A FEW cameras are starting to arrive at some dealers....from what I'm understanding, more will come mid-month and even more will show up by the end of the month.....

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

Jim

you're too modest..

Canon Cinema EOS C300 - Now available at Filmtools! - Filmtools.tv - YouTube

It was a very exciting day here Barry......3 cameras, 1 for a feature & 2 for a reality series....very happy new C300 owners!

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

Got mine a few hours ago!

Messing around with it now. So far I like it.

Damn, I was hoping to say that first!

Congratulations Colin. Throw us a bone or two when you get time.

Barry

Hoping to get it out on some shoots next week. Will let everyone know my thoughts. So far I've loved it. It sits super nice in my hands with the 17-50 2.8, the 24-70, abd pretty much all the primes. The 70-200 is a little much, but not too bad for quick shots

My only wish is that I could set the different dials to different functions. There are 2 and the are locked to be mapped to the same function, so they are either iris or ISO. I'd LOVE it if one could be iris and another ISO, but, it's not really that big of a deal.

Got mine a few hours ago!

Messing around with it now. So far I like it.

colin-

congrats!

it is a wonderful feeling to have a new tool in the kit!

yippee.

be well.

rob
smalltalk productions

Hoping to get it out on some shoots next week. Will let everyone know my thoughts. So far I've loved it. It sits super nice in my hands with the 17-50 2.8, the 24-70, abd pretty much all the primes. The 70-200 is a little much, but not too bad for quick shots

My only wish is that I could set the different dials to different functions. There are 2 and the are locked to be mapped to the same function, so they are either iris or ISO. I'd LOVE it if one could be iris and another ISO, but, it's not really that big of a deal.


Yeah, congratulations Colin I'm green with envy!

What type of work are you planning to do with the camera?

Did you mean the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 USM IS lens? I'm really interested to find out whether the EF-S lenses do display visual vignetting.

I wonder if the dial function issue could be resolved with firmware update as it seems logical to want to have concurrent ISO and Iris control?

Did you mean the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 USM IS lens? I'm really interested to find out whether the EF-S lenses do display visual vignetting.

I am also very interested to know about the vignetting on the 17-55. That would be a disappointment. Although that's the only disappointment I can think of with this camera so far.

Is anyone else super excited about being able to mount the LCD/XLRs off camera? This is huge as far as I am concerned. I want to mount it camera left on my shoulder rig so I can have the LCD right in front of me and audio controls at my fingertips.

as for the 17-55, there is a very small amount of darkening in the corners (not too bad though, i like it), but the peripheral illumination correction fixes it. I haven't tested my tokina 11-16 yet, im curious about that one.

Thanks of that info Colin.

That's quite reassuring as to date no one else has made any reference to this lens working well.

Be great to here whether the Tokina works as well - And whether peripheral illumination will work with a third party lens or just canon lenses.

C300's are shipping in small quantities. Hopefully the numbers will increase in February.

Andy

At a official Canon Switzerland event on thuesday i've been told the first production is 1000 c300's for world wide delivery.
Currently there is only one in Switzerland, owned by Canon themself (also just arrived last week..). But at least it was nice to play around with it for a while.

There should be a first batch sometime in mid February. But the Canon Switzerland folks did not get a assigned cam quantity for that shipement yet. But hopefully ours will be in this first shipment.
I know there are atleast 25 Swiss orders yet. So some of us will have to wait a bit longer for sure.
But maybe they sent larger quantities then in the past... lets hope so.

I spoke to my dealer (in CA) yesterday and he said they were told initially to expect about 3 cameras each week, but that that has since changed. I guess we're number 3 on the list now...so hopefully another week or two.

Yea, I'm surprised at the release rate. I'm #2 with my dealer and they've received only one unit. : (

Mine came from BH yesterday.

Longest. Week. Ever. (finally got word mine is at the dealer). Now what do I do?

I've been in Switzerland for the last 10 days so congrats to you both!

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

ps- a few more cameras should be arriving to a few dealers this week, otherwise, the "boat" is supposed to be arriving at the end of the month.

At a official Canon Switzerland event on thuesday i've been told the first production is 1000 c300's for world wide delivery.
Currently there is only one in Switzerland, owned by Canon themself (also just arrived last week..). But at least it was nice to play around with it for a while.

There should be a first batch sometime in mid February. But the Canon Switzerland folks did not get a assigned cam quantity for that shipement yet. But hopefully ours will be in this first shipment.
I know there are atleast 25 Swiss orders yet. So some of us will have to wait a bit longer for sure.
But maybe they sent larger quantities then in the past... lets hope so.
Sorry I missed the event....I arrived in Schweiz on Thursday the 2nd

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

Joe Sutherland Rentals in Toronto has 4 already and he's waiting for more. Great deal at $250.00 per day - 4 Day week for the body. He ordered lots.

Interesting choice: low daily rental but barely any discount on the weekly. Do four day weeks exist in Canada? Here in LA, rental houses are lucky to get a three day week.

god,

i pray rental houses here in SF don't go that low. Right now card rate on on a f3 is around $450, so i'm assuming the c300 should bill for at least that. Otherwise we are all shooting each other in the foot!

Mine came today. Off to brew up some custom profiles. Very impressed by the comprehensive section in the manual on the profile settings.

Jealous of all of you!!! LOL!

And I don't even own a home that I can take a second mortgage out on!

Good thing I've retired from this whole filmmaking thing.

On the strength of the comments on this forum I ordered my C300 last week, 2-4 week waiting list, can't wait.

I was going to buy a new motorbike which was around the same price but I thought this would be a more usable toy and may even earn me some money!

Welcome to the club! I have a motorbike too :)

USA Mororbike Part 1
USA Mororbike trip American Asphalt Part 1 - YouTube

You can also watch Part 2 if you google mororbike.

What has google done to me?

How to unbox a C300:

Can't say I don't feel slightly jealous or that I don't covert your goods but the look of pleasure on your face says it all.

Have fun!

I've got a long wait ahead of me.

Nice pics, Graham. Thanks for sharing.

Jealous of all of you!!! LOL!

And I don't even own a home that I can take a second mortgage out on!

Good thing I've retired from this whole filmmaking thing.

Retired?.....since when. You are much too young to throw in the towel Robert.....and when are you going to stop by our big store here?

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

Are you still smiling when you credit card or loan statement arrives?

Retired?.....since when. You are much too young to throw in the towel Robert.....and when are you going to stop by our big store here?

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

I appreciate the sentiment Jim. But one must first fix the financial catastrophe lain at my feet along with the abandonment of those who were supposed to be our partners and friends. Hollywood is a cruel mistress.

10-4......but you will rise from the ashes....

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

Is there anywhere with a C300 EOS mount actually for sale in the UK? I've been quoted 2-4 weeks delivery but even that is not certain as it's all depending on when Canon import some more stock & how many they dole out to the dealers.

Most UK dealers have long waiting lists. I spoke to one that told me he was getting around 20 enquiries a day, admittedly lots of this are people just phoning round to see if anyone has cameras, but the dealer said they have never seen anything like this before. I ordered mine back in December and got it 10 days ago.

All the dealers I've spoken to have told me that any cameras that come in are going straight out the door to pre-orders, so if you want one, you'd better get your name on a wait list.

Most UK dealers have long waiting lists. I spoke to one that told me he was getting around 20 enquiries a day, admittedly lots of this are people just phoning round to see if anyone has cameras, but the dealer said they have never seen anything like this before. I ordered mine back in December and got it 10 days ago.

All the dealers I've spoken to have told me that any cameras that come in are going straight out the door to pre-orders, so if you want one, you'd better get your name on a wait list.I made the mistake of making sure that I had the finances all sorted before ordering & then discovering that CVP only wanted a £200 deposit which I could have given them weeks ago & been that much higher up the waiting list.

It's interesting that demand is so high as with the announcement the same day as Scarlet the initial impression was that the C300 was overpriced & a bit disappointing. Now that the cameras are getting into the hands of real shooters the merits are becoming clear Aside from Alister's excellent review I just found this one that Dan Chung wrote last week DSLR News Shooter | Why I love the Canon C300 (http://www.dslrnewsshooter.com/2012/03/05/why-i-love-the-canon-c300/)

Dan's is a good well balanced review and I think echo's my own thoughts in general. The C300 is very good as a grab and go S35 camera. Not perfect, but very good none the less. Right now, if you shoot news and docs then the C300 is a simple solution that is good enough.

You can get better images, better expandability etc, but this comes with the added complication of external recorders which for news and docs is often not a viable option and that's what makes the C300 so attractive, that and the huge amount of EF glass owners.

It will be ironic after Canon's razzamatazz Hollywood launch targeting the C300 at film & TV production if the largest market is actually run & gun news & docs.

We are buying one for weddings & events & will probably rent a second as required. We have been using 5DIIs for the past three years but this looks to be the camera that we always wanted. Even though for the same money we could buy four of the new 5D Mk IIIs it will be worth it to get away from the workarounds & inconveniences of DSLRs. We in any case already have far more money invested in Canon lenses than we do in DSLR camera bodies.

I wouldn't have thought that the C300 would be an ideal camera for news, although I guess with the larger zoom range lens it's doable, regardless of the aperture ramping. Also, by the time you stick on a decent on board mic and radio mic receivers, it mightn't be that well balanced for hand held in the camera's default layout.

It'll certainly work well for lower budget TV dramas and documentaries that want to look different to the 1/3" and 2/3" productions.

News isn't just reporters camped outside court rooms etc. Many news reports involve structured interviews, in depth stories, investigative journalism and can often be mini documentaries. This is where the C300 should do extremely well.

Usually you want a camera that does everything and having shot quite a lot of the stuff I wouldn't pick the C300 as my main camera for news. It's something that so unpredictable that you may start doing a soft news feature item and end up covering a full blown riot or an explosion all in the same day.

We are no longer in the age of a camcorder and lens costing over £50k and requiring a truck load of batteries to support it. These days it's quite affordable to have a couple of lower cost cameras, maybe an XF305 for the scrums and the C300 for the more considered shoots. I know that at least one UK dealer has taken a substantial order for C300's for news. The larger news agencies will often have separate crews shooting the long form pieces while other crews cover the breaking stories. Besides a C300 with a stabilised 18-200 lens, while not ideal, in the right hands would be able to cover almost any story. Throw in a long lens as well plus the low light performance and it may even have an edge over most handy-cams in a lot of situations. You can always put an 2/3" ENG zoom on the C300 using the MTF B4 adapter.

The only negative aspect to using a C300 for news as I see it is the shallow DoF. This can be mitigated by stopping down. Given the high sensitivity and low noise of the C300 that won't be too much of a problem. A C300 at 1600 ISO has no more noise than an XF305, yet is 3 stops more sensitive.

Indeed, there a quite a few camera options now out there and making use of the C300's modular design may be one way way to go. Certainly a shoulder mounted layout makes more sense with the larger zoom range range, which will tend to be front heavy in the C300's factory layout.

Given the budget restrictions now on news, it would be hard to for a freelance to justify spending £50k plus on a camera just for shooting news unless they had a contract. I was speaking to one cameraman who runs a facility company for news coverage and he regards the C300 as a relatively low cost extra option.

News coverage tends to be a rather broad church with 24 hour news channels also needing magazine programmes as part of their schedule. At the very least to break up the routine of repeating the same news stories endlessly.