First Time of using my C100 today

[Lico Francisco]

Hi guys,

Wish me good luck. I am going to use my Canon c100 the first time at church. I am going to use the canon efs 18-135 STM lens. I replace my 18-135 with new version that has STM. The church event goes fast so i will not have a chance to test out my L lens the 24-105 today. Maybe the end of the month. Since we are going to have a three day event at the church. Any advice before i start recording today at 6:00 PM. Bought two new fast sd card yesterday. Also bought an eye piece for my camer and made some minor changes to it.

[Dan Burnap]

How did it go Lico? The 24-105 is a considerably better lens than the 18-135 if you don't need the wide end.

[Lico Francisco]

Actually it did when well. Now i need to look at the video on my laptop. It looks nice. I use wdr. I like the way the image look kike 6400k, 180, iso 6400. There was enough light. Now i need to invest on a mic xlr

[Erick Munari]

Lico, may I ask if you used the the lens ability to follow focus and if so, how did it perform?

[Maurice Covington]

When you see the footage on the big screen, you wont believe your eyes. I also shoot with the 5D Mark III but when comparing to two, the C100 just has a magical look to it that is not seen in the Mark III. I shoot the C100 with the 24-70mm and the 70-200 but, I would think that the 24-105mm is probably a better mid range lens as suggested in earlier posts.

Please comment on how difficult or easy it was to focus the church service. I am shooting on tomorrow night and have some nervousness about using the manual focus.

[Lico Francisco]

Hi,

so far it worked out nicely. The lens focus work nicely. The Church band has four people in front so I did not loose focus on my main character. I like this camera. I was using my canon 60D upgraded Kit lens 18-135 STM lens.

[Erick Munari]

Thanx Lico. I sometimes wonder if under certain light conditions auto-focus would not be reliable, and I assume I does to some extent. Was the light in the church low or bright? were you moving the camera? Handheld, tripod? Were the subjects moving?

[Lico Francisco]

Hi Eric,

I notice some noise on my video shot. I might have to cranked up the ISO more or open up my aperture. Will take advice. For me this is a learning curve. Since I use to have a Sony hxrmc50U before. The autofocus was reliable for me it autofocus on the subject that i was trying to focus on. My subject they move a lot. There is a lot of movement when the church band start singing. I use a tripod at this moment. Not the best but it is doing the job for now. I sometime end up using the tripod as a monopod since it is light weight. The front is not well lid. That is why I see a lot of noise on the video. Usually I see the noise from hips to bottom. Any advice is welcome on improving on minimizing the noise on the video. I use Adobe premiere Pro CS5.5 for editing and Encore to make DVD.

[Maurice Covington]

Lico,

I have to assume that you've got your cameras mixed up. The Canon C100 will handle low level church lighting effortlessly. I have just starting shooting the C100 and I can tell you that every time that I pick it up and turn it on, I learn something new (I don't read manuals). With that being said, I'd bet that your cameras settings were wrong if you saw noise. I would expect your comments regarding your shoot to be about your Canon 60D not the C100. In reference to your comment regarding the increase in noise from the waist down, that it probably just a result of poor lighting in the room. The light is not evenly distributed. You may want to take some of your off camera lighting and light any problematic areas.

Good Luck!

[Lico Francisco]

I am still learning. Actually I don't use my 60D for video. Only for pics. But I am learning to use my C100. I am happy with it. Just need a Shotgun Mic now. I am in the learning process. If you have any tips or advice you can provide on the improving the noise. Should I raise the ISO, Shutter. I will start using a light on the next church Event. Learning as I go with the camera. Is it recommended to get a field monitor for this camera. I was thinking of getting one.

[Maurice Covington]

Lico,

Like you, I am still learning too but I am happy to trade tips with you.

[Nate Haustein]

The C100 is excellent in low light, but in no way is it "noise-free," especially when you're cranking the ISO up to compensate for lenses with smaller apertures like your 18-135mm - 6400ISO might be asking a little much.

I too have noticed noise to be the worst in dark areas of the image - even when shooting at 850ISO with a Ninja recorder. In challenging situations, WDR may make the problem a bit worse as it's trying to compress as much information as possible into the recording, highs and lows alike. I've had better results in using a more traditional picture profile like Cowpunk's "CineLog," and de-noising occasionally with Neat Video when things get messy.

No camera is a magic wand - lighting and image control are key to creating quality pictures.

[Dan Burnap]

I like Wide DR but I don't use it for low light events as there is more noise. When using EOS standard I can sit at ISO 6400 all day and not have to de-noise in post. Even ISO 8000 is acceptable for me.

[Lico Francisco]

ok. I will try that this coming Saturday. Also my work is going to have a Public Symposium on LAX Air Quality Study. I might take my camera and try out those ISO

[Darren Levine]

another thing you should get into the habit of doing is black balancing, the manual recommends doing it every iso change... well, i doubt most of us go quite that far, but whenever you have an extra 30 seconds, and you made some iso changes, do a black balance, it ensures you're getting as low of a noise floor as can be expected.

as for wideDR, yes it can be noiser than eosstandard, but because it's crushing the darks, which if you shot wideDR and contrasted it up in post, you should get similar results, the difference is that shooting wideDR gives you the choice of how much to crush, eosstandard, you get what you get. but then again, if it gives you what you want, by all means keep on enjoying it!