Cannon C300

“The Cannon C300 shocked the world and was a definite commitment by Cannon to cater to the new up and upcoming filmmakers.”

It is finally here! The Cannon C300. And again Famous Cinematographer/Filmmaker/Photographer Vincent Laforet championed Cannon with a new short film “Mobius” to kickstart this video camera’s career. The advantage this has over the say a DSLR is you are now recording less compressed video with a lot greater color space 4:2:2 which doesn’t loose all its information by being overly compressed.

What the Cannon C300 Camera has done is take a great low light capabilities of the Cannon 5D Mark II and build them into a professional video camera designed to be more than a stills camera. Lots of pro features are included like XLR inputs for audio recording, Cannon C-Log which gives you the most Dynamic range of color & contrast in post to grade and color correct the footage, and everything you would expect in a pro camera.

 

Best Value Buys at:

Adorama.com

Best Online Camera Rental:

Borrowlenses.com

 

Mobius Shot On The Cannon C300 by Vincent Laforet (Net Friendly Version)

For the 1080p Version of this video go here!

 http://vimeo.com/30215350

Making of “Mobius” Behind The Scenes

Cannon C300 Put To The Test: Everything You Wanted To Know About The Cannon C300 & A Few Things You Didn’t!

Cinematographer Philip Bloom’s Review On The Cannon C300 Camera (Which He Owns Now)

The Scarlet verses Cannon C300: (The Debate Continues!)

Both are viable cameras with their strengths and weaknesses.

The difference is Cost & Time. The Scarlet is a pro camera for narrative filmmakers. Meaning you spend more money and time recording RAW images, transcoding RAW images, and you need some serious Computer horsepower to edit and properly work with RAW or uncompressed video codec. For a serious budget filmmaker this is all arbitrary, all that really matters is that it’s possible. The Scarlet can produce the same quality video as the RED EPIC, they filmed the last “Pirates Of The Carribbean” with the EPIC, so being able to compete at that level at a fraction of the cost is the genius of the RED SCARLET. However wielding this scarlet film making sword can be more than a challenge for your average indie filmmaker.

Recording video on the scarlet at say 24p 4K using the Redcode 12:1 codec gives you 50 minutes of footage on a 64 GB SSD hard drive(64GB RED drives Start!! at $950 Dollars).  That’s a heavy cost in you want larger or extra drives which equate to very large jumps in cost, plus this 50 minute footage needs to be transcoded and that takes time! And you may need extra drives or you may have to stop your shoot after 50 minutes for a data transfer break.

So on a large project, this can become a little overwhelming to your average filmmaker. The scarlet is for the indie artist who has a budget and crew members who are equipped to deal with filming & editing RAW video files. OR! The indie film artist who doesn’t care what he or she has to do to get RED SCARLET RAW video for there film project. This artist will transcode footage overnight, edit in the morning, and grade it in the afternoon. And be overjoyed at the opportunity to shoot Hollywood quality video.

Compare that to the C300, which can shoot 80 minutes of footage to a 32 Gigabyte Compact Flash Card which you could buy for under $70 dollars.

You get realistic cost savings by using the C300, as well as increased efficiency because you can buy a few 32 GB CF cards and keep shooting on a modest budget. For example Vincent Laforet shot 18 hours of footage for the above video MOBIUS which would cost just over $1200 bucks recording back to back on CF cards. The RED SCARLET shooting 18 hours of footage back to back would cost thousands more. ( Just over $14,000 dollars using there 256GB SSD drives.)

Note: Yes, for the RED SCARLET you could buy two drives. Shoot footage on SSD drive 1, switch to SSD drive 2 and have a crew member transfer & transcode the first drive, and repeat as necessary. But this increases the workflow, crew size, & work load. I love what the RED SCARLET can do, truly, but it comes at a price you have to manage to get all that RAW quality. The Scarlet has the C300 beat in nearly all specs! Just make sure you can deal with the size of this film making sword, it’s quite big and hefty!

The C300 is probably the worlds best Documentary Film Camera!

You can shoot, edit, and record to an efficient video codec. You can color correct and grade this footage to get great looks recording in it’s C-Log format, and you can use this footage for the movie theater, broadcast, or for the DVD big screen. Plus your lap top isn’t going to explode using the C300 compressed video codec. The key word here is usability! You can get away with having a big crew with this camera, which gives you the ability to be an artist. Not to mention Corporate film work, indie film projects, on location event shooting, & documentary run and gun are all places where the Cannon C300 really excel!

But where the Cannon C300 shines is low light performance!

You can shoot all available light on the Cannon C300 like it was a Cannon 5D mark II on steroids. Meaning shooting at higher ISO and taking advantage of the C300′s low light capabilities you get great quality images that are not noisy. And at the upper end of the high ISO shooting the noise you do get looks more like film grain and isn’t at all distracting or unpleasant to the eye. This saves you money and time, with the RED SCARLET you get highest quality uncompressed video, but you are going to need tons of lights to get that quality footage because you can’t shoot a RED in the dark. So the Cannon C300 definitely seems more fitting the Indie style of shooting, cheap.

Best Value Buys at:

Adorama.com

Best Online Camera Rental:

Borrowlenses.com

 

 In Conclusion,

When Cannon released the C300, the RED SCARLET was released shortly after and the RED SCARLET specs blew the Cannon C300 out of the water! At least if you went just by specs, real world filming showed us that the Cannon C300 was really making a camera for the people. You know those of us who will go broke to buy one and then get to work making great films. The RED SCARLET wasn’t made for no-budget film makers to say the least, so don’t go by specs alone guys and gals! Check your equipment, software, sound, and lighting budgets…those are all factors as you have to see if you can even use the camera you are going to invest in and buy.

The C300 has really impressed me,as there is nothing you can’t do with this camera! And without the faults of a DSLR camera, less rolling shutter, more dynamic range,  it has all the pro camera features you will need to really get serious about film making, and you will be able to benefit and use all of those features. Cannon engineers took a look at the market they were selling too, and built a camera that will fit your artistic and professional needs.

 

The C300 Sequel, The Cannon C500!

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