I’ve just returned from a shoot for the Ducati Moto GP team at the Jerez race circuit in Spain. I was shooting in 3D using a pair of F3’s on a Hurricane Rig while other crews shot on Alexa’s, F3’s and C300’s. It was really interesting to see all 3 cameras in use. Each showed strengths and weaknesses, but all produced good looking images. The Alexa is a fantastic camera and produces great images, but it’s big and heavy. Add a big optimo zoom or similar and it really becomes quite a beast to use. The camera operator shooting on the Alexa was nowhere near as mobile as the other crews. For him an assistant was essential to help with the suitably large tripod, large batteries and frequent media changes. So, great pictures but fewer set-ups with the Alexa.
The C300’s and F3’s offered much better portability. There were quite a few gripes about the C300’s ergonomics (in particular the need to use the menus to change basic settings) and the usual problems with the F3’s EVF. The F3’s S-Log appeared to offers better dynamic range than the Canons C-Log, but the canon operators found it easier to expose the C-Log. I guess that’s because the C-Log mid range is much closer to a standard gamma and the extra chroma makes the image more pleasing prior to grading. The F3’s were being used with Nikon fit lenses and the C300’s with Canon DSLR lenses, so anyone swapping between cameras had to deal with opposing focus directions! The biggest gripe of the day was with the audio controls on the C300. There were a lot of interviews and some green screen work, shot of a head hight tripod. When the C300 is at eye level the monitor unit ends up just above eye level and the audio controls can only be seen if it’s mounted upright. So the mic ends up pointed at the roof and the LCD is so far up in the air it’s next to useless. The F3’s recorded onto Convergent Designs Gemini’s. This gave the data wranglers a bit of a nightmare as the amount of data uncompressed HD creates is huge, but the pictures do look incredible.
An interesting shoot and it was fun to see each camera operator looking at the other cameras with envious eye’s. Alexa op wanting the light weight of the other cams. C300 op’s wanting the F3’s audio controls and LCD, F3 op’s wanting the C300’s EVF. It just shows that there is no one camera perfect for every application.
Not had much time to post recently, been very busy on some really interesting projects. The main project I’m currently working on is a big budget 3D documentary series called Storm City, about natural disasters including earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes. I can’t say too much about exactly what we have been shooting, but it’s been really interesting doing re-creations of some of these events. My role is as stereographer on the studio based reconstructions. Cameras are Red Epics and much of what we are shooting we are doing at 200fps.
70,000 watts of instant lightning!
We have been using all kinds of special effects including air canons to blow out windows, huge wind machines and my favourite, a “lightning Strikes” lightning simulator. This is basically a 70,000 watt strobe lamp that flashes and flickers like real lightning at the press of a button. So I have been having a lot of fun recreating the full force of nature inside a small studio. The TV series will be on Sky 3D and National Geographic later in the year. I have 3 more days on the shoot this week, then at the weekend I’m off to Spain to shoot Ducati Moto GP racing bikes in 3D. I’ll be using the Hurricane Rig along with my F3’s for this, but the C300 will also be going to shoot some 2D as well.
News coming out of the USA is that all new F3’s will have improved dust proofing around the sensor assembly. I have not had a problem myself with either of my F3’s, but I have read of some people that had to have there sensors cleaned or even replaced by Sony due to dust ingress. So, with S-Log getting added as standard and small improvements like this the F3 continues to be a great option for shooting with a super 35mm sensor.
Crop from an over exposed frame clearly showing the large amount of LCA.
IMPORTANT UPDATED INFORMATION AT END OF THIS POST!
I’ve spent some time shooting test subjects with my C300 trying to replicate the green/red pixel issues getting reported elsewhere. So far the only real problem I have found is some pretty extreme LCA (longitudinal Chromatic Aberration) which is significantly worse when I use the ND filters. I have seen CA on my F3, it’s down primarily to lens performance and quality. But I have never seen anything as extreme as this. Below are a couple of frame grabs for you to look at, one full frame and the other a crop. What you can see is that anything closer to the camera than the chosen focal point has a distinct red/purple fringe and anything behind the focal point (further away) has a distinct green fringe. The lens used was a Canon 24-70mm f2.8 L series. One point to consider is that DSLR lenses were never designed to have extra glass between the back of the lens and the sensor other than perhaps the OLPF (Optical Low Pass Filter) and combined IR filter, which normal sit right on top of the sensor. The C300 has a clear glass filter and 3 ND filters. Each of these filters is at a different distance some way from the sensor. I suspect that these filters are at least in part causing the CA to be more severe than is typically seen in a DSLR as the extra glass will alter the point at which all the colours are brought into focus. With the filters being quite a distance from the sensor any dispersion of the colours through the filter will be quite well spread out by the time it gets back to the sensor, exaggerating the effect. On the Sony F3 the ND filters are extremely thin and very close to the sensor, but still I should try the same lens on the F3 to see what happens. It’s also been noted that the problem is worse when you shoot interlace. Now the C300 sensor is quite different from anything we have seen in a camcorder like this before. Some of the image processing needed to create the interlace fields from this progressive scan sensor is done on the sensor chip itself and I suspect this may be why we are seeing more artefacts in interlace than progressive as the processing is possible quite rudimentary compared to what can be done in a dedicated DSP (Digital signal processor). That is speculation on my part. Every now and again I do see some aliasing artefacts on horizontal and vertical high contrast edges that manifest themselves as small (1 or 2 pixels) red and blue blocks. Again this is probably a result of the sensor design. The aliasing artefact is very minor and not something I am concerned about, the LCA is more of a concern.
UPDATE: I tried this same test today with my 24-70mm L series lens on my F3. The results are very close, lots of strong LCA. Now, I’ve never seen this extreme LCA on my Canon DSLR. A bit of digging reveals that when you put this lens on a Canon DSLR, the camera activates a tailored compensation circuit to minimise the effects of the CA, this circuity is not present in the c300. I also tried my trusty Tokina 28-70mm ATX Pro lens on the F3 and the C300 and in both cases I get less LCA with the Tokina (which cost £200) than the brand new 24-70mm Canon lens. The Tokina, being a Nikon mount lens has a real iris ring, so no nasty stepping iris. You know I’m really disappointed by this. One of the big selling points of the C300 has been that you can use Canons “L” series lenses, yet this is a real let down as the lenses won’t appear to perform as well on the C300 as they do on a DSLR and I don’t think many people are aware of this, I wasn’t. This is not a fault or issue with the C300 itself but in my opinion it does further lessen the supposed advantage of having a camera that takes Canon lenses without an adapter.
Frame Grab showing a lot of LCA. Shot using Canon 24-70mm L series lens on C300. ND filter 1.
Paul Joy and John Ford brought this to my attention today. I had not noticed it before, but now I’m looking for it, I can see it and re-create it quite easily. Not sure exactly what it is at this stage, but if you overexpose the image you can get a solid green or purple block of colour. I did see this over a large area of one image, but more normally you see it on specular highlights or high contrast edges. It appears to be a mixture of flare and blooming or sensor overload. It’s not pretty and very distracting when you have an image full of green or purple flecks. Green is the predominant colour. It may be related to the operation of the cameras knee circuit or it might be a optical issue (which would be hard to fix). I’m on a shoot tomorrow, but will look into this worrying artefact on Wednesday.
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.
Why C300?
First I’d like to explain why I purchased it when I already own a couple of F3’s. Since buying the F3’s my EX1R has sat on the shelf gathering dust. I really like the look you get with a large sensor camera along with the improved sensitivity and lower noise. But as I shoot a lot of stuff for broadcast I need to record at 50Mb/s as a minimum, so with the F3 (and EX1R) this means using an external recorder. When your in a studio, on a film set etc, this really isn’t a problem and I love shooting with the F3 using the RGB output and the Convergent Design Gemini. The end results are beautiful, the kind of images that I never really thought I would own the equipment to produce. But, if you follow my blog, you’ll know that I specialise (amongst other things) in shooting natural extremes. Things like Tornadoes, hurricanes, the Northern lights etc. For these shoots an external recorder is quite simply a pain in the rear end. Jumping in and out of a car, running to shoot a tornado with anything extra hanging off the camera is tricky and in the heat of the chase things get bumped, bashed or simply forgotten.
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.
After reading up all I could on it and taking a look at one during an open day at Visual Impact, I placed my order. The camera arrived last week.
After One Week.
So, after a week with the camera, do I think it will work for what I want? Yes, I am sure it will, but there are some things that would frustrate me on other types of shoot.
Picture Quality:
I’ve already written about this in earlier posts. It is very good. Using C-Log you get around 12 stops of dynamic range. Out of the box the camera is a little over sharpened, but that’s easy enough to tame through the custom picture profiles. The colour reproduction is good, if a little over saturated for my liking (again easily corrected). Skew is minimal and the sensitivity and noise levels are also very good, similar to my F3’s.
C300 Moire
There is a little bit of moire and aliasing, right at the limits of the cameras resolution, but this is no worse than any other camera in this class.
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.
Annoyances.
The function LCD, almost hidden from view.
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.
The iris wheel on the hand grip. There is also a mini joystick and assignable button just under the grip.
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.
The multi function menu dial (top) and iris dial below.
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.
EVF and LCD:
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 Beachtek adapters becoming popular with C300 owners! But this kind of defeats the object of a standalone camera with no external boxes. Doh!
The thick cables that connect the monitor module.
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.
The Monitor Adapter attached so you can get at the audio controls. Note skyward pointing mic holder!
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.
Iris Control.
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.
So who is the C300 going to appeal to?
Well there’s no getting away from the fact that to meet the 50Mb/s rule you don’t need an external recorder and the pictures are very nice indeed. With just the camera body and a lens you have a highly portable camera (although you’ll need some kind of adapter to plug in an XLR mic as the body only has a 3.5mm jack).
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.
So it depends on what you want to do and your shooting style.
If you don’t need 50Mb/s then I would probably favour the F3. You have a choice of lens mounts, arguably better iris control, ergonomics more suited to video applications.
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.
I’ve created a Picture Profile for the PMW-F3 to help match it to the Canon C300. I’m sure there will be many productions that use both cameras. This profile will bring the F3 extremely close to a standard C300, i.e. one that does not have any custom profiles selected. It’s in the profiles section of the forum: http://www.xdcam-user.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=963
I’ve been playing and have come up with my first set of custom profiles for the Canon C300. You’ll find all the details here: http://www.xdcam-user.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=962 including a downloadable package that you can copy to an SD card and the load the files directly to your own C300.
You must be registered with the forum/blog to view the page, but registration is free and open to all. Any problems let me know.
The Profiles include:
AC-Neutral: a natural looking, true to life image.
AC-Vivid: A bright colourful and vivid image.
AC-3200a: Use this profile when shooting at ISO 3200 to maximise sensitivity and control noise.
AC-6400a: Use this profile when shooting at ISO 6400 to maximise sensitivity and control noise.
AC-Cine1: A neutral filmic looking image that can be used straight form the camera or graded.
Want to know how to work with S-Log? Why not come to my S-Log workshop at ProKit, Chiswick, London on the 6th of March. During this full day workshop we will go through all you need to know about working with a Log curve. Focussing on the Sony F3 we will look at understanding the different recording modes and external recording options. The differences between standard gammas and S-Log. Then through practical sessions we’ll look at how to expose Log using light meters, grey cards, waveform monitors and the cameras built in measurement tools. Then we’ll look at what Look Up Tables do and how they should be used before ending the day with an introduction to grading Log using basic editing tools. More details here: http://www.prokit.co.uk/index.php?view=events
Those clever guys at Convergent Design have announced that they will be adding to record using the Avid DNxHD codec on the Gemini. The Gemini really is a fantastic device allowing you to record the full uncompressed 4:4:4 RGB output from the F3 and other similar cameras. However there are times when the amount of data that generates can be overwhelming. Once the update comes out later in the year you’ll be able to choose between pristine uncompressed or very high quality compressed. If your an Avid user then this really is fantastic news. If your not an Avid user, it’s still good news as you can download the DNxHD codec for free. DNxHD is one of the few high quality codecs that is cross platform, so it doesn’t matter if your Mac or PC based.
You’ll be able to record DNxHD 220, 145 and 36Mbps.
Cinematographer and film maker Alister Chapman's Personal Website
