nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

I'm setting off on my first foray with the Canon C300 tomorrow and thought it might be a good chance to see how it plays with my nanoFlash (currently running v.1.6.248.) Thus far I've not gotten the two machines to shake hands as the nano doesn't seem to recognize the C300's HD/SDI output. Has anyone else played with this at all?

best,

Stephen McCarthy
Director of Photography
Boston

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Hello Stephen,

What do you have the HD-SDI output set for 1080p24? 1080p29.97?

Also do your have the Overlay or OSD on? on the SDI out?

Best Regards

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Hi Andy,

I've got the data overlay switched off for the SDI out although it's still visible in the onboard viewfinder. The camera is set for 24fps although when I plugged it into a TVLogic monitor to confirm that signal from the BNC cable the screen flashed 60i momentarily so I suspect it may be outputting an interlaced signal. If that seems a likely culprit I can dig deeper in Canon's literature to see about changing settings.

best,

Stephen

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Dear Stephen,

The nanoFlash will definitely work with the Canon C300.

We had one for months and have used the nanoFlash with it very successfully.

Do you have the HD-SDI output on the C300 turned on?

On Page 129 of the manual, you will need to set the following:

Video Setup|SDI Output| set to HD.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Hi Dan,

I think the problem may have something to do with my being in "true" 24P mode rather than one of the NTSC categories. Just had a look at page 55 of manual after looking at tables on p.127. Will play with that and let you know results.

Stephen

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

It seems that, despite getting a solid image out to the monitor, the problem may have been my BNC pigtail. I switched to a full length 25' BNC and the nanoFlash latched right on. Will shoot some tests later this evening and let you know if I have any more questions but thanks to both of you for jumping in with your characteristic speed! Any thoughts on your own experiences with C300/nano combo? Still getting my head around 8-bit but I guess there's a lot to get my head around in general.

best,

Stephen

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Dear Stephen,

Please do not under-estimate 8-Bit or the nanoFlash. This is over 10 million colors and it is highly unlikely that you will ever see any banding.

The Canon C300 can produce some amazing images and the nanoFlash can take the image quality further.

I have sent you an email with all of my phone numbers in case you want assistance, any time, 24/7.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Thanks as always. Hope your time in the chair is short and uneventful.

best,

S

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Hi there,

While there's no question that technically the NanoFlash will work with the C300, I would have to question why you feel the need to use the NanoFlash at all?

I realise you can crank the bitrate up much higher than the 50Mbps limit on the internal recorder in the C300 but I wonder what shooting situation you feel you need a higher data rate for?

In our experience 50Mbit is 'good enough' for almost all situations except arguably green screen or VFX.

Regards

Dave

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Dear Dave,

While we have not done exhaustive analysis, our team shot some footage with the C300 + nanoFlash at 180 Mbps Long-GOP, and we were just amazed at the amount of detail in the images.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Dan:

I'm interested in this camera and recorder combo and would love to have you elaborate on this. When you say that you and your team were amazed at the amount of detail, are you saying that there were quantifiable differences in the images that were recorded on the Nanoflash vs the internal recording? And that it manifested as additional information in detail?

I'm going to be shooting tests with the C300, F3 and Alexa shortly and will be also testing outboard recorders, so this is all useful to me. I had mentally "moved on" from 8-bit to 10-bit, but recently had a bit of a shocker when I learned that all flavors of XDCAM were 8-bit, after posting multiple episodes of a series in a DaVinci bay. We had pushed and pulled the footage this way and that, with power windows and keys and all the usual goodies and none of us including the longtime colorist had any indication that the footage was "thin" in any way. I detailed my reasons for recording the F3 to XDCAM in another thread, but that decision had come as an emergency measure and I hadn't used that workflow before but after learning that several other shows were using it albeit from the Alexa (Community, Happy Endings), I agreed. Bottom line--I concur with Dan that 8-bit is not the pariah that its made out to be these days.

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.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Dear Charles,

We were testing the Canon C300 in December.

We had one of 35 C35's at the time.

At this moment, we do not have a C35, but we expect this to change very soon.

I am check to see if we can post any stills or videos from our tests.
I know that we shot some greenscreen footage internally and at 180 Mbps I-Frame Only on the nanoFlash.
I am attempting to get that footage now.

We do plan on running some serious tests in the near future.



I hope you will be including a Gemini 4:4:4 in your upcoming tests. We expect to release our ARRIRAW in March, which allows one to capture all of the image quality from the Alexa.

When recording using anything but an ARRIRAW recorder, one does not obtain all of the image quality from the Alexa. It may be "Good Enough" and it may be "Very Good", but it is not the best.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Why use a NanoFlash on the C300?

Well there is no advantage to using a 10 bit recorder as any recording will still be 8 bit due to the 8 bit output.

The NanoFlash uses the same media as the C300.

At 50Mb/s the C300 codec can struggle with lots of in frame motion. Things like leaves blowing in the wind, ripples on water can make the codec struggle. This can manifest itself as visible artefacts or a less obvious increase in quantisation noise, which degrades the ability to grade the material.

At 80Mb/s or more it is no longer simply "good enough". It is excellent.

At 100 Mb/s the NanoFlash files do offer a reduction in quantisation noise over the C300's 50Mb/s (I tested this today). Given the clean, very low noise output from the C300 this gives you a highly gradable image, even though it is "only" 8 bit.

You may want to record low bit rate proxies.

You may want 100% compatibility with the XDCAM optical disc system as used by many broadcasters worldwide.

I think the C300 and NanoFlash are a match made in electronic heaven.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Charles,
I believe that the Canon C300 can record to both cards in the camera simultaneously. It cuts down on the amount of recording time you would have but gives you a backup immediately. One of the nice features of this camera.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

I fully agree! I see the point of making a dual recording, but however good the nanoFlash may be, an external recorder and cables must be seen as a point of failure - as evidenced by Stephens comment about the BNC lead above.

Is the 50Mbs codec the ultimate? The answer must be "no", but as more and more people are finding out, it's very, very good. It does have full broadcast approval for acquisition. It's a case of where lines get drawn.

It follows on that better must be obtainable - but I can't help feeling that once you start to spend more and more money, where do you stop? I tend to think I'd want some sort of RAW acquisition, where 10 or more bit depth does make a difference. Often it's a question of whether equipment hits a sweet spot or falls between stools. In the case of the C300 I think much of the appeal is that it gives a s35 sensor in a fairly small basic package, which is broadcast acceptable out of the box, and at a price point that wouldn't have seemed possible a year a so ago. That's why I think it hits the sweet spot.

A nanoFlash may improve technical quality a little - but is the price and complexity worth it?

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

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.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

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.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

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.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

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.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

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.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Dear Richard,

XXIT was shot for the Canon C300 launch.

Part of this was VFX, part C300.

Here is a link:


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

Re: nanoFlash with Canon 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.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

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.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

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...

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

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

Good times.


Broatch
Venice, CA

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

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 !!!

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

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.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

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

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

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

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

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.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Eager to look at the results. I hope we are enlightened with diff when recorded at all available compression settings & with details rather than an on the fly reporting.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

I have a C300 arriving tomorrow. And look forward at times to use my Nano with the camera. There are times when I shoot in poor light, fast subjects, or will grade a bunch, and the Nano helps me have the bits to solve the problem.

Today we shot a big client in nasty gray light and very gray on gray on water conditions with my EX3. Yes I shot to the cards and also I shot on my Nano knowing it was critical client and I can say at 100 Mb/s 422 long GOP it came out great. Look forward to this when needed on the C300.

Thanks CD

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Sounds good!

Well, as it turns out I'm probably going to shift from a Nanoflash to a Gemini soon, so if anyone is in the market for the former, let me know!

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Hey Charles! Greetings from Boston,

I just checked back to this forum and was surprised to be reminded that I'd started this thread all those months ago. I've now had my C300 out for about 45 days of shooting since taking delivery back on "Leap Day" at the end of Feb. Much of that work has had the C300 paired with the nanoFlash tucked neatly into the rear of a Redrock Ultracage Blue just forward of an Anton-Bauer battery plate. I find that the nanoFlash gives me the redundancy that you describe and it also performs what I've found to be another useful function for some of my archive-heavy, long-form PBS projects. Most of these are shooting 24P but because there's so much NTSC archive material they're often staying in a 59.94 editing timeline. Recording the SDI out of the 300 WITHOUT 3:2 pull-down removal gives us a version of the camera original with 24 "over" 60P (actually 23.98-over-59.94) which is not an option with the camera's progressive-only recorder. The .mxf files from both recorders seem to get along very nicely with one another in Avid. The nanoFlash is the only reliable, stand-alone recorder I've found thus far which fits into this rig which, with the addition of a Zacuto handgrip re-locator on the front rods, has pretty much the profile of an Arri SR or my beloved Aaton XTR. I just finished the initial shoot of an on-going project where we paired the C300 with a NEX-FS700 feeding high speed footage to a Gemini and I'm getting raves back from the cutting room in London although I don't think they were quite prepared for the sheer volume of the Gemini files. Thankfully the on-board AVCHD recorder on the 700 makes for a less intimidating off-line proxy for those. Hope you are well. I catch your work often.

best,

Stephen McCarthy

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

I checked with Andy, our Lab Manager.

He did run tests on the C300 with the nanoFlash.

He is searching for those files now.

We no longer have a C300 in our lab, but we do have a C500, which we can run in the C300 mode, which should yield the same results.

As soon as we have the files, we will post them for you.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

I just finished a job where we shot with the Canon C300 recording internally and also recorded externally to the nanoflash set at 100mbs MXF. The editor claimed that when he examined the nanoflash footage on the Vvid it identified it as still shot at 50mbs, and he couldn't perceive any difference between it and the footage shot on the camera. Any idea what is going on here?

MT

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Dear Mark,

If you set the nanoFlash to record at 100 Mbps (100 Megabits per second), then you will actually get 100 Mbps.

But, we will identify in the file header that it is 50 Mbps.

We do this so that the Non-Linear Editors, such as Sony Vegas, Final Cut Pro, Adobe and others will recognize our footage as Sony XDCam 4:2:2 footage.

The NLE will use all 100 Mbps.

50 Mbps footage can be good.

But, for some shots the difference between 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps can be obvious.

100 Mbps gives the codec the luxury of handing motion in the scene, motion in the camera, and lots of detail in the scene without problems.

A quick comparison between 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps, depending on the footage my not reveal any differences.

I hope this helps.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

"The NLE will use all 100 Mbps"

Thanks Dan for that answer. I have been wondering about this for some time. I could see the difference in fast moving footage and detailed footage such as blowing grasses and leaves as well as welding sparks and metalizing spray. But the footage was always labeled at 50 even though I know we shot at 100.

Your answer confirmed what I was thinking. It also confirmed that I should not just shoot in 50 data rate because the NLE (CS6) "just downconverts from the 100 data rate anyway". Good to hear that the NLE IS actually using the data rate set on the nanoFlash and flashXDR (remember those babies ; >}

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

The real difference comes when grading 100 vs 50. Simply due to the fact that there\'s more data, you can push the grade further with 100 than with 50.

Re: nanoFlash with Canon C300?
 

Dan
I\'m still having trouble.conving my editor that the c300 outputs more than 50 Mbps. Are you going to post the results of your. C300 tests ?