New Eos C100 Camera with Auto Iris

[Mark Dobson]

So the announcement today of a little brother or sister to the C300 is very interesting.

Looking very similar to the C300 but 15% smaller it has some features that C300 owners have put on their wish list.

These include a 3.5" back mounted LCD, an Auto Iris button and Auto Focus to be added next year through a firmware update.

The camera has the same sensor as the C300 producing 24Mbps (Max) MPEG-4 AVCHD/H.264 recording, 4:2:0 colour sampling.

So lower quality but with more functionality for solo shooters.

I will be interested to see how this will affect the firmware update that C300 owners are waiting for. Will Auto Iris and Auto focus be available for the C300?

Will C300 owners be able to buy the new handle with fitted microphones?

Here is a link for information about this camera. It will retail for around £5k inc VAT in the UK.

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/profes...meras/eos_c100

[Nigel Barker]

The current lack of built-in microphone on th C300 is rather irritating as when running in stripped down mode without the screen, handle & XLRs you still need to somehow attach a microphone plugged into the 1/8" jack socket if you want to record audio for later synching with other cameras using PluralEyes. This would get around that issue somewhat but it would be better to have a simple microphone module without XLRs.

I am not sure whether this new handle with built-in microphone can be used on the C300. You would think that they would design it so & upgrade the C300 but oddly in the photo on the Canon web site under "Removeable Hand Grip with XLR Inputs and Built-in Stereo Microphone" under the Features tab I can only make out one cable rather than the two that are on the C300 XLR module. It may be of course that the image is faked & just missing the second cable (there looks like space for the second plug on the C100 body.

[Paul Joy]

Hi Nigel

It is only one cable, presumably because only audio needs to be transferred whereas the C300 also needs to deal with video for the LCD. The second input in the C100 is a 3.5mm mic jack.

I agree it would be great to have a handle for the C300 with built in mic but I doubt the C100 handle would work, the cable looks too short for a start.

I posted some hi res images on my blog that might help.

Canon EOS C100 Announced – C100 vs C300 | Paul Joy – Freelance Filmmaker

[Josh Dahlberg]

Paul, that's a very useful comparison, thanks.

I don't make use of the HD-SDI/genlock/timecode ports on my C300 so I wouldn't miss them at all. Obviously in broadcast/multi-cam environments this would be a pivotal point of difference, but for many of us it's moot.

I'll have to content myself that the 422 codec and EVF are worth the premium; the codec is a rather arbitrary (somewhat crafty) point of differentiation on Canon's part seeing they've long employed XF codec on cameras 1/3 the price. But if they hadn't dumbed down the codec, I guess us C300 buyers would have felt short changed indeed.

It will be interesting to see just how much difference the codec makes, especially in C-Log.

[Simon Denny]

Waiting patiently for the C300 firmware update. You would think soon given this new camera being released.

[Mark Kenfield]

If only they'd included 10-bit output on the C300 in the first place, they could much more easily give us 4:2:2 50Mbps in the C100 without undermining the C300's position.

[Nigel Barker]

Nice write up Paul.

For the C300 they grafted onto the large sensor the back end recording to CF cards from the XF100/XF300 while on the C100 it looks like the back end recording from the XA10 (SD cards 24Mbps AVCHD & no 1280x720 or 50/60p).