCs, and then have it so that with a switch in settings you can swap the headphone 3.5mm jack to be a second mic jack also with two 32bit ADCs.

I'd happily make a little mic array on the top of the camera by adding a couple of 3.5mm lavs to either side of the shotgun mic.

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.

14 hours ago, kye said:

EIS doesn't work well with a 180 shutter, it's only really good for very small amounts of movement or a very low shutter angle.

Stabilised glass is a real limitation, which is one of the reasons I went to fully-manual primes.  I shoot handheld at (the FF equivalents of) 15mm, 35mm, 85mm, and 400mm.  Those are the primes I use, almost exclusively.

 

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.

[kye]

2 hours ago, herein2020 said:

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 think it's probably a feature that would be advertised heavily, but in a sense it's a natural evolution of the tech and will eventually just form part of a baseline spec.  Plenty of features in the GH6 that would have been headline features of the GH5ii had they been included in that camera, but in the GH6 are just part of the whole package.

2 hours ago, herein2020 said:

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.

There's a saying "People will never understand what they're paid to not understand". 

Unfortunately, even beyond this, the ability of "camera tech experts" to understand actual camera tech is saddeningly thin at times.  or let me put it another way, when I, a Dad who shoots home videos, know more about camera tech than you do and that's your actual job, then you're in real trouble.  Unfortunately that's actually the case with disturbing regularity.

Even beyond those, when I tried a few weeks ago to bring up the concept that EIS requires short shutter speeds, I was shouted down by a number of forum members who not only didn't understand the tech, but thought that it wasn't possible for anyone else to understand it.

They often say that in democracies we get the leaders we deserve, and applying that to the camera industry, how low we have set the bar.....

[herein2020]

On 2/21/2022 at 5:35 PM, Django said:

Heat definitely seems to affect data rates. On the R6 at least. C70 has a fan so maybe different. Test, test, test!

 

 

I am feeling pretty confident that my storage problem is solved. The 1TB card shows 524 minutes remaining when filming at 4K60FPS XF-AVC and it shows 852 minutes remaining when filming at 4K30FPS XF-AVC.  For safety, until I trust going solo with the V30 cards I will keep a V90 card in slot A and keep dual slot recording enabled. If it fills up I will swap it for another V90 card, and if the V30 card continues to work without problems then at least I'll be able to dump from a single card later on.

Ideally after a few months I'll be able to use only the V30 1TB cards, I hate keeping up with multiple cards and swapping or dumping in the middle of a shoot. The 160Mb/s for 4K30FPS is well within the SanDIsk card's advertised capabilities and even 260Mb/s still leaves a pretty comfortable data rate delta based on the advertised speeds for the Sandisk Extreme PRO cards. I also tested my 1TB cards when they arrived. Sustained is the big question now and only time will tell if they can maintain that speed sustained. Below are the results from testing the Sandisk V30 and the ProGrade V90, the read speeds for both are WAY lower than advertised at least with the way this software does the tests or due to my card reader:

 

Sandisk Extreme PRO 1TB V30

 

ProGrade 256GB V90

 

Lexar 64GB 1000x (Just for fun)

 

The Lexar results were pretty shocking, no idea what to make of that, but I still will not be buying any Lexar cards.

 

19 hours ago, kye said:

Even beyond those, when I tried a few weeks ago to bring up the concept that EIS requires short shutter speeds, I was shouted down by a number of forum members who not only didn't understand the tech, but thought that it wasn't possible for anyone else to understand it.

They often say that in democracies we get the leaders we deserve, and applying that to the camera industry, how low we have set the bar.....

 

I'll be the first to admit that I have never used digital IS in camera so I knew nothing about it. But now that I know I will need to rely on it at times I read everything I could about it. The shutter speed requirements are unrealistically high for it to work well, so I will be forced to use a gimbal more or stabilized lenses.

[kye]

13 hours ago, herein2020 said:

I'll be the first to admit that I have never used digital IS in camera so I knew nothing about it. But now that I know I will need to rely on it at times I read everything I could about it. The shutter speed requirements are unrealistically high for it to work well, so I will be forced to use a gimbal more or stabilized lenses.

It also works well if there just isn't much motion in the shot.

You'd have to play with it to know how far you can push it, and subject to taste as well, but things like a slowly moving shot of a still scene or a wide landscape shot without a moving foreground, etc can work quite well.  I've seen wedding videographers use SS to expose like this and although some scenes it's obvious, other scenes they completely got away with it, so it's really subject dependent.

[kailash gupta]

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.

[herein2020]

On 2/24/2022 at 9:26 AM, kailash gupta said:

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.

The audio is very clean and easy to use. The way it records 4 tracks is perfect for the way I set up. For my last shoot I set my on camera shotgun mic to XLR input one,  my wireless lav receiver to input 2, set track 1 and track 3 to manual control, and track 2 and track 4 to automatic level control. The auto control was about 6dB lower than I would have liked and my manual tracks never clipped so I used them instead.

[M_Williams]

On 2/20/2022 at 12:12 PM, herein2020 said:

• 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.

Why would you want to use EF-S lenses with the speedbooster? They... wouldn't work even if they could mount. The point of a speedbooster is to allow you to use FF lenses (which means not EF-S) along with an APS-C sensor and still have roughly the FOV/DOF of a FF sensor. Sigma EF-S lenses, like say the 18-35, only cover APS-C. You can use them with a speedbooster on M4/3, but not on a sensor of the same size or larger than they're designed for.

I'm not sure what you mean by "DOF remains the original DOF." It would be the same as if you mounted the lens on a full-frame sensor camera, but the DOF would be shallower with the speedbooster than if you used a regular adapter on the C70's sensor. The 1-stop extra light and shallower DOF go hand-in-hand; can't have one without the other.

I can't speak to the AF area, but since a speedbooster effectively projects a larger image and fits into a smaller area, whatever the focus coverage of the sensor is would remain the same.

[herein2020]

9 hours ago, M_Williams said:

Why would you want to use EF-S lenses with the speedbooster? They... wouldn't work even if they could mount. The point of a speedbooster is to allow you to use FF lenses (which means not EF-S) along with an APS-C sensor and still have roughly the FOV/DOF of a FF sensor. Sigma EF-S lenses, like say the 18-35, only cover APS-C. You can use them with a speedbooster on M4/3, but not on a sensor of the same size or larger than they're designed for.

 

You misread my post, I do not want to use the speedbooster with EF-S lenses, my point was that I have bolted the speedbooster to the lens mount and so if I want to use EF-S lenses I would need to unscrew the 4 tiny screws and not lose them on top of having to buy the straight through adapter. This is not something you will run into with any other camera which is why I put it in the quirky category.

 

10 hours ago, M_Williams said:

I'm not sure what you mean by "DOF remains the original DOF." It would be the same as if you mounted the lens on a full-frame sensor camera, but the DOF would be shallower with the speedbooster than if you used a regular adapter on the C70's sensor. The 1-stop extra light and shallower DOF go hand-in-hand; can't have one without the other.

 

You are incorrect, the speed booster adds a stop of light so it turns a 50mm F1.4 into a 50mm F1.0, however, the DOF is still the same as an F1.4, vs a true F1.0.

 

10 hours ago, M_Williams said:

I can't speak to the AF area, but since a speedbooster effectively projects a larger image and fits into a smaller area, whatever the focus coverage of the sensor is would remain the same.

 

Incorrect again, Canon's own documentation states the AF area drops to 60% coverage when using the speedbooster and they even add a helpful light grey box to the screen to show the decreased AF coverage area. No idea why, but it is well documented.

[herein2020]

On 2/24/2022 at 8:38 AM, kye said:

It also works well if there just isn't much motion in the shot.

You'd have to play with it to know how far you can push it, and subject to taste as well, but things like a slowly moving shot of a still scene or a wide landscape shot without a moving foreground, etc can work quite well.  I've seen wedding videographers use SS to expose like this and although some scenes it's obvious, other scenes they completely got away with it, so it's really subject dependent.

I'm starting to get used to no IBIS, I don't trust the digital stabilization at all, I feel it could burn in some warping or artifacts that I can't get rid of later, so instead I just shoot handheld while trying even harder to keep it steady then I rely on DR's stabilization in post. I do have new respect for DR's stabilization, it is pretty amazing actually and the nice thing about it is you can always just turn it off or try a different type if the one you pick warps the footage.

[kye]

2 hours ago, herein2020 said:

I'm starting to get used to no IBIS, I don't trust the digital stabilization at all, I feel it could burn in some warping or artifacts that I can't get rid of later, so instead I just shoot handheld while trying even harder to keep it steady then I rely on DR's stabilization in post. I do have new respect for DR's stabilization, it is pretty amazing actually and the nice thing about it is you can always just turn it off or try a different type if the one you pick warps the footage.

There are a few advantages to using in-camera EIS, so it's worth experimenting with (on non-critical footage) to get a feel for it, but mostly doing EIS in post is more flexible as it's not burnt in and you can try different things to see what works.

[kailash gupta]

I can't speak to the AF area, but since a speedbooster effectively projects a larger image and fits into a smaller area, whatever the focus coverage of the sensor is would remain the same.

mobdro
 

vidmate
 

[herein2020]

@kailash gupta @M_Williams come on guys, this isn't even hard to find, this is well documented in many places and the camera even puts a grey box on the screen at 60% coverage area and does not let you tap to track anywhere outside of the box as soon as you attach the speed booster, it even puts a message on the screen stating AF coverage area has been reduced. Below is one such video documenting this limitation. I knew about it before even buying the camera.

I am familiar with how the speed booster works, I have no idea why Canon chose to reduce the AF area, but they did and its well known. I do think Canon should document this better on their own site and was surprised it was not in the additional notes on Canon's Speed Booster page.

 

 

Out of curiosity, I wanted to see what would happen if I attached the Sigma 18-35 EF-S lens to the C70 with the speed booster attached and I then set the camera mode to EF-S. With the speed booster attached and the C70 in EF-S mode, the lens barrel is not visible at 24mm or higher and AF and everything else works perfectly fine. When the sensor is configured for Super16 you can shoot with any EF-S lens without removing the adapter.

So technically, if you ever wanted to use an EF-S lens and did not have the straight through adapter or did not want to take off the speed booster, you would be fine as long as the lens was 24mm or longer. I only have a single EF-S lens for video work so I probably will not get the straight through adapter and will stick to FF lenses.

[herein2020]

Here is my first model promo video shot with the C70. @Django the DR really shows with the backlit direct sunlight shots, I did not use anything but daylight for this video. As far as stability, @kye about 80% of the video was shot handheld and I did not use any in camera digital stabilization. 

I still am not 100% convinced the C70 has more DR than the S5, if anything I would say they are even, but the AF is so good even is good enough for me.  The touch to track is a cool feature but too unreliable IMO, I don't have anything to compare it to (since I don't own the R5 or R6), but it definitely seems like it is easy to lose the tracking at which point the camera becomes unpredictable especially since I only get the center 60% of the coverage area with the speed booster attached. 

Overall, I am really glad I skipped the R5 and the R5C, those internal ND filters make all the difference here. Many times with the S5 I would just stop it down because there just wasn't time to pull out the variable ND. 

The C70 combined with the DJI Ronin RS2 is an awesome combination. The RS2 is so much lighter than the DJI Ronin S that the C70 on the RS2 feels like the same weight as the S5 on the Ronin S. I am able to keep my full Shape cage on the C70 and balance it without needing counter weights even with the Canon 24mm-105mm L lens, however I did need the Smallrig extending base because the C70 was too wide for the DJI base and the Smallrig Manfrotto base plate since the one that comes with the Ronin RS2 is pretty much useless.

The 1TB V30 Sandisk Extreme PRO card is working out great as well, no problems so far, I just keep the V90 card in slot 2 for just in case.