DSLRs are all the rage lately for video production. Yes, they can produce great images, and benefit from all the lenses available to your DSLR. However, their limitations on length of a shoot and the possibility of overheating make them a challenge.
However, several manufacturers are producing what I like to think of as a hybrid—combining some of the advantages of DSLRs with more of a video camera form factor. Canon's C100 EOS cinema camera is one of the newer kids on the block, and I've had the pleasure of playing with it for the past few weeks.
OVERVIEW
The C100 comes with no lens, but is designed to use the standard EOS EF and EF-S lenses. It uses the same ~4K Super 35mm CMOS sensor and image processor as its C300 big brother, processing four pixels of data down to one to get the 1,920x1,080 capture size. The camera records on SDHC and SDXC flash memory cards, and uses the AVC/H.264 codec. The camera will record at a maximum 24 Mbps data rate, which helps with low-compression-artifact video. Two SD slots are available, and relay recording (which automatically switches from a full card to the second card) is supported.
Recording options include 1,920x1,080, in 24 Mbps (variable frame rate) or 17 Mbps (VFR); and 1,440x1,080 at 7 Mbps. Frame rates include 60i; 50i, 30p; 25p; and 24p.
A flip-up LCD screen is mounted to the back of the camera body, a deviation from the traditional side-mounted LCD screens. A small viewfinder is also at the top of the back. All the usual camera controls are placed around the camera body, and the menu system is quite similar to the Canon XF300 menu system, which, being a XF300 owner, I appreciate. Missing are controls for lens zoom, which makes sense given it uses EF lenses that don't provide for electronic control over zoom.
Both a built-in stereo mic as well as two professional XLR inputs with phantom power are built into the top camera handle, and a side handle that is rotatable around the horizontal axis provides a DSLR-esque support system as well.
IN THE FIELD
As an EOS camera user, I already had a selection of EF lenses to play with. I primarily used my Tamron 24-70mm f2.8 and my Canon 70-200 f2.8L lenses in the evaluation.
RIGHT OFF THE BAT, ONE NOTICES THE DEPTH OF FIELD OF THE C100. IT’S BEAUTIFULLY SHALLOW, AND PRODUCES SOME WONDERFUL RESULTS….
Right off the bat, one notices the depth of field of the C100. It's beautifully shallow, and produces some wonderful results. The shallow depth of field, however, even at higher F-stops, can make this a challenging camera to use. Whereas your typical video camcorder (like my XF300), even at lower F-stop values, has a depth of field with some wiggle room if your subject is moving around, you have to really be on your toes with the C100. With the iris of my 70-200 wide open and the camera zoomed in, the depth of field is a few inches at closer range, and a few feet at a distance. On my 24-70, it's maybe 6-12 inches when zoomed in. So, riding the focus with even a small amount of forward or backward motion is critical.
As the C100 does not support continuous autofocus, one has no choice but to focus manually (which is generally the way to go in most circumstances anyway). I found that a follow-focus mechanism with a whip to bring the focus control of the lens back to the handles of the tripod was a necessity. There is an autofocus button on the front of the camera body which will autofocus the lens even when shooting, however, autofocus with this camera works a lot like on a DSLR—it's very jumpy, often taking the picture way out of focus before it comes back into focus. So, this isn't a feasible feature to use while shooting unless you know you'll be cutting away to some other shot in post at that point.
My first experiment with the camera was a challenging one: a music promoter I work with was playing with one of his client bands at a local pub the day after our review unit arrived, so a friend of mine, videographer Joe Barta, and I took it in to shoot the band. As one might expect, lighting was designed for minimal front white lighting for the needs of the pub, and not at all for video. In addition, some of the lights were out, leaving the keyboard player almost completely in the dark, ambient room lighting.
When we examined the footage the next day, the images were pretty impressive. Even the footage of the keyboard player, where we needed to crank the gain way up, came out really nice, with little to no noise in the image.
The camera also has a log-gamma mode, where the visual dynamic range is compressed, enabling you to capture a much wider range of lighting. Shooting a sunrise in this way resulted in some great images.
The color capture of the sensor is also excellent—shooting an afternoon sky gave a beautiful deep blue that I'd normally expect to obtain only with a filter.
The LCD monitor worked well, but the rear position of the LCD panel was a little awkward, and had more limited positioning options. For example, you couldn't flip it around to face forward to assist with self-framing a shot from the front. However, this is meant to be a cinema camera, not an ENG camera, so features that would facilitate a one-person shoot of themselves wouldn't be a high priority.
The side-handle can rotate completely around its axis, letting you position it best for your grip whether you're shooting way down low, or holding it up high over your head.
One thing that's noticeably absent is the ability to over-crank the camera, or shoot the standard 720p60fps HD format. Being able to get higher frame-rate footage and then slow it down to project frame rates for the purpose of smooth slow-motion effects is used often, and I'm disappointed that some form of 60fps isn't available.
I primarily shoot in 30fps progressive, and so used that format when working with this camera. When we first brought the footage into Adobe Premiere, we noticed some strange aliasing artifacts that looked suspiciously like interlacing artifacts. A little research provided an explanation. For some reason, Canon chose a rather odd way to encode its progressive footage—it's actually mapped onto an interlaced format, so Premiere was trying to interpret the footage as interlaced. Once Premiere was told to interpret the footage as progressive, everything looked great. It's a little annoying, however, to have to remember to do this.
The built-in two-, four- and six-stop ND filters worked well, and both battery life and shoot-time-capacity (using 32 GB SDHC cards) is excellent, giving several hours of shooting ability on battery.
For doing event work, it would be beneficial to use another follow-focus assembly with a second whip to bring zoom operation back to the handles, or simply use a true studio kit with the camera.
The ability to take almost any EF or EF-S lens is wonderful. Since I already own several nice lenses for my Canon DSLR, the ability to use all those lenses with this camera for no additional investment is a nice stewardship solution. And being a Canon camera body, it supports the all-electronic iris control of Canon EF lenses, something that other cameras that support EF lenses can lack.
Canon includes several video scope tools built-in to the camera, such as a vector scope, histogram or RGB parade. The histogram, in particular, I like [for achieving] a far better idea of image exposure instead of trying to rely on zebra bars.
And zebra bars are also available, as well as focus assist through edge illumination (called peaking). With peaking active, any hard edges that are in focus will glow a user-selectable color (I prefer red). This makes maintaining focus while shooting a moving target much easier.
Audio capture worked quite well from both an external shotgun mic as well as from the internal mics. In fact, the band we shot at the pub sounded better on the recording from the built-in mics than they did in person. The camera will allow you to set levels manually with controls on the top handle, or let the camera ride them automatically.
SUMMARY
The C100 is a video camera with excellent low-light performance, great dynamic range compression when needed, and it makes beautiful pictures. It is definitely geared more toward pre-production work than ENG/event work, although those are certainly possible with this camera. For shooting promos, sermon illustration videos, or movies, it's an excellent choice—as long as you can live without over-crank capability. Their rather odd implementation of progressive footage is my only other complaint; it would be nice if Canon picked a format that an NLE would immediately recognize as progressive.
