re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

That should change soon when they bring out the MII of the c300, probably the reason why they upgraded the c100 first is because they sell a boatload of these.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Richard, just curious what Canon gear have you been working with? I ask simply because if you've got a 5D and make the move to a C100, it's like a spiritual revelation, that no amount of preconception prepares you for.

One other thing not being a professional as far as knowing the business side of it, I do have eyes, and I think the codec of the C100 gets a bad rap, by pixel peepers, most all of the footage I've seen from the C100 looks incredible!

I've seen the many comparisons between the ninja and AVCHD 24 bit codec and don't see that big a difference..... Just sayin.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Michael:

5D3
6D
XF100
XA20
XF200 (for three weeks)

C100 rental

EF 16-35 f/2.8L II
EF 24-70 f/4L IS
EF 70-200 f/4L IS
EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS II
EF 50 f/1.4
EF 100 f/2.8L Macro IS

EF-S 15-85 (not a kit lens)
Tokina 11-16 f/2.8

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Well then Richard, it seems you are well acquainted with Canon gear, and your decision is based on solid experience, so happy hunting!

Looks like some nice lenses will soon be on the market.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Absolutely, then of course after that, it's all about how you use it!

I can't imagine someone showing up for the first time to do a wedding with a BMPCC, even though it is an amazing camera. However yes, as you say you if you have a well established reputation you can use a Barbie cam if you'd like.

Perhaps I'm way off base but, if yer not Steven Spillberg, and you are trying to establish yourself as a serious film maker, having some professional looking equipment certainly doesn't hurt. Probably 90% of people don't know the difference between an iPhone or a 5D3...... but their eyes light up when you pull out a C-X00, at least that's been my limited experience.

Yea, I tend to think people get a little nervy even if you point an iPhone at them, they think you are trying to go undercover and pull a fast one on them. If you have a larger camera like a C100 all rigged out they might raise to the occasion thinking they might be on the nightly news..... they might dig it. The only real advantage of a small camera is they might not see you pointing it at them.

Yea the A7s. I've looked at some comparison footage and other than "Night Vision" capabilities was not that impressed...... good yes, but am I going to sell all my stuff and switch over to Sony..... no!

If I needed to go undercover I'd get the Panasonic LX100, same image as the GH4 but half the price plus you get a great lens! Why mess around with something else ..... ha ha!

BTW Sabyasachi, I love Delhi...... I've gone to India every year for the past 6 years and have many good friends there!

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

It begs the question why anyone in their right mind would buy a C300 over a C100 mk II/Blade, for twice as much. Everyone is expecting 4K in the new C300, I doubt it. That would mean they would basically have to discontinue the C500...... perhaps not a bad idea? Who knows what Canon is thinking.

Everyone is biting their nails in anticipation of the new C300, it pretty much has to be revolutionary at this point.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

An after thought: The DSLR world has been thriving in the last few years. Do you guys think that the market is now shifting towards cameras like the Canon C100 and C300, the Sony FS7's, or is the DSLR thing pretty much over?

Personally, I and probably everyone here else has a good DSLR or two or three. After using DSLR's are you into collecting more of them, or does the thought cross your mind to move up to a more functional video camera.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

With these, I feel I can "cover the entire waterfront" for both stills and video:

Sony RX100 iii
Sony RX10
Sony A7s (with E and FE mount lenses)
Sony ____ (FE mount full frame camera, name yet to be revealed. Pro mirrorless. 2015 release)
Sony X70 camcorder

Sony FS7 (which I should be able to rent for around $420 for 5 days, once the units start shipping, and I will be able to use all my E and FE mount lenses on it)

All at SUBSTANTIALLY less weight and bulk as the Canon gear I am trading in, except for the FS7.
All with very-good-to-great codecs.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Well forgive me but that seems like an awful lot of gear to haul around when one C100 mk II/Blade would basically cover everything.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Michael:

You have missed a few key points:

1) I shoot stills more than video, and need that capability (usually) simultaneously.

2) At any given time (project), there would only be a PORTION of the gear listed in use. It will depend on the project.

3) For any given time (project), my new gear at that time (project) will weigh less and be less bulky than my existing Canon gear would have been, save when I might be renting an FS7.

You seem intent on convincing me that I am headed off in the wrong direction. I will be fine.

Good luck on your projects. I have always liked Santa Fe.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Richard, you were helpful in my decision to get the C100 instead of the GH4...... I'm just testing you to make sure yer making the right decision, I shall cease from any further discussion knowing you are making the right choice.

If you find yourself in Santa Fe sometime stop by and say hello.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

You are taking that brand loyalty thing much too seriously, all these camera's are just tools, it doesn't matter if you go the sony, canon, panasonic or whatever brand route, you just choose the tools that work best for your kind of production and budget.

That's a nice list of new gear Richard, I have the rx10 and consumerversion of the x70, the ax100. My favourite camera by far is the rx10, I still don't like it's too slow zoom and the fact that we Europeans still get to deal with the 30 minute recording limit but it's the best camera I have used that bridges the gap between dslr and a videocamera in terms of functionality and image quality.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Noa, tell me something I don't already know! Brand loyalty has more to to with familiarity than anything else. For instance I would never change from Apple to a PC for obvious reasons. However, I do want a Pany XL100 someday.

When you are invested in the amount of gear Richard has it is a big deal, as Richard himself alluded to.

I have no idea what kind of video Richard does...... hobby, professional, flowers going in and out of focus, weddings, action thrillers etc.

My point was it seems like a hell of a lot of gear to trade off for the convenience of one camera that basically does everything at your finger tips, all for a codec that no one will notice a difference in except pixel peepers. At the same time pixel peeping is the name of the game here, what else is there to talk about.

I just can't think of a real video camera that offers as much as the C100 mk II, for $5500.00.......call that brand loyalty if you like, I call it the facts!

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

I"m actually also curious what type of productions Richard does and because he talks about renting a fs7 I"m sure he's not the average homevideo shooter, there is always a a lot of talk about gear but it's always much nicer to see what people actually do with it.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Of course it's a fact because it works for you, but it doesn't work for Richard so for him it's a fact that his camera choices work better for him.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Happy Thanksgiving

Michael - For the last time.... I will be fine.

Noa - For video it is all voluntary work (except for personal travel and outdoor adventure videos). I have been fortunate in life, and wish to give back. I started out just recording events (church, schools, charitable organzations) with one camcorder. That grew to multi-cam shoots, where I would rent additional XF100's and XA20's with other volunteers helping. At first, I hired out the editing, but I have been working with FCP-X to be able to do all the editing myself. I now have a "Darth Vader flower pot" (Late 2013 Mac Pro) with external Thunderbolt2 RAID array drive enclosures. The volunteer video projects are now starting to include planned and prepared shorts, typically less than 5 minutes each, to be shown during church services or during organization meetings to either summarize something, or to make people aware of something important, or to move people to do something. Telling a story, as they say. This is in addition to just recording events.

For stills, I do volunteer shooting (again, for church, schools, youth sports, charitable organizations) and I donate all of the prints and flash drives. I also do "fine art" shooting, often landscapes. Finally, I do personal shooting and video, often including travel and outdoor adventure. Heli-hiking in Canada this past summer, as one example.

The Sony RX10 is a "sleeper" and now has an updated 50 Mbps XAVC codec. The Sony RX 100 iii is a "sleeper" for video. The early reports on the X70 camcorder are positive, and the Sony A7s is stunning now (for HD). I will skip buying a Ninja now, because I don't need it, and save up to buy a Shogun instead. I believe my new gear lineup will adapt to the future quite well.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Happy thanksgiving to you as well. Yes, I wasn't trying to talk to out of it, just explaining to Noa my reasoning for the discussion.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Well, you are talking DSLR's that shoot some video I'm talking actual video cameras. I do think I'm safe saying for the money the C100 mk II is the best of it's kind on the market right now. What's close the FS-100?

I respect Richard's needs and choices. It's just that during the last few weeks Richard was one of the biggest proponents of the C100 mk II. Now he's not, I'm just trying to wrap my head around it..... I'm fine with it.

In some ways when people talk about getting new cameras here, I tend to live out the drama personally though them.... a voyeur of sorts, a glimpse into their reasoning..... in the end, I learn form it as if I bought it myself.

Really who doesn't enjoy hearing about someone's new camera purchases?

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

This is the C100 with some improvements. As C100 owners/operators, there is plenty to discuss, especially the topic of whether or not these improvements are worth of upgrading to (they are).

Frankly, I think the C100 Mark II makes this camera nearly perfect as a 1080p cam. You get slo-mo, a truly articulating LCD screen AND EVF, better internal recording options, Vectorscope and so on. The only concern is whether you want 4K or the 1080p derived from 4K look without having to spend time downconverting all the footage manually.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Gary, you're right on target! If anyone is a C100 owner, the C100 MK II is a no brainer (it just makes sense). They'll be plenty of opportunities for multiple 4K cameras in the near future. I recently sold my C100 and plan to upgrade to the MK II next month! Simple work flows with this camera and none of my clients have complained about any of the images coming from the C100.

To everyone, enjoy the holidays with your families and keep shooting with WHATEVER camera works for you!

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Perfectly stated, Troy!

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Though my c100 has more than paid for itself, I'm delusionally optimistic and hoping for the codec and frame rate firmware update...

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

I made a short comparison between C100 M1 and C100 M2.
There are three parts - short movie (95pct M2 and 5pct M1), comparison from movie and comparison from other places.


Thanks to canon.cz and also thanks to my friend Vladimir for assistance.

/ at 1:04 is flickering from the reverse motion /

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Thanks for the comparison. I have to say I like the images coming out of the MKI more than the MKII......

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Probably wouldn't be able to say that if the camera wasn't labelled. Plus, I don't see what lenses were used on either. That can make a difference too if they are not identical.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

All informations are at video, lenses, etc.

I used exactly the same setting, all menus, CP, color temperature was set with kelvin (the same), the same iris, very close focal length, etc. (only log gamma has on both cameras shifted color matrix: R-G is -21, it is only one change - my old trick .-) , but also this info is at video at the end).

Some differences are only at evening when light quick fall off (at the end of movie), the time for change one camera to other was about 5min for one sekvence of footage. But differences go on at another day, so some result is visible (M2 little tend to pink on faces, but has better noise - monochromatic with wdr and log gamma, and has less black and little average colors - for me).

M1 has more hard black with the same setting, but "EVF + autofocus (or push autofocus)" on M2 is killer combination for one which don't like manual focus if you have no time.

My first impression is 50:50, some features are better on M1 and others on M2, would be nice to see more real videos from M2.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Thanks.

The basic question about colors on C100 M2 is about DIGIC DV4 - the same procesor is used at G30 and we really see a lot of "pink" colors at many videos - a very good sample is here (look for cyan color at sky):

Another basic question (about cons) is about color processing - is there same averaging of colors? Average colors mean a little flat resolution in colors (it is about surfaces, not about edges) - in the opposite to luma resolution which is better on M2 (you can probably see this on face color test at the end of test or on calendar part - on the wall is visible more details with M2 and wdr or log gamma).

All other is about pros.

I recommend to download the orig file.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

The fact that both cameras have different exposures going on means that it is hard to glean anything useful from this test.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Hi,
all the test have both cameras exactly the same exposure

- only at the end of "movie" exposure differ, but not too much (but you can see the original at second part of test, the church at the end of evening - we started shooting at 2:00pm and end was at 5:00pm, where last twenty minutes light quickly fall off - it was about two shots from the test where exposure may a little differ - there was very could and I can't remember the last two shots .-)) , thanks Canon that C100 has no metadata about exposure...).

Two elderly women have given us wine to drink, this saved us.

I hope that this help .-) .

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Did you use the waveform monitor?

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

I like your question, have a nice day :) .

The same setting all menus, CP (gamma curves, black levels, saturation, NR, color matrix), the same kelvin and...

...the same exposure of the CMOS chip = the same ND, shutter speed, iris and iso = the same amount of the light on the CMOS chip and the same processing, but different result due to different procesor. This show you differences between both cameras.

Yes, I also used WF monitor, but only as basic information about exposure.

---

But this is not an exact test and at movie part (at exterior) can be some small differences (for example at focal lenght), it's a real life and not payed testing (good news is that interiors are exactly the same and show a very similar result). One interesting thing is that new OLED display has big contrast but not the same as pictures have, but I think that longer usage solve this. My three days (and two nights .-) ) with C100 M2 was too short.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

That's an odd way to put it...the waveform monitor IS your exposure information. Everything else is just guesswork.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Really :-) ? Can you more explain how you mean that info about WF monitor (for comparison M1 and M2 which has the same CMOS chip)?

My concept of this test is:
the same light, the same exposure (the same lens, iris, ND, shutter speed) of (the same) CMOS chip on both cameras, then the same signal processing (gamma curve, ISO, WB with kelvin, CP setting) but on different camera processors - on WF monitor you will see the result - differences of (identical) signal processing between DV3 and DV4 processor (and also on WF you will see the "basic info" about unwanted signal clipping, you don't need any other info during shooting in this type of comparison test).

I made comparison of two cameras with the same chip and different signal processor and not a test of a new camera. I hope that you will understand to this fact. I'm not interested in "the same output", but really in "the same input" which show me differences at signal processing.

Really hope that you will start thinking about this clear concept of my test.

Thanks for your suggestions.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

In WDR the waveform monitor seems to ride in the middle, I thought this because it seems slightly flatter than say the 5D3. It took me a while to understand this after I got the C100.

When I look at the WFM on my Atomos Blade and hit the Auto iris button and check the exposure meter on the LCD the Blades WFM is spiking. When I adjust the image to the WFM and bring down the highs it shows the image to be under exposed on the LCD meter. I have since learned to pay little attention to the WFM in camera and on the Blade (same thing really).

Even after adjusting the exposure to the meter on the LCD screen and using the Auto Iris button. The image in post always needs some exposure tweaking because it still seems under exposed...

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

The waveform monitor IS your exposure. Learn it, love it. Everything else is just misleading.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

No it's not. I used the WFM and the footage was unusable, ever since I made that mistake I've used the exposure meter in the LCD and and verified it with the auto iris button, and it's been fine.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Well, to be fair -- maybe it's not for you, Michael, but it is for *a lot* of other people.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Chris, with all due respect you have been very adimante about the WFM being the only true measure of exposure, but so far I've only heard vague statements from you. Please enlighten me!

You know...... either it works or it doesn't. Why would the exposure on the C100 be so different between the WFM and the exposure meter in the LCD? Why would the auto iris button, and the exposure meter tell me the shot is perfectly exposed and the WFM show the whites are way over a 100%?

Why is it when I look at the WFM and get the whites just below a 100% transfer the footage into FCPX and it's so underexposed I can't use it?

If there is something I'm doing wrong I would like to know about it.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Wow, Michael, your experiences are so different from mine I'm sort of wondering what is going on. That your WFM shows your whites just under 100 but your footage is underexposed makes me wonder what it is that you were shooting? Certainly a scene where the room is in dark shadows, but a window is bright, might lead a WFM to show something that, if you brought the highlight down, would crush the exposure. Also, to pull my whites down into range, in a bright sunlit situation, I will change the camera picture profiles to get a wide DR to work from. Even then, I might need to add light to the shot to fill in a shadows

But a clue to me is that you are using your auto Iris and exposure meter in the LCD. I don't ever use auto anything if I can help it. Not sure why you would trust the auto iris? Not being flippant here, just asking because I never even think to engage it.

The exposure meter and the LCD are something I only use for general guidance, and getting me in the ballpark of exposure. Once there, I rely on the WFM to dial in my final exposure, so I don't blow out the highlights or crush the shadows. It's never failed to get me decent exposure in the situations I face, which granted might be quite different than yours. Learning to use it has helped me immensely.

Have you tried hooking an external monitor to the camera and matching what you see on it to the LCD? That might give you a lot more confidence in knowing the difference. Also there are LCD tuning parameters that might help you dial it into a better look to the final product.

Ultimately, doing a bunch of tests like that is what has helped me do a better job with the C100 and the xf305. hope that helps. It's been a super camera for me. Very few complaints that haven't been adfdressed in the upgrade. I hope Canon gives us a trade in policy to move to it.

re: C100 Mark II -- Mostly About Waveform
 

Thanks Al for the great comments. Yes, ever since I got the C100 I have wondered about this. I've even posted this here and on another blog but got no responses. I have the Atomos Blade with a very nice detailed monitor the very first time I used the C100 I adjusted the exposure on the waveform monitor shot for a while the realized the LCD meter said it was very under exposed.

I checked the accuracy of the Blade against the actual camera and they were both spot on. When I'm running around with the C100 I'll just use the auto iris button because it gets the exposure right in the ball park within seconds, so I've come to rely on it for run and gun stuff.

I'm not complaining about the camera because I've learned how to get fast exposure, and the auto iris button is my favorite button.

In reading Shanes review of the C100 he said the exposure needs to be pretty much right on 1.5 stops under is about the limit before the image falls apart. So I really can't trust my eyes when I'm shooting out doors, so I must look at the numbers, I guess that even applies to indoors as well.

I so far have only shot in WDR. The image to my eyes as well as the scopes in FCPX tell me even after adjusting for correct exposure, the luma exposure in FCPX is rather conservative and the blacks need to be pulled down and the whites need to go up a hair or two.

So I don't know what to say......