For anyone interested here is a quick comparison I did while filming with the C100, be sure to study them at full resolution. The C100 is an incredible camera, the low light capabilities is amazing, I can literally leave my Arri's at home from now on.

Impressive! It seems that you can extract beautiful stills from the C100?!?! Thanx for sharing.

Here at least you can buy seven 60d's for the price of one c100 + the 60d is no better then first gen 550d or 7d dslrs when it comes to video and we all know they are soft and suffer from aliasing and moire and are very noisy at 3200 iso and above.

That the c100 is a remarkable camera is obvious but it comes at a price, a too high one if you ask me since no lens is included but that seems to be the trend canon has set with their c-line of camera's.

Noa I basically went with the C100 to get rid of my lights, I didn't believe it was possible at first but after today I'm a believer. No more lights at weddings needed. F4, ISO6400 looks amazing you can even push it to ISO8000 if you have to worry free. I have a 312LED which blows out my shots set at it's lowest power setting, I'll have to get a smaller LED. I agree it's an expensive camera, I really wish it was priced more closely to the 5DIII.

Erick you can actually snap HD JPEGs stills while filming.

Lighting isn't just about having enough light to shoot at appropriate ISOs, it's also about shape, quality, etc. Without using my lights (such as my Arri too) at weddings even when there is enough light, things tend to look less interesting than they do with my lights. This, to the extent, that even when the venue gives me full control over their house lighting, I prefer to dim their lights and make my lights the main source of lighting.

It's the same concept as filming an interview, where you want to turn off all of the flat and ugly house lights which often give raccoon eyes, and then use just your own lights to create the exact look you want.

Also, while the C100 is good in low light, you'll always get better image quality shooting at more ideal ISOs. I certainly notice a big difference between ISO 320-850 vs ISO 6400, particularly when viewed on a big screen.

Wow. You guys are lucky if you are given the option to creatively light your weddings and receptions. Most clients and venues scoff at the idea of bringing in lighting as it kills the ambience. Even when I do bring some lights, I have to be honest....it ain't all that creative. I would barely have time to set them up, let alone creatively shape a scene like I am shooting a narrative. I usually bounce them off the ceiling to flood the main wedding tables with some lumens so my camera can see!

I don't film photography formals. I'll generally have a team of three shooters (and sometimes two), so one of us will film a bit of cocktail hour (or not), one will setup lights, and the third will work on setting up audio. Generally with formals and the cocktail hour, we have about an hour to setup, which is enough time. I use an Arri 650, two Lowel-Pro 250s, and 1-3 LED lights. For the brighter lights, I use 10-13 foot stands, which when placed that high, tend be much less noticeable to the extent we don't often get complaints about the lights. Barn doors (particularly on the Arri) work well for keeping the lights from shining on guests. We also turn down the lights when there aren't particular events going on, such as speeches, and all of the lights are dimmable (the tungsten ones are plugged into dimmers) so we can dim them to appropriate levels depending on the size of various venues.

I also freelance for a guy who has me as a solo shooter, and he doesn't like me using off-camera lights, so I have experience with no lights or just an on-camera light as well. Here are some frame grabs from speeches I shot below noting the cameras, lighting, settings, etc.


C100, Canon 24-105 f/4L @ f/4, approx ISO 8000-12,800, shutter 1/48. No additional lighting used.
Full-size Image: http://imageshack.us/a/img405/43/opu9.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img407/5165/rn1v.jpg

C100, Canon 24-105 f/4L @ f/4, approx ISO 3200 (not sure of exact ISO), shutter 1/48. On camera LED used, plus the photographer had some continuous light going from a light stand to my left.
Full-size Image: http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/5048/lwf9.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img402/2407/b876.jpg

5D Mark III, Canon 135mm f/2L @ f/2.0, ISO 320, shutter 1/50 (or possibly 1/30). Lighting used, 2x Lowel-Pro 250s, Arri 650, & Comer 1800 LED.
Full-size image: http://imageshack.us/a/img62/2971/adelaideajsequencespeec.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img545/7263/hxn1.png

60D, Canon 85mm f/1.8 @ f/2.0, ISO 320 or 640, shutter 1/30. Lighting used, 2x Lowel-Pro 250s, 3x LED lights.
Full-size image: http://imageshack.us/a/img19/5016/kbdv.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img706/6213/kr.jpg


My conclusion? I'd rather have a 60D with good lighting than a C100 with bad lighting. Fortunately, I now have both a C100 and good lights. :-)

Doesn't matter what camera you have ... lighting still makes a hell of a difference.

use an Arri 650, two Lowel-Pro 250s, and 1-3 LED lights

That would be unacceptable in my country, I"d imagine one light nearby the dancefloor to bounce of the ceiling would be pushing it but turning a candlelit venue into a filmset would not make the guests and especially the client happy. That's why I need lightsensitive camera's as wel below the budget of a c100 but with a little bit of imagination you can get far. :)

Well said & I agree lighting always adds life to an image however I no longer need my two Arri 750 Plus lights. Setting up lighting would usually take me anywhere between 30 to 50 minutes time that I could have spent filming. Laying down power, putting on gels, diffusion & securing cables. Now I can light the same scene effectively with a small battery powered LED at 20-40% power output. The C100 is going to make my job easier & the guests more comfortable.

The lit scenes look far better of course. I just find most venues will not allow it so shooting with minimal lighting is a must. Fortunately I rarely shoot weddings anymore but I guess the c100 will come in handy if I do.

Wouldn't a C100 allow you to charge 10 times as much as a guy using a lesser camera though?

That seems like a smart business plan to me.

Wouldn't a C100 allow you to charge 10 times as much as a guy using a lesser camera though?


For weddings? You wish :D
When the first video dslr's came out I also saw competitors charging a surplus for a dslr only wedding and I never understood why, at least not for wedding clients, as they don't know or either care what you shoot with. But if you can sell it at 10 times the price your a good salesman I guess, you can produce a crapvideo with a c100 as well so the type of camera would never justify a higher prricetag if you ask me.

Yeah, I remember when dvd came out way back when I was able to charge more for it. and within a year it was expected, so no premium for long.

So if you use a C100 for weddings I guess it's more to thrill yourself but not your bottom line? Sowhat's the point?

I think from the vhs to the dvd transfer I could see a reason to charge more for it as it was a totally new medium, just like you would charge extra for a blu-ray dvd. If you do commercial, corporate or work for production companies the type of camera or codec it uses becomes a much more important factor and that would have a influence on the price but it doesn't work like that for camera's at weddings.

The point of using a c100 would be to get the best (or as good as) possible image with a very good low light performance, only if you give a canon 550d or a c100 in the hands of a very experienced and creative videographer the end result will look the same to the client for both versions, only if you let them show the result side by side they will see what the difference is but that is something we never do when we try to get new wedding clients, at least not as a reason to explain why you charge 10 times as much. You just show your work and there is never asked what camera you use.

In the wedding industry your price is not related to the gear you use but the feeling you create, the story you can tell & how good you are at selling yourself. I didn't buy a C100 to raise my prices I bought into them because I wanted a professional redundant tool to tell my stories. I'm amazed how far we've come & I'm looking forward to what's coming.

It still would seem if you invested this much money into a camera that you would have at least made some connection to making MORE money with it in the same space.
You can tell a good story and create a good feel with lesser cameras.

Isn't there some tipping point that connects how much money you spend on your tools and how much you charge?

Granted I would take it a person without the talent to tell stories and excite is not going to spend this much money on a camera anyway.

If this were not the case it's almost like saying brides and grooms and their family's cant tell the difference in a C100 and a T2I anyway? Is that the case?

I bought it for the ease of us, and the dependability that it brought to the game. Dual slot recording, ND filters, etc, no comparison from a DSLR, and a DSLR is my B-Cam.
I would defiantly say use one before you give any kind of judgement on how it relates to a wedding scene.

Certainly not judging the camera, just the premise.

As I said you would think there was a tipping point where the cost of your tools demands more money.

I guess the question is will there still be guys out there with T2I's or whatever that are raking in more dough.

It appears there could be 2 business models at work here. One based on how much you can put out and another based on how much you can take in?

No offense I just find it a bit strange.

The C100 is not an expensive camera, I paid a lot more for my Sony EX1 back in the day. Frankly I just got fedup with crappy DSLR video quality & horrible workarounds to achive basic video functions. The corporate clients are also getting annoyed with DSLR many now requesting that they not be used. You get paid more in the sense that you get more opportunities & a higher quality client. No self respecting professional will continue filming on a T4i when they have the funds for a pro tool. DSLR is an amazing launchpad to get anyone started, gone are the days of creativity being limited by our bank accounts. Those screen grabs speak for themselves.

The C100 is amazing in low light but so is the 5D3 & you can buy two of those for the price of a C100. When you want matching cameras that is a consideration. When I was using a C300 the image was just so much better than the 5D2/5D3 that it was all but impossible to match them up so my option was to replace the 5Ds with C100/C300s or go with all 5Ds. As we do stills as well the decision was obvious. The ability to pull stills off the timeline of a C100/C300 is vastly over-rated as while it possible & the image resolution is very good indeed the problem is that you are generally not composing images n the same way with stills & video - with stills you are looking to freeze a moment in time whereas with video you are looking at movement.

There will always be the cheap camera brigade raking in more money ... because they can talk the talk and convince new brides. What they provide is another story.

If your spending this much money on a camera ... It has to do two things in my book.

A. Make your life easier when it comes to carrying out the job in hand.
B. Bring some sort of production value to your work.

Which in this comparison it clearly does both.

This was kind of what I was eluding to all along.

***If your spending this much money on a camera ... It has to do two things in my book.

A. Make your life easier when it comes to carrying out the job in hand.(individually subjective)
B. Bring some sort of production value to your work. (subjective again if clients won't pay more for it)

I would have thought there would be a
C. Bigger better paying clients?

Without that the guy making more money with lesser equipment cost is the smarter business person, and quite possibly the most talented.

Got my C100, yet to test out it between my 7D and 60D.
But from my initial play, low light and sharpness definitely blows the DSLRs out the water.
And the ergonomics! Though, wish it was the same file system... or is AVCHD a better overall codec?

I'm just won't know how things go until I work on my first SDE with the C100. Hopefully it won't slow me down. :-)

Oh, and why do we upgrade?
It's a personal choice really. Some people will stick with the same camera for 10 years and just use tripods, if they can maintain the same amount of clientele, then good on them on a their profit to expense ratio. Others will invest in new equipment and sliders, stabilizer rigs and jibs etc to enhance their craft.

Of course, the camera doesn't make the shooter. I probably can still shoot the same with my 10+ year old Sony FX1. :-D

This was kind of what I was eluding to all along.

***If your spending this much money on a camera ... It has to do two things in my book.

A. Make your life easier when it comes to carrying out the job in hand.(individually subjective)
B. Bring some sort of production value to your work. (subjective again if clients won't pay more for it)

I would have thought there would be a
C. Bigger better paying clients?

Without that the guy making more money with lesser equipment cost is the smarter business person, and quite possibly the most talented.

Yeah but Al ...

If his stress levels are reduced as he's more confident in his cameras abilities. Surely that's worth the extra cost alone? For me it is anyway ...

I can take on more risk when it comes to being creative. Rather than sticking to the boring fail safe routine.

Don't have to necessarily start charging the client more.

Got my C100, yet to test out it between my 7D and 60D.
But from my initial play, low light and sharpness definitely blows the DSLRs out the water.
And the ergonomics! Though, wish it was the same file system... or is AVCHD a better overall codec?

I'm just won't know how things go until I work on my first SDE with the C100. Hopefully it won't slow me down. :-)

Oh, and why do we upgrade?
It's a personal choice really. Some people will stick with the same camera for 10 years and just use tripods, if they can maintain the same amount of clientele, then good on them on a their profit to expense ratio. Others will invest in new equipment and sliders, stabilizer rigs and jibs etc to enhance their craft.

Of course, the camera doesn't make the shooter. I probably can still shoot the same with my 10+ year old Sony FX1. :-D

I would bet 10 quid that those customers are referrals from previous clients.

To generate new business now, or start in the game, you need to be on the same level as others in terms of what you deliver which means rigz, jigz, low light, LED light and all the other technological advancements. You can't stick to your 10 year old camera and routine expecting to break in to an already saturated market.

Well, I'm not saying it's a bad choice that's for sure. I work in a different arena.
I know that a lot of you guys shoot with multiple cameras. I think that's where the cost to earnings ratio goes up a bit.

Anyway this is new stuff. I will continue to watch how this pans out.

But don't estimate the old cameras. I know 2 photographers in my area who have just recently and reluctantly gone digital. They are both high end and booked solid every year. And compared to their colleagues their prices are extremely high.

Talent will beat equipment every time, and salesmanship will beat talent and equipment.