Handling and Operation
In my first encounter with the C300 I found it to be perhaps the most usable handheld LSS camera in terms of weight, balance and layout. Further use deepened this conviction; I was happy running ‘n’ gunning with the C300 and a reasonably lightweight lens, and didn’t feel a pressing need for a shoulder rig.
The C500 doesn’t offer quite the same ergonomics for stripped-down, lean ‘n’ mean operation. The 2K/4K processing unit replaces the C300’s handgrip, and it’s a poor substitute—actually, it’s no substitute at all. Even with no cables connected and the side cover in place, it’s just a bit too bulky to get your hand ‘round it for a good grip, and the camera constantly threatens to slip from your grasp if you’re so incautious as make this your sole point of purchase.
If the camera weren’t securely mounted on a tripod, I wouldn’t dare hold it like this.
Of course, nothing’s stopping you from putting the C500 on a tripod, or building it into a shoulder rig, and it does just as well as the C300 in these configurations (if you really need a minimalist handheld rig, you’re probably not going to be using an external recorder, so you might as well use the C300 in the first place). And just because there’s no handgrip doesn’t mean the camera can’t be handheld; you can wrap both hands around the camera as if it were a football, or have one hand under the base and another on the top handle. It’s still light enough and compact enough to make handholding possible (not something you’d consider with, say, an F65). It’s just not ready for unencumbered run ‘n’ gun the way its handgripped siblings are.
The monitor unit’s LCD is positionable to either side and makes a great focus-confirmation (or focus-finding) monitor for a 1st AC, as well as a quick ‘n’ dirty engineering monitor with its cornucopia of scopes. When shooting as a one-man-band, the LCD can be aimed back so that ‘scopes and digital grass can be watched with one’s left eye while one’s right eye is at the EVF… or the EVF can be abandoned altogether in favor of the LCD. In three real-world shoots and multiple rounds of testing, I think I only had the EVF cap off the camera once, as the LCD was so convenient and so positionable that I didn’t even think to use the EVF. Similarly, when Art Adams shot “A Walk in the Woods” with the C500, he only used the LCD.
Despite the unconventional layout of the camera, I found its buttons and controls to be easily accessible (that its controls are 99% identical to a C300’s didn’t hurt). I still find it a bit odd to use the FUNC button to toggle through multiple settable parameters, but practically speaking it’s not something that slowed me down.
Resources (and a warning)
The Cinema EOS product pages (USA site linked; other countries have similar pages) offer downloads of software (including the Cinema Raw Development, XF Utility, and XF plugins for various NLEs) and documentation including the operations manual.
Be aware that downloading Canon’s XF plugins or utilities—software that decodes the camera’s internally-recorded MXF files—now requires you to enter the camera’s serial number. If you’re on a C500 shoot (or one with a C300, an XF300/305, or an XF100/105) using rental gear, make sure someone grabs a copy of the camera’s serial number in case the data wrangler or the post folks need to download the software after the camera has been returned to the rental house! Update: as of April 12 2013, Canon no longer requires a serial number to download the XF plugins or the XF Utility.
Canon Cinema EOS is the starting point for learning the C100, C300, C500, and 1D C, as well as being a repository for demo films, behind-the-scenes docs (all very fulsome in their praise of Canon cameras of course, but there’s useful info in them anyway), and similar eye-candy presentations.
Canon’s Digital Learning Center Video page provides a wealth of material, from white papers to the C300 menu simulator, from case studies to third-party articles and video clips.
Canon has just announced a new version of Cinema Raw Developer with ACES compatibility, available in June 2013; and a firmware upgrade to add one-touch iris and focus setting, a 1440 x 1080 35 Mbps recording mode, and a movable magnified focus area so you can pixel-peep focus in areas other than the center of the screen, available in October 21013.
Conclusions
The C300 was criticized for being 8 bits only, and only shooting 4:2:2. With 10- and 12-bit 4:4:4 uncompressed outputs, the C500 handily addresses those complaints. That the C500 also outputs 4K raw is icing on the cake.
It’s lightweight and compact; it makes very good-looking images with few single-chip artifacts; its internal codec captures broadcast-ready 4:2:2 imagery on inexpensive and readily-available CF cards, and those images are immediately usable in editing without transcoding, rescaling, or deBayering; it’s workable right out of the box by one-man-bands as well as by two-person crews with an operator at the EVF and a 1st AC at the LCD.
It’s available with a Canon EF mount for use with any EF or EF-S lens, or you can get it with a PL mount for dedicated cine glass. The EF mount is a rigid and secure breech lock, a vast improvement on the twist-lock bayonet mount normally used.
The C500 processing module’s 10- and 12-bit outputs let you record the full, uncompressed quality the camera is capable of, in HD, 2K, quadHD, or full 4K, so you can push the C500’s images much farther in post without encountering banding/posterization issues, compression artifacts, or (if you zoom in, reposition, and/or stabilize your images, and you start with 4K) resolution losses.
In short, $26,000 gets you a C300 with the limits removed: with its uncompressed, 4:4:4 HD and 2K outputs at 10 or 12 bits, and its 10-bit 4K raw output, the C500 gives you access to all the spatial and tonal resolution the sensor is capable of, while still letting you record 8-bit 4:2:2 HD to cheap and widely-available CF cards. You have the option to use rich, deep, full-resolution 1080-line images, or capture 2160-line 4K with an eye towards the future. You also have the ability to target TV with 1.77:1 HD and quadHD pictures, or aim for the slightly wider, 1.89:1 “true 2K” and “true 4K” images favored by the DCI for cinema work.
Yet all these options still give you images with the “Canon look”, a colorimetry and color science with a fanatical focus on getting good skintones. It’s a look consistent across Canon cameras, so C500 pix intercut very nicely with images from C100s, C300s, and the 1D C, especially when all of them record with Canon log gamma. Stepping out of the Cinema EOS line, too, there’s Canon’s XF series of 1/3” camcorders, and the Canon DSLRs from the 5D Mk II onwards.
It’s true that the C500 needs to have an external recorder attached to exploit its advantages over the C300. This isn’t a drawback so much as a reversion to the days when cameras and recorders were separate items. With the rapid development in offboard, solid-state recorders, it makes sense to decouple the recording medium from the camera head; in my area (San Francisco / San Jose) we still see tape-based Varicams on productions, but with PIX 240i and AJA Ki Pro recorders hanging off the back. No one shoots to tape any more, yet those cameras are still encumbered with outdated, bulky, built-in tape decks. By leaving the expensive recording bits off the C500, Canon hasn’t locked you into a format or a resolution: you can shoot MXF HD to CF cards one day, rent a PIX 240i when a client needs 12-bit ProRes4444 or DNxHD on another day, and then use a Gemini or Codex recorder to capture 4K for a feature. You’ll be able to take advantage of newer recorders and formats, too (4K ProRes, anyone?) without having to drag around any obsolete deadweight bulkier than the C500’s two CF card slots.
Good pictures, good ergonomics, EF or PL lens mounts, and choices from onboard MXF HD recording, through uncompressed 12-bit 4:4:4 RGB 2K output, to 10-bit raw 4K. If you think Canon isn’t serious about this business, you aren’t paying attention.
1st AC Ted Allen and DP Art Adams shooting “A Walk in the Woods” in QuadHD with the C500 and the Gemini.
FTC 16 CFR 255 Disclaimer: Canon lent me and Art Adams a 1D C, a C500, three cine primes, and a cine zoom for about a month, and paid shipping and insurance. However Canon did not compensate us for our time or provide other material consideration in return for a favorable review. Canon has reviewed this article for errors of fact, but the opinions in it are mine alone.
About the Author
Adam Wilt is a software developer, engineering consultant, and freelance film & video tech. He’s had small jobs on big productions (PA, “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”, Dir. Robert Wise), big jobs on small productions (DP, “Maelstrom”, Dir. Rob Nilsson), and has worked camera, sound, vfx, and editing gigs on shorts, PSAs, docs, music vids, and indie features. He started his website on the DV format, www.adamwilt.com/DV.html, about the same time Chris Hurd created the XL1 Watchdog, and participated in DVInfo.net’s 2006 “Texas Shootout”. He has written for DV Magazine and ProVideoCoalition.com, taught courses at DV Expo, and given presentations at NAB, IBC, and Cine Gear Expo. When he’s not doing contract engineering or working on apps like Cine Meter, he’s probably exploring new cameras, just because cameras are fun.
