nanoFlash with Canon C300?

[John Richard]

Once again, depends what you are shooting.

If you are shooting fine detail subject with lots of motion, panning, etc. then you will appreciate the higher data rates to remove artifacting.

I must qualify my statement as I have not had the personal pleasure of working with the C300.

I do agree with the idea of cost to miniscule improvement point ratio. At some point there are much greater gains to be made with the skill of the camera op, framing, lighting, lense choices, camera movement, etc.

But there have definitely been times when I grabbed a 7D for a quick shot and wished it had the ability to output to a nanoFlash after I viewed the footage in the edit bay. Recently came across some black bears wrestling in the waning light of day. Grabbed the 7D for it's low light capability and put on the Magic Drainpipe 70mm-200mm 2.8. Captured some awesome footage. But I could see some artifacting in the fine pine needles. I was the only one bothered - but the higher bit rate nano would have taken it away I am sure. But we all know about the crippled output of the 7D and 5D so it is not an option. But with the C300 there IS ! and there are times for it as Alister has noted.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by John Richard

........ there have definitely been times when I grabbed a 7D for a quick shot and wished it had the ability to output to a nanoFlash after I viewed the footage in the edit bay.

But the $64,000 question has to be how bothered you'd have been if the 7D had the same 50Mbs codec built in as the C300....? Especially since I believe quite a lot of nanoFlash users use them set to that codec anyway!

Any debate here is not how much a nanoFlash would benefit a 7D if possible, but how much it would benefit a C300.

[John Richard]

My point in referencing the 7D in camera codec limit in reference to this discussion of the nanoFlash and C300 was to point out that there are shots where being able to up the data rate from the in-camera data rate are very beneficial.

As I noted, never handling the C300 makes me a poor judge to issue an educated factual opinion on it's in-camera codec. I have only seen footage from it on internet compression - not first hand on reference monitor or screen projection.

I am only speculating from other camera experience using a nanoFlash in both 50 data rates and then much higher, there is a noticeable difference in mosquito noise and artifacting when shooting fine detailed subjects and lots of movement such as blowing grasses, leaves, water, etc. Of course the nanoFlash is an entirely different codec than the C300. So only those like Alister with real world hands on can provide a factual opinion. Mine is only speculation.

And since Alister has both the C300 and a nanoFlash, maybe at some point he will be able to speak to the value of being able to go out to a higher data rate than the in-camera codec.

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Friends,

I was fortunate to see XXIT on the 50 foot screen at the Paramont Theatre in Hollywood.

The Canon C300 is certainly capable of producing very nice images natively.

Time will tell if the nanoFlash provides a noticeable difference. I suspect that this will depend on how much is done to the footage in post and most importantly, how the footage is viewed, on a television set or on a large screen.

One point I would like to make is that the nanoFlash is very flexible and can be used successfully with a very wide variety of cameras.

[John Richard]

Dan - could you describe the the subjects of the Paramount C300 introduction piece that was projected?

Were there any shots of fine detail and motion?

The internet postings of C300 footage look beautiful. Phillip Bloom's and the race footage available on this C300 forum are extremely impressive. Cannot wait to see NAB footage - hopefully on a large format venue.

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Richard,

XXIT was shot for the Canon C300 launch.

Part of this was VFX, part C300.

Here is a link:

XXIT - Demo on Vimeo

Also, here is a "Behind the Scenes" video.

XXIT Behind The Scenes on Vimeo

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by John Richard

Of course the nanoFlash is an entirely different codec than the C300.

Not really. The C300 and the nanoFlash in the 50Mbs setting are effectively identical. Yes, true, you can up the datarate on the nanoFlash, but it's very much a law of diminishing returns.

Don't expect the differences to be anywhere near what you'll see when using the nanoFlash (even in 50Mbs mode) to replace in-built DSLR codecs, or even AVC-HD recording.

None of this is to disparage the nanoFlash in any way - it does what it does very well - but the real benefits are when used with cameras with lesser native codecs - not XDCAM 422 or AVC-Intra 100.

[Alister Chapman]

The C300's 50Mb/s codec is good. I'm not knocking the quality of the images I can get from my stock C300, but it is what it is. For me that is a highly portable, convenient, one piece s35 camera that's straight forward to use and produces true broadcast quality images.

But.... it can be improved upon. 50Mb/s is good, but easily bettered. For the majority of broadcast productions 50Mb/s is good enough, but if you are doing work for larger screens or where you will do a lot of grading, stepping up to 100Mb/s makes a noticeable difference. It's not that hard to "break" the 50Mb/s codec. Fine detail with any motion can cause issues. Shooting from a vehicle with lots of irregular movement, heavy rain, tree's blowing in the wind etc will increase the mosquito noise in the 50Mb/s image. When I had my PDW-700 (XDCAM HD, 50 Mb/s 422 - like the C300) I used to record at 100Mb/s on my NanoFlash as a matter of course because the 100Mb/s images were cleaner and graded much better. I am seeing the same improvements with the NanoFlash on the C300. On a big screen TV I can visually see the improvements on busy or high motion shots.

The question though is do you need the extra cables and stuff that are required to get this improvement or is 50Mb/s good enough? Only you can answer that for yourself, it will depend on the production your working on. The nice thing about the C300 is that maybe one day you shoot internally at 50, then the next day for a critical shot you can use a NanoFlash at 100 (or more), but either way you are meeting broadcast spec.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

I don't have a C300, but agree with Alister that 50Mb/s is good, but can easily get bettered - provided however that the image is sufficiently noise-free to start with. I suppose the C300's sensor and DSP can deliver imagery at least as clean as the FS100 can - in which case, winding the datarate up indeed does a better job with motion artifacts. Plus, it holds up better at heavy grading or keying...

[Broatch Berry]

This was a shout out to Stephen, I loved the "Clinton" show on PBS. Which camera did you use?

Good times.


Broatch
Venice, CA

[Roger Pinto]

Originally Posted by Charles Papert

As far as Dave's query as to why you would want or need to use the Nanoflash if the camera can record internally; I have experienced data loss enough times in the past few years across so many platforms that I will no longer record mission-critical projects (aka all projects!) to a single source of flash-based media. Implementing two recording sources at the same time is good insurance against this. Think about it: we always backup to two drives on download, right? There's still plenty of room for error and corruption at the acquisition stage. For those who have never experienced this--it's just a matter of time.

Charles you may also do simultaneous recording on to TWO CF cards inside C300 it self so no need to lug around an external recorder which hasnt proved any difference over its use on C300 !!!

May be DAN prove some scientific test done to prove me otherwise !!!

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Friends,

We have extensively tested other cameras, but not the Canon C300, for the differences between recording at 50 Mbps and higher bit rates.

With Long-GOP (Long Group of Pictures), a very efficient way of recording video, going from 50 Mbps (Megabits per second) to 100 Mbps makes a significant difference.

Except in the most extreme of cases, recording in 100 Mbps provides you the complete absence of problems such as "too much detail", artifacts due to too much motion in the image, and artifacts due to too much motion by the camera itself.

Our earlier tests were so conclusive, that we did not think of performing rigorous tests with a nanoFlash connected to the C300.

I learned one important leason when we recorded the Sony PMW-F3 with the nanoFlash. This combination produces just stunning images.

The lessson is that a lower noise image allows the codec (Coder-Decoder) in the nanoFlash to perform much more efficiently.

In the case of the Sony PMW-F3 (F3), the very low noise images, combined with the very low-noise codec in the nanoFlash allows for just stunning images.

I mention this, since I believe that the Canon C300 is also a very low noise camera.

If feel that it is very safe to say that the 50 Mbps Long-GOP recordings in the C300 can be improved with higher bit-rate recordings.

But, as always, actual testing can be very informative. I recommend performing much more than just static testing of a chart to see the real-world differences.

I also learned that some common scenes are very difficult for cameras and make good tests.

One is a pile of fall leaves, another is ripples on water, or choppy water.

[Roger Pinto]

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

Dear Friends,

We have extensively tested other cameras, but not the Canon C300, for the differences between recording at 50 Mbps and higher bit rates.

With Long-GOP (Long Group of Pictures), a very efficient way of recording video, going from 50 Mbps (Megabits per second) to 100 Mbps makes a significant difference.

Except in the most extreme of cases, recording in 100 Mbps provides you the complete absence of problems such as "too much detail", artifacts due to too much motion in the image, and artifacts due to too much motion by the camera itself.

Our earlier tests were so conclusive, that we did not think of performing rigorous tests with a nanoFlash connected to the C300.

I learned one important leason when we recorded the Sony PMW-F3 with the nanoFlash. This combination produces just stunning images.

The lessson is that a lower noise image allows the codec (Coder-Decoder) in the nanoFlash to perform much more efficiently.

In the case of the Sony PMW-F3 (F3), the very low noise images, combined with the very low-noise codec in the nanoFlash allows for just stunning images.

I mention this, since I believe that the Canon C300 is also a very low noise camera.

If feel that it is very safe to say that the 50 Mbps Long-GOP recordings in the C300 can be improved with higher bit-rate recordings.

But, as always, actual testing can be very informative. I recommend performing much more than just static testing of a chart to see the real-world differences.

I also learned that some common scenes are very difficult for cameras and make good tests.

One is a pile of fall leaves, another is ripples on water, or choppy water.

Dan how about placing all above facts after an exhaustive test with C300 and nanoFLASH.

[Charles Papert]

Originally Posted by Roger Pinto

Charles you may also do simultaneous recording on to TWO CF cards inside C300 it self so no need to lug around an external recorder which hasnt proved any difference over its use on C300 !!!

Good note Roger, I wasn't aware of the simultaneous recording capability to two cards. Thank you.

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Friends,

We had a Canon C300 in a lab for months.

I will check if we still have it, so we can run some tests.