c300 lcd display free sample

So, I’ve had my Canon C300 for a week now and had a chance to play with it and evaluate it. Am I pleased with my purchase? Yes, absolutely, the C300 will be a camera that I will use a lot. It’s well built and feels very solid, the pictures are great, but there are a few things that have frustrated me, I few things that the more I use it, I don’t like. But there are also quite a few things that I really like.

So for me, the idea of a one piece solution that gives me the benefits of a s35mm sensor, including excellent low light performance, shallow DoF for all the interviews and story telling footage, plus low power in a compact package is great. The C300 looked to be the camera just for me for these shoots.

At higher gain/ISO the C300’s user settable noise reduction system is very good at cleaning up the image. At 3200 ISO with the noise reduction level set to 4 the noise is all but gone, at 6400 ISO, noise reduction level 7 cleans the image up. However each extra level of noise reduction does introduce a small amount of softening of the image and above 5 there are some artefacts on rapid exposure or contrast changes. Even so, the ability to shoot at 6400 ISO with relatively  low noise  images is quite remarkable and one of the C300’s trump cards. Of course you can go still higher with the sensitivity, all the way to 20,000 ISO but the pictures are pretty noisy and with the noise reduction engaged the image does get a bit soft and certainly doesn’t look anywhere near as nice as it does at lower gain settings. For me I will try to stay below 3200, but it’s nice know that 6400 or higher is there when you need it. For image quality I give the C300 a very high score, but in my opinion it’s not quite (by the very tiniest of amounts) up to what an F3 recording to a 10 bit external recorder can deliver. However for the types of shoot I want to use it on, that very small difference is not going to matter.

Now, going back to gain settings this is one of the things that annoys me. On the back of the camera there is a small supplementary LCD screen, much like the information display on a Canon DSLR. Normally to change the C300’s ISO (gain/sensitivity), shutter speed or white balance, you press the “FUNC” button, by the side of the screen until the function you want to change is displayed and then you use the rotary dial or small joystick (on the hand grip or camera rear) to change the setting.

There’s a couple of problems with this. The LCD is hard to see from the sides or below and if you have the EVF Viewfinder extended, you can’t see it from above at all. The options you are changing do also get highlighted in the EVF or on the LCD (if you have the camera info overlay enabled), but as you have to take your eye from the viewfinder to find the small FUNC switch, it would have been nice if this status LCD was better placed, maybe on the side of the camera body where it is easier to see. I suppose eventually I will get to know where the FUNC button is by feel, but as it’s right next to the record button, you do want to make sure your pressing the right button! You can also assign FUNC to any of the other assignable buttons, but with  no dedicated switches for gain/shutter/white balance you can quickly run out of these.

On my F3’s if I want to change the ISO, white balance or switch the shutter on and off, all I need to do is flick a dedicated switch and I know from the switch position how it is set. All this fiddling around on the C300 is tedious and not quick to do. You can assign these functions to any of the multitude of assignable buttons, but you still need to press the correct assignable button and then move to the dial or joystick to change the setting. I guess I’ll get used to it, but it’s not something I like.

On the positive side the press button operated ND filter system is really nice, although again you need to check in the viewfinder to know which ND filter is selected other than a small window tucked away in the top corner of the hard to see status display.

The built in EVF (electronic viewfinder) is really rather good, certainly a huge improvement over the one on the F3 and when used in conjunction with the cameras peaking and magnification options good enough to use for accurate focus. On the C300 you can have both an expanded image via the magnification function and peaking on at the same time. So it is quite possible to use the camera without any external devices attached. But you do need to be aware that when you don’t have the LCD Monitors  attached to the camera the only way to plug in a mic is via a 3.5mm stereo jack socket on the side of the camera body. There is no built in mic. I really wish there was at least 1 XLR socket on the camera body. In addition, the only way to control the audio record levels (when using the body only) is by going into the cameras menu and selecting audio level set. Then you can use the joystick or function dial to set the level, which is OK until you have to change something else like the ISO or shutter, where you loose the audio level control until you go back into the menu. I can see Beachtekadapters becoming popular with C300 owners! But this kind of defeats the object of a standalone camera with no external boxes. Doh!

So, I hear you all shouting… “Why don’t you use the plug-in LCD monitor adapter thingumajig? Well I’ll tell you why, it’s cumbersome, makes the camera very top heavy and the cables that attach it to the camera body, which are thick enough to support a suspension bridge, just get in the way. The handle is colossal too, nice and chunky and feels very solid indeed, but colossal all the same. The LCD on the monitor unit is nice with good resolution. It can be positioned in a multitude of angles, up/down/left/right which is great, but it just makes the camera very top heavy and bulky, which for my particular application is not what I want. OK for studio use, on a film set or on a corporate shoot, but not good for news types shoots. Incidentally, I really like the built in waveform monitor and vectorscope. Much better than the histogram on the F3 in my view. But then I’m a die hard video guy. Someone from the DSLR world might prefer a histogram. Also the waveform monitor and vectorscope are only displayed on the LCD Monitor, they do not appear in the EVF, so your out of luck if you want to use them to check levels and you don’t have the monitor with you.

When using the XLR inputs on the Monitor unit the control pots for the audio levels can’t be seen easily all the way up on the top of the unit if the camera is on a tripod at eye height, so often you end up putting the whole monitor assembly on the camera on it’s end with the mic holder pointing skywards so you can get at the audio controls. Like this the rig is getting really ungainly and very top heavy. In addition you must have the LCD panel open to get at the audio controls. Audio appears to be an afterthought on the C300, it’s not well executed.

I’ve been using a Canon 24-70mm f2.8L lens on the C300. This is a great lens. But like all Canon EF lenses the iris is electronically controlled. On the C300 turning the iris dial on the back of the camera or the small wheel on the handgrip steps the iris open and closed in small steps. Even when set to “fine” you can see the image brightness changing in steps, it’s not smooth. If your working on a tripod this arrangement means taking a hand off either the lens or pan bar to change exposure. I much prefer a manual iris ring. Of course if you use Zeiss CP2’s or Nikon lenses you can still get a manual iris ring. A further observation is that my EF mount  Sigma 18-200mm f3.5 image stabilised lens clicks loudly when you change the aperture. Loud enough to be clearly audible on a camera mic or even a mic a few feet away in a quiet room. The other thing is that the camera has a fan that runs continuously, again this is not silent and gets picked up by the camera mic. It’s not loud, but it’s always there. One thing I didn’t try (budget would not stretch to it) is the WiFi adapter that allows you to remotely control the Iris and even the focus of the camera from an iPad. The camera streams a near live video feed to the iPad and you can use the iPad to control all the primary camera functions including iris and focus. However the slight lag in the video stream might make focussing tricky.

As well as the WiFi option the C300 has a lot of nice functions, things like the ability to dual record to both CF cards at the same time for safety. It can shoot at up to 60 frames per second at 720P and can shoot true 24P as opposed to the 23.98P found on most video cameras. This is particularly important when recording off board audio as many pro audio recorders only have 24P timecode and timing, so a camera running at 23.98 will slowly drift out of sync with the audio recorder. It can also do time-lapse (interval record), but strangely the C300 can’t shoot single frames in interval record mode when set to 25P, 50i, 50P or 60P, the lowest setting is 2 frames, so any time-lapse sequences need to be sped up by 200% in post to get smooth motion or done with the camera set to 23.98P, 24P or 30P when it can do 1 frame, very strange indeed. The C300 also has a Pre-record function (cache record) but the memory only gives you 3 seconds, which is barely enough time to react to seeing something and hit the record button, I’d really like at least twice this, my F3 goes up to 12 seconds.

So as you can tell there’s quite a few things that bug me about the C300. I hate to be so negative, because it is a great camera, it does produce great images and is beautifully well built. With all the hype surrounding it’s launch it’s hard to not be just a little disappointed in these little annoyances. But, the C300 will allow me to shoot with a s35mm sensor at 50Mb/s without the aggro of an external recorder. The pictures will be of great quality when used with a decent lens. I can also use stabilised lenses for long lens shots and handheld. So it will make a great compact (without the monitor unit) grab and go camera, once I figure out a smaller handle, mic mount and maybe get a Beachtek box.

However…. The F3 still IMHO produces a marginally better image and generally I prefer the F3’s ergonomics, especially on a tripod or shoulder rig. If you don’t need 50Mb/s then the F3 is excellent. If you need high end performance, squeezing every last bit out of the image, the F3 is better than the C300 IMHO, largely down to the 10 bit output and flatter log curve.

If you need 50Mb/s but don’t need more than that, the the C300 is the obvious choice. DSLR shooters will I’m sure be very happy with the control layout, video pro’s may find it frustrating.

If you need better than 50Mb/s then we come back to the F3 again. After all if your going to add an external recorder, at this level, it should really be a 10 bit one. Plus you have RGB options, LUT’s, no need for a funky LCD adapter with unwieldy cables just so you can plug in an XLR mic.

I think the C300 will find a very happy home in many a news, documentary or corporate production company. I have mine for the Storm Chasing and natural extremes that I shoot, where the convenience of no external recorder is wonderful. In this role I believe the C300 will excel. But I’m absolutely keeping my F3’s for commercials, shorts and those productions where an external recorder is not a big deal and image quality is everything. Plus I find the F3 much easier to work with on a tripod or shoulder rig.

If I could only choose one? Right now it would be the F3 as it is more adaptable. You can use different lens mounts, record internally or add a 10 bit 422 or 444 recorder. I can use the F3 to shoot what I am planning on using the C300 for, only with the inconvenience of an external recorder, while if I was asked to shoot a commercial I would really want the 10 bit RGB output of the F3, so the C300 would not be appropriate.

That’s just my opinion. Other’s will vary. Don’t get me wrong the C300 is a great, great camera, but it’s not necessarily better than the F3 and the F3 is not necessarily better than the C300. I’m not saying this to hedge my bets or sit on the wall, I say this because that’s the way I think it is. Tough choice. I’m just glad I can afford both and then choose the most appropriate camera for the particular shoot.

I guess what I’d really like is an F3 with the build quality of the C300, internal 50Mb/s recordings, the C300’s variable noise reduction, ultra highISO and EVF.

The C300/500 Z-Finder is an optical viewfinder, specifically designed to attach to the Canon C300 and C500 cinema camera’s LCD screen. This Z-Finder will magnify the LCD screen by 1.8x and has a diopter wheel for specific focus tuning. It cuts out any extraneous light and offers an initial point of stability by pressing your eye against the large eyecup. The Z-Finder includes 4 interchangeable anti-fog glass diopters, 0, +1, +2, and +3 so you can correct it to your vision right out of the box and then fine tune it with our red adjust wheel for perfect clarity. -1 and +4 diopters are available for purchase separately. An aluminum sun mask is built the Z-Finder to protect your LCD screen from sunlight.

The C300/C500 Z-Finder by using a foam padded sleeve that slides over the LCD screen of the C300, C300 Mark II, or C500. The sleeve is secured into place with a bar clamp. It also includes a unique monitor lock clip to keep the LCD screen from moving forward when the Z-Finder is pressed against your eye. If you’d like to move the detachable Canon LCD screen off to the side to better place it for your rig see our C300/C500 Z-Finder with Mounting Kit here.

The C300/C500 Z-Finder is only compatible with the Canon C300, C300 Mark II, and the Canon C500. It is not compatible with any other cameras or the C300 Mark III or C500 Mark II.

The Mounting Kit for the C300/C500 Z-Finder allows you to position the LCD screen forward and off the the side in a position to better enable shoulder mounted shooting. The Mounting Kit attaches to a Z-Rail mount and will allow forward/backward, side to side, and tilt adjustment of the Z-Finder. This mounting kit works with the C300/C500 Helmet and handle as a unified system. The C300/C500 Helmet Kit is required to use this kit.

When moving the LCD this far forward, you may need to get the Canon Extension cable- sold by Canon. You can get the Mounting Kit packaged with the C300-C500 Z-Finder here.

The C300 Mark II is Canon’s long awaited successor to the very popular C300 and we take a closer look on the new features and if the camera can hold up to it’s competitors.

Now the long awaited successor, the Canon EOS-C300 Mark II came out. But again with some outcry. Why is the new C300 Mk II so weak in high speed frame rates? As a matter of fact the successor of the C300 can record 120fps but only in 2K or HD. Can it hold it’s quality level? We find out a bit later.

With a cinema-style camera like the new Canon C300 MkII Canon want’s to direct this camera directly to cinema and high-end corporate productions to compete against manufacturers like Arri, but with much lower cost.

This is the newest member of the Canon Cinema EOS line and while the older C300 was the first in this category, now the C300 Mark II has grown up to be a real cinema camera.

The concept is to keep the form factor but add all the things need for professional productions like a better codec, higher resolutions better color science in a very reliable package. The C300 Mark II is very similar to the original C300, but also a complete new camera with completely new features like higher resolution, higher framerates, far better codec and a ton of convienience-feature which makes life of a Director of Photography a lot easier and a director or client much happier.

The body looks very similar to the older C300 with the biggest changes going to the redesign of the top-handle-grip which has strengths and weaknesses: the handgrip is attached via a u-form-like cheeseplate to the body via Allen screws which makes it very sturdy but also a bit more time consuming mounting it off the body. The good thing is that the top-handle has ten (10!) 1/3″ mounting points and one 3/8″ mounting point which allow you to attach accessories on many positions to the very stirdy top handle.

The new C300 MkII is a bit heavier than the older C300, but still portable enough to fit in thight places like cars, although it is not a real handheld camera like the C100 which is ay lighter, more likely on a steadicam or similar to have it movable.

The handgrip on the right side is pretty much the same like the one from the older C300, with recording button, user assignable dial wheel and joystick navig button. Although it has the same lacking functionality quirk like the older C300, that the joystick button has no activation function like we have it on the C100. When you press it, nothing happens. On the C100 when you press it, you’re right in the quick settings for WB, ISO and Shutter. On the C300 (MkII) you have to press Func on the back of the camera, after that you can use the joystick on the handgrip to navigatie through WB, Shutter and ISO and than you can press the joystick button to confirm the settings (and for menu navigation). That is a minor quirk which the older C300 had and it is still present in the new Mark II.

The viewfinder is a 1.77 Megapixel Color OLED EVF With Adjustable 60° Tilt Angle with a eye sensor that enables the display and helps lifetime for the OLED display. The display is bright and sharp and very nice to focus and is customizable like the LCD monitor.

All important functions can be found with dedicated buttons on the left side, ND Filter, Magnification, Peaking, Zebra and Waveform-Monitor and ISO, Shutter and the new S&F Framerate button and also the White balance and the left side record button can be illuminated with a single button press that also illuminates the rear lcd info screen with a subtle orange background light and you can customize nearly all buttons to other functions.

Like the older C300, the Mark II has 2 jog dial wheels on the left side. The one with the button in the middle is for choosing and selecting menu items and other selections and the one below it is user assignable and I found it most usefull with ISO values assigned to it.

Recording buttons are on the lower left, the handgrip and on the monitoring unit on the top handle. Buttons have nice tactile feedback but are silent when pressed which is also a nice improvement from the older C300. There are three record buttons. On the handgrip, on the top-handle monitoring unit and the third one changed it’s place from the front-right to the left side of the body where the majority of the buttons are. The recording buttons do have a longer button movement when pressed to prevent accidently presses.

For finetuning and setting up own Custom Pictuer Styles, the C300 Mark II features a punch of industry standard Gamma Curves and Color Gamuts from which the camera operator can choose. There are three main categories of settings for image style settings now. More about Custom Picture Settings in chapter Image Quality and Custum Picture Style Settings.

Autofocus is one of the major improvements of the C300 Mark II. There are three different modes: One Shot, Continous and AF-Boosted MF which is most interessting one.

Canon’s effort went into high quality image processing to get best possible quality of the new C300 Mark II. Can it hold up to the competitors? The new color science should help creating stuning imagery, Gamma/Gammut and Color Matrix settings can be combined in any way to achieve the look needed for a project. And the newly developed ACESworkflow assures a high quality standard throughout the whole production from filming to transfer, post-pro and mastering.

If you want to shoot alongside with an Arri Alexa with Arri Log-C, the settings for the Canon C300MkII would be Gamma: Canon Log 2, Colorspace: Cinema Gammut, Matrix: Production Camera. These settings would match an Arri Alexa pretty close. In PremiereCC you can use the LUT Arri SL as a grading starting point.

When using Canon Log2 gamma the camera operator can choose BT.709 as display LUT, but no display LUT is available when choosing Canon Log gamma. The C300 Mark II cannot load custom LUTs.

The older Canon Log Gamma has been greatly improoved. It has has much less noise than on the original C300 but also almost a great dynamic range as the new Canon Log 2. Improved signal processing and the better sensor of the C300 Mark II boosted the original Canon Log gamma to nearly 14 stops of dynamic range which is the great surprise.

The 4 inch lcd screen on the top handle looks pretty much the same as of the older C300, with 1.2 million dots resolution (same as older C300). The monitor can be rotated 270° and flipped down to get a good view in many filming positions like it’s older predecessor.

For a cleaner display, the icons and infos overlapping the image can put on the side of the screen with the Display function button to provide a distraction free filming.

The most anticipated new feature of the C300 Mark II is undoubtedly 4K recording in UHD 3840×2160 and DCI Cinema 4096×2160 with 10-bit 4:2:2 Subsampling with framerates at 23.976, 24, 25 and 29.97.

The cards are pretty expensive at the moment (around $370 for 128GB), but prices going down pretty fast normally. For example the Transcent CFast v2.0 256GB is at a good pricepoint and working great with the C300 Mark II as long as it is CFast Version 2 and has a minimum writing speed of 600mbit per second.

The Canon C300 Mk II features the usual range of ports, 3G-SDI port for recording Uncompressed 4:2:2, 4:4:4 or raw depending on the choosen format. Monitoring via SDI terminal port acn be 2K when recording 4K or HD and can output differen LUTs for on-set grading. The HDMI outputs only HD, not 4K or 2K. 3G-SDI outputs 4K raw or 2K, HD 4:4:4 12-bit or 4:2:2 10-bit.

We’ve tested the raw format with an Atomos Shogun external recorder that we connected via SDI which is the only way to get raw out of the camera, there is no raw coming out of HDMI. HDMI out on the C300 MkII is only 2K or HD, but not 4K.

We found that the conversion of the Atomos Shogun is nice, but not perfect. Because it is real raw coming out of the camera, the Shogun does also the debayering process, which the Shogun does not as good as the C300 MkII internaly. The Shogun’s material is a bit sharper, but also features more moire. So signal processing is way better when recorded internally. The Shogun does convert the raw format to ProRes 4K, not CinemaDNG at the moment, which would be even more interesting to see what quality comes out when output in DNG format.

Canon also optionally provides an extra remote control device, the Canon RC-V100 which allows to control many functions of the camera wich is plugged into the remote port of the C300MkII. Unfortunately the Canon C300 MkII has no Wifi like the Canon XC10, only the cable remote.

The C300 Mark II features high speed recording at 2k and HD up to 120 fps in NTSC or 100 fps in PAL mode. The motion is quite nice and fluid, but with the downside of a bit softer image. Another factor is that at 100-120fps the camera records in a 2:1 crop mode, meaning it takes the inner portion of the sensor, not the entire sensor. So prepare to double the focal length of your lens when shooting highspeed at 100 fps or above and a tad softer image.

There is no camera that serves all needs, there are always some downside. The Canon C300 Mark II shines in image quality with endless combination image style settings. Important industry standards like BT.2020, BT.709, different Wide-Gamut setups and Canon Log 2 gamma can be used for HDR video without a doubt.

Convienience, usability and handling is really great with the Mark II and it is joy to work with the camera, a very similar experience like with the C300 predecessor, with just minor quirks, like the disabled focus magnification while recording.

Who is it for? The Canon C300 Mark II is a camera intended for independent motion picture production, commercials, corporate and documentary shooting and more. The newest member of the Cinema EOS line is now a true grown up, professional cinema camera, a budget camera if you compare features and price to the higher end competitors.

The Canon C300 Mark II is a decent successor the older C300, finaly records 4K 10-bit or 2k/HD 4:4:4 12-bit all internally. The camera body had been greatly improved, is much more stirdy and feels even more reliabe than it’s predecessor, but therefore lacks a bit of flexibility regarding the top handle not having a quick release but instead a few allen-screws to mess with.

Both the Sony FX9 and Canon C300 Mark III are proven swiss army knives in the world of solo shooter filmmaking. The original Canon C300 was a spectacular success for Canon, and the FS7 was a spectacular success for Sony.

The Canon C300 Mark III is a buck more. The standard EF mount is non-locking. You need to pay $2,199 extra for the CM-V1 locking EF mount (called EF-C) from Canon.

Those who are purchasing the Sony FX9 and Canon C300 Mark III are mainly into documentaries, corporate videos, commercials, high-end weddings and maybe the occasional short or feature work.

It is pretty clear that the design goals of the Canon C300 Mark III lean more towards a two-person operation while the Sony FX9 leans firmly towards a one-person operation. Both can be used by a single shooter, but the FX9 is more friendly for all kinds of video work when you are a one-person operation.

It is clear if you need the Canon C300 Mark III for any sort of regular broadcast work you will have to purchase the EU-V2 expansion unit. Also, if you have multiple accessories it’s a good way to power them as well. For this comparison though, it’s not really an easy decision. If your work is broadcast oriented, with multiple accessories, and you find yourself part of a multi-camera shoot most often, and genlock is important, the choice is a no brainer.

Both the Sony FX9 and Canon C300 Mark III ship with a top handle. Whether or not you’ll be using a cage or third-party top handle is a different question.

This difference also tells an important story. The FX9 has a smaller 3.5″ (2.76 million dot) LCD with a loupe positioned for shoulder mounted filming. Sony believes will mostly be using the camera handheld. Hence the single grip and viewfinder.

The C300 Mark III has a lower resolution 4.3″ (1.23 million dot) touchscreen LCD. The lower resolution doesn’t really matter if it’s used like an LCD. At the time of this writing Canon hasn’t published the nits rating.

The C300 Mark III is for multiple kinds of filmmaking and videography, and you have to pick and choose what kind of viewfinder you need. You have three choices:

The Canon C300 Mark III has Dual Pixel AF with support for Touch AF and Face Detection AF. Canon is the class leader here, and with Canon’s range of cinema lenses there’s nothing left to say.

It goes without saying AF for video works best and most reliably only with native lenses. That means Canon EF for the C300 Mark III and Sony E for the FX9.

The EOS C300 Mark III includes the same built-in five-axis electronic IS introduced with the EOS C500 Mark II that works with almost any lens, including anamorphic.Canon USA

There are other ergonomic considerations as well, though I feel they are more of a personal preference. E.g., some people like the top handle of the C300 Mark III, others hate it. Some like the rosette and single shoulder mount system and others don’t care much for it. It all depends on your shooting style and needs.

Sony claims 15 stops of dynamic range, and if past performance is any indicator I believe the images will get close! But seriously, that dual gain performance definitely gives the C300 Mark III the edge.

The FX9 is a full frame camera, and it has a Super35 mm mode. The C300 Mark III is a Super35mm camera. Both have anamorphic modes that allow for desqueezing in camera (for only standard formats).

The Canon C300 Mark III cannot do true anamorphic due to the smaller sensor height. If you really wanted that option you are better off with the C500 Mark II.

If you compare apples to apples (4K to 4K), the data rates of the Sony FX9 and Canon C300 Mark III are about equal. However, the C300 Mark III also records RAW at a data rate of approximately 125 MB/s in 12-bit Canon RAW Lite. From Canon:

It is to be noted that the C300 Mark III ships with the larger A60 battery while the FX9 ships with a smaller (and newer) U35 battery. That’s a difference of $200 or so.

I pick the Canon C300 Mark III. It’s the camera that excites me the most. The only potential downside here is if the image quality doesn’t match the hype. I hope to get my hands on a review unit as soon as the lockdown ends. For now, I leave you with this video from Canon:

1/3 Stop Display: [100,125], 160, 200, 250, 320, 400, 500, 640, 800, 1000, 1250, 1600, 2000, 2500,3200, 4000, 5000, 6400, 8000, 10000, 12800, 16000, 20000, 25600, [32000, 40000, 51200, 64000, 80000, 102400]

Gene, the C300 Mk2 is precisely the 2015 version of the C300. Everyone bitched and moaned about that camera"s price when it came out... and even today it"s still an amazing looking image, with a wonderful form factor for handheld (needs a rig for shoulder though). It"s extremely rugged - I brought it though disaster zones, held it outside moving cars, shot in the snow and the rain. I vastly prefer it"s form factor to the FS7; and I have owned both. (I had a C300 since release... it"s S/N was like... #2). The C300"s color science also always looked fantastic, and there"s a good reason it remains the #1 rented camera in the world today for all but high end commercial/feature work.

There were other cameras out when the C300 was released that were similar at the same or lower cost (though not nearly as many as today). But what you got for 16K was a no-BS camera that worked without compromise. That"s the same thing ARRI sells today. You turn it on, shoot, and you know you will get an amazing image out if it and the camera is a tank.

Don"t get me wrong. I love my FS7... it"s got an amazing image as well and all you really need tech-wise for half the price of this new C300. (I expect the C300 to street at 14K vs the 8K of the FS7... you"re at 16K vs 10K with media so it"s not a small difference). But the FS7 is a compromised camera - operations wise. It"s got a slow as shit display processor and all kinds of odd limits on what can be on the screen. It"s actually built quite well, but the EVF and grip are plasticky and have the grip has started to slip on people already. And don"t get me started on the joke of an arm; the Shape arm mod I think is absolutely essential.

The C300 Mark II will sell extraordinarily well. It has the same body style the world is used to using now, it "just works" with no BS on set when time is money, and it"s delivering very high bitrate 15 (!) stops with Canon goodness. If I was a full time shooter vs a producer/editor/shooter, and I had the money, there"s zero doubt I"d buy the C300 Mark II. It"s a positively awesome camera for the price.

A camera alone does not make a movie, as they say. But in reality, a camera alone doesn’t even power up, so we need a whole bunch of accessories to make it work properly. And many more accessories to make it work comfortably for a particular use case. So in this Gear Guide, I’ll walk you through my personal, yet utterly reliable Canon C300 Mark II kit for documentary work!

The nice thing about this rig is that is pretty much modular. If I step up to a C300 Mark III, for example, I won’t need to change much in order to make it work just as fine with this kit.

The top plate is called helmet and is one of the components I would need to replace should I want to upgrade the camera at some point, as it is specifically designed for the C300 Mark II. The wooden handle, Zacuto again, is attached to it via NATO rail. Note: The C300 II helmet doesn’t appear to be available from B&H or CVP, but you can source it directly from Zacuto here.

However, there are a few drawbacks to this EVF. First, it requires an outboard power supply, and second, the very sharp and high-contrast OLED screen is susceptible to burn-in inherent to its design (and this becomes apparent after a few years of use). But the very sharp 4:3 display, which offers a lot of extra screen real estate for additional scopes and info, was definitely worth the purchase.

Canon U.S.A. today has introduced three new products: the EOS C300 Mark II Digital Cinema Camera; the XC10 4K camcorder; and the DP-V2410 4K Reference Display.

To engineer the next evolutionary step up from the EOS C300 Cinema Camera, Canon has developed a new Super 35mm CMOS sensor that supports high-image-quality internal video recording from Full HD (1920×1080) and 2K DCI (2048×1080) to 4K UHD (3840×2160) and 4K DCI (4096×2160), utilizing Canon’s proprietary Over Sampling HD Processing to help meet the needs of multi-purpose productions. The new imaging sensor maximizes the amount of light that falls on each photosite through a wider pixel pitch, enhancing the EOS C300 Mark II camera’s sensitivity, while minimizing noise and supporting ISOs up to 102,400. The new sensor is also capable of twice the readout speed compared to the original, which in turn significantly reduces the occurrence of rolling shutter distortion.

The EOS C300 Mark II also uses Canon’s new XF-AVC codec that compresses the camera’s 4K image data at a high level of quality for internal recording using CFast 2.0 memory cards. The EOS C300 Mark II can also output its signal simultaneously through built-in 3G-SDI ports for full uncompressed RAW recording to an external recorder.

The Dual DIGIC DV 5 processors on the EOS C300 Mark II camera work hand-in-hand with the new Super 35 Canon CMOS sensor to enable a wide variety of image quality and feature improvements including 15 stops of dynamic range, bit rates up to 410 Mbps, Canon Log Gamma 2, XF-AVC Codec, Dual Pixel CMOS AF, simultaneous 4K and HD Proxy recording and 2K/FHD frame rates up to 120 frames per second. 10-bit recording with 4:2:2 color sampling is available at all resolution settings, but the 2K and Full HD resolutions also support 12-bit recording at 4:4:4 color sampling for maximum color fidelity.

In response to feedback provided by current EOS C300 Cinema Camera users, the EOS C300 Mark II builds on the innovative and efficient ergonomic design of the original camera by adding several redesigned features to help maximize shooting comfort and improve usability.  For example, the new camera features a built-in microphone for scratch audio as well as dual CFast2.0 card slots for MXF recording and an SD card slot for 8-bit 4:2:0 Full HD proxy recordings.

The Canon EOS C300 Mark II Digital Cinema Camera is expected to be available in September 2015 for an estimated retail price of $20,000.00, and will be available with either EF or PL mount.

“We continue to forge forward in the development of 4K reference display technology. This new display will immediately find a very important place in the Canon cinema ecosystem as a key component, supporting the entire 4K workflow process,” says Yuichi Ishizuka, President and COO, Canon USA. “This display is a result of implementing crucial feedback from our customers, and we feel they will value and appreciate the new features as well as the reduced size, weight and cost.”

Canon says the display’s 17:9 10-bit IPS (In-Plane Switching) panel features outstanding sharpness and deep and accurate black reproduction that provides a 2000:1 contrast ratio. A special anti-glare coating helps ensure faithful image reproduction within challenging environments often encountered on-set and a Canon-designed RGB LED backlight system and specially developed high-bit depth image processing engine helps ensure highly uniform brightness and accurate DCI-P3 color reproduction. In addition, the internal debayering facilitates direct live viewing of the uncompressed RAW 4K/2K outputs of the EOS C500 and EOS C300 Mark II cameras.

The 4096 x 2160 display pixel structure and 17:9 aspect ratio displays all broadcast and cinema digital sampling standards on a precise dot-by-dot basis while the contrast ratio of 2000:1 complies with DCI specifications. The DP-V2410 can also accept wide color gamuts like the ITU-R BT.2020 UHD gamut using a specially developed gamut mapping technology to optimally display color data outside of the native panel color gamut.

The DP-V2410’s 8 LUTs can be configured for each picture mode, allowing the user to freely switch LUTs within the same picture mode, making it easy to compare the display’s false color function allowing different colors to be displayed based on differences in brightness. This assists in camera exposure adjustment and visually monitoring the exposure status. The zoom function can be used in one of two ways─ cinema professionals can zoom in on the center of the screen or expand a selected portion of the screen from a four-screen layout. This zoom feature can be extremely beneficial when confirming focus in a scene. In addition, the display’s Capture Function can capture screen shots of images that are currently displayed on the screen and save them as an image file, as well as 4K waveform monitor, vector scope, peaking, audio level meter and Area Markers.

The Canon DP-V2410 4K Reference Display is scheduled to be available November 2015 for a Suggested List price of $18,000.00. In addition, a new firmware update for the Canon DP-V3010 is scheduled to be available November 2015 and the DP-V3010 display’s direct sales price is now $24,999.

The XC10 camcorder also has dedicated microphone and headphone jacks along with a built-in microphone for professional sound monitoring. A Vari-Angle LCD monitor features a capacitive touch-panel for simple intuitive control paired with a rotating hand grip to maximize users’ ability to shoot both movies and still images from virtually any angle.