kedbear
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Posts posted by kedbear
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The Alexa shows a slight edge in detail retention in the highlights, looking at +4 examples, the alexa advantage is 1/2-ish stop, and they have the same smooth roll-ff aesthetic, while the C300 has quite a marked advantage in the shadows/lowlight with at least 2 stops, Alexa is noisy. C300II seems to have more or at least similar DR to the much, much more expensive alexa and weapon.
It's clear from the test the Alexa has more than a 'slight edge' in the highlights. The highlight retention of the C300 from this test looks like the F55. Is it good? Yeah not bad. Is it like the Alexa? No. The Alexa does not even start to blow at +5! Look at the shirt of the guy in the frame.
The C300MKII has been tested to show noise that is not as nice as the Alexa. The Alexa has a much more natural monochromatic noise that is grain like, and does not exibit the noise as early as the C300MKII.
I think once more tests come out it will be clear that Canon were not accurate with their 15 stop claim. Still, it's a decent enough camera that i'm sure will make some great pictures, like the C300 did for Blue Ruin. Will it replace the Alexa for Cinematographers who can choose? No.
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I don't know what you're seeing, I see a smooth completely stepless highlight rolloff from +1 to +5 exposure, just like the roll-off blooming effect of the Alexa XT, and the C300II is giving a significantly more robust images at -5 than the Alexa. I can't see how it could be less than 14 stops like the F55/F65/Alexa/Varicam and even 15 if we do a strictly technical test including the shadow retention. The C500 has full 12 stops and it looks horrible in DR vs the C300II, having at least two full highlight stops and at least one stop of shadow retention. Note this is not just a DR test, but colour science, skin, noise levels, noise pattern, green screen keying, and highlight & shadow rendition, all of which the C300 excelled at, just like the much more expensive F55, F65, Alexa, Varicam, with negligble differences between them both ways.
All the testers are rating it for 14 stops, so I believe that extra stop will depend on how acceptable the shadow noise level is.
BTW the Varicam looks to me like the best image in the world of digital filmmaking in that test. Just f\&££ing gorgeous
I wish they hadn't screwed up the FS7 settings as it's important to see how it looks vs the C300.
I don't understand. The C300MKII is blowing out in a sharp roll off manner at +5. The Alexa isn't even blowing at all. How can they possibly be seen as the same?
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Well no. The Cinema5D DR test is incorrect, they rate the 5D H.264 to have more DR vs. the C300, which invalidates their methodology.
All the other testers confirm the 15 stops of DR and top-end image. I trust more Geoff Boyle in CML and Philip Bloom and this visual test from Radiant Images clearly showing the C300II to have identical alexa DR (14) with a bit more shadow detail, 15 stop sounds accurate. The highlight roll-off and rendition is strangely also alexa-like, while the C500 looks absolutely terrible. Lots of emphasis was clearly put on this in the C300II design. This test is the way to asses DR not Trick Shot (where the Director/DP stated he clipped highlights and shadows on purpose but the 15 stops were exactly available on the waveform)Ok so just got to the C300MKII highlight test and it's nothing like the Alexa. It's clearly blowing out and does not have the highlight roll off, so i am confused what you are seeing, but it's definitely NOT 15 stops DR. The Alexa appears to have a significant amount of highlight retention over the C300 MKII. On the Alexa test it wasn't even blowing at +5, the C300 was horrible at +5. The Lowlight of the C300MKII doesn't look anywhere near as nice either. I'd say Cinema 5D have got it right.
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Well no. The Cinema5D DR test is incorrect, they rate the 5D H.264 to have more DR vs. the C300, which invalidates their methodology.
All the other testers confirm the 15 stops of DR and top-end image. I trust more Geoff Boyle in CML and Philip Bloom and this visual test from Radiant Images clearly showing the C300II to have identical alexa DR (14) with a bit more shadow detail, 15 stop sounds accurate. The highlight roll-off and rendition is strangely also alexa-like, while the C500 looks absolutely terrible. Lots of emphasis was clearly put on this in the C300II design. This test is the way to asses DR not Trick Shot (where the Director/DP stated he clipped highlights and shadows on purpose but the 15 stops were exactly available on the waveform)If this is the case then i stand corrected. Going to watch that link. Seen the first 1 min and it already looks like an amazing test.
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We still have NO comparison between alexa and C300 mkii under the same environment. Until then, any conclusions one is superior/inferior to the other are merely baseless predictions.
So, in support of what i felt could clearly be seen in that early C300 MKII short film 'Trick Shot', when the camera is tested it does in fact have much less dynamic range than claimed. 12.3 stops according to Cinema 5D...
https://***URL not allowed***/canon-c300-mark-ii-review-dynamic-range/
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I never said they are the "same", I just said "they look bad". Actually they look worse then the C300mkII shortfilm.
Everything featuring a lightsource looks really bad. Episode 4 had some really ugly highlights. If you think those look "good" then I am seriously questioning your skills as a human being / internet expert.
Now I'll just wait for Kedbear to come rushing in and say how much better the highlights are on that second shot and claim "I'm a pro!".
So you use a frame from a shot where there are squibs exploding in fractions of a second as an example of bad highlights? Are you joking?
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I was watching Daredevil the series from Netflix and this thread sprang to mind. Why? Well because it has pretty horrible highlights. It's graded into a pretty stylistic looking show though and I think it looks awesome but I could just imagine kedbear going bonkers if he saw it. And they shot it with the Red Dragon.
The highlights in Daredevil look nothing like the C300MKII short film. The fact you have used it as an example would lead me to question your analysis of rolloff.
Some people here seem to believe that because you can cut a C300 into an Alexa the cameras are basically equal? If you actually shot and tested both you would soon discover that is far from the case.
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I've had to intercut Canon and Alexa footage and it can be shockingly seamless. It's done on a lot of high end shows (Rush, Wolf of Wall Street, Need for Speed, tons of tv and surprisingly it's the Canon on the jib/crane getting the wide and the Alexas picking off coverage... only no one realizes that the shots aren't Alexa). But it sure takes a lot of work and you have to use the Canon either for close ups, low light, or low dynamic range portions of the image or expose more carefully because the Alexa just cleans up in terms of highlight roll off and rolling shutter reduction, though not much else. I'm also ashamed to admit that the best footage I've shot has been on the C100 (and some decent Epic stuff) and some of the worst footage I've shot was on the Alexa. But between the two cameras, the Alexa is SO MUCH better as regards IQ and the ergonomics are a miracle if you're transitioning from 35mm (not from dSLR).
The C300 Mk II sample video does look troublingly awful, though.
Canon's choice to go 8.7 under and 6.3 over (was it?) really bothers me. I was assuming they'd go for 6.7 under and 8.3 over (the Alexa is 7/7) when I learned about the C300 Mk II well before NAB. I think there will be a lot of C300 Mk II footage that looks so good we assume it's Alexa footage (and fwiw that video doesn't look that great to my eye, so obviously it's all about taste!) and you can redistribute your DR a lot better with a 10 bit codec than an 8 bit one and the "looks" designed to match other cameras will make this thing sell. Canon's roll-off doesn't oversaturate like SLOG2, but it's not quite Alexa.
Blue Ruin was made by a lot of my friends. And I think it looks better than the video you mentioned, which has a cool anamorphic look and not much as regards composition or purpose and the lighting is very "broad strokes." Oddly enough, their mantra was more "camera doesn't matter, look doesn't matter, story matters" and yet it's the best-looking C300 feature I've seen. Really talented group of just awesome people!
I don't think you could shoot Skyfall on a C300, though. Canon is a little plasticky and digital, though the look is excellent overall and the overall ergonomics/workflow make it very attractive at the low-end professional segment. I anticipate the C300 Mk will be the best of the best overall below Alexa (with the Dragon, which is great, cleaning up when you have the light to feed that hungry beast, but not under challenging conditions....), but the Alexa is the gold standard for a reason.
That said, if your work looks worse than the video you've mentioned, and you have the budget to work at that level, camera isn't what's holding you back.
I've had to cut c300 in with Alexa and it looked really bad, the image fell apart under the 8bit codec, the colour information simply isn't there. I imagine the c500 which as you point out was used on Wolf of Wall Street etc was far better due to the external raw output.
I Think blue ruin is strong from a storytelling perspective and the cinematography was very good, you could say it was better than the video I mentioned, but the c300 can't do the look of the 'collider' music video. It just falls apart and doesn't have the organic feel of that Alexa image.
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Yes, that is my suggestion. There are loads of deluded DoP's out there with very weird ideas about what constitutes image quality in a camera. They can still make a great looking image though. Claiming that you can see from a graded image what camera is which is just bonkers. Did you ever see the Zacuto shootout? It was quite difficult to tell certain cameras apart especially when no one told you before hand.
You've been saying two specifics things. 1) Over sharpened. You can turn sharpening down on a C300, you can also disable it completely (of course, that means you have to dig into the menus). The image is also 720p on vimeo and the sharpening can come from grading and rescaling (Premiere sharpens with default settings for example) 2) Highlight roll of. You say this several times. Lets take a look at the first shot of the film. It looks badly graded. It looks like someone took some curves adjustments and whomped them up and called it a day. Like every post you've made has been about "highlight roll-of". Yes Alexa has good highlight roll-of but come on now. Is that the only thing your looking at because it does sound like it?
Did you even look at the behind the scenes where you can clearly see that those highlights are not burned in, but they did it in grading?
Tell that to Roger Deakins.
I did see the zacuto shoot out, I thought the Alexa stuck out. A lot of the mid range cameras looked very alike. I'm sorry but if you think the c300 mkII looks great and comparable to an Alexa that's fine, however for me I can tell immediately that it isn't. The sharpness, the roll off, the motion, the noise, the colours, the overall organic 'feel' of the image simply isn't as attractive to my eyes as the Alexa, and still bears the c300 mkI family of 'look'. There is a reason the Alexa is the most used digital camera in the industry. Can you get great images out of lower end cameras? Of course, I think 'Blue Ruin' showed that. Can the c300 look like the 'collider' music video for Jon Hopkins. No.
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Hey kedbear- I get your point regarding the Alexa and its ability to create a great image more easily than the F55 and many other cameras- that's why it's so popular. In the clip which matches the F55 to the Alexa, can you select frames which show the highlight roll off being poor on the F55 and not on the Alexa, describing which area/pixels are having the issue?
Hi jcs. There is no issue in your example, because the lighting has been controlled, favouring the DR of the f55. Start increasing the power of the backlight and it would be a different story. My point is a controlled test such as the one you posted does not show much apart from that the f55 has a Lut that gets it close colour wise to the alexa's rec709.
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You have access to the 4K files? Nice, the rest of us only saw a 720p version, compressed to YouTube... What about the behind the scenes video, where they clearly demonstrate insane levels of DR in the highlights? What about the part of the video where they said they graded it to fit the heist genre?
Put simply, when you have one 720p video that has been heavily graded to suit one colourist's style, you would be crazy to use that as anything close to a definitive idea of what that camera can do.
I do wonder if Canon/Blackmagic had accidentally uploaded the wrong video to each of their accounts... Would some here have claimed the opposite video was better, due to some pre-existing idea of what they think will be wrong with Canon/BM footage
Ok watched the behind the scenes. The BTS video does demonstrate good DR. However, i can't for the life of me understand why on earth it would be graded so that there's a nasty highlight roll off, it just looks bad. The idea that it fits a heist genre doesn't hold water for me at all. You don't see anything like that in The Town for example amongst many many others. I can't help but suspect something fishy/odd is going on. Anyway, taking DR out of it and the colouring style, i still find the footage videoey. Of course, it's way better than many cameras, but amongst the Epic and Alexa i don't think it has the 'feel' to the image. Lets see when the camera arrives i guess...
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A direct comparison is helpful- here the Sony F55 matches (or exceeds) the Alexa:
The above example is not designed to push the cameras. Having shot both of these cameras I can tell
you the highlight roll off of the f55 is poor. The LUT helps match the colours (though the colours are still visibly different in the above example) but the two images still feel different, even moreso when watched on a big screen without vimeo compression.
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But you are comparing them like you have shot both. You haven't. You are comparing an imagined benchmark (if you have indeed shot with the Alexa, you have not shot it in the same environment, with the same color grader). In this benchmark the Alexa is super smooth and retains all highlight details. Then you compare it to a graded C300mkII video that was shot with another crew who may have added sharpening and even burned highlights in the grade.
You may not need it, but I need straight on benchmarks. I read a lot of computer articles (benchmarks with different GPU's etc) and I never assume that one CPU/GPU is better than another if someone plays a completely different game with different settings on and doesn't do a straight up comparisons. Science trumps feeling.
Imagine how ridiculous it would be that when Nvidia releases a new graphics card, I would just say "I've used the newest Radeon and it has better anisotropic filtering because of this clip I saw from youtube". That would just be insane.
So basically the suggestion is that a person with experience, even a top class DoP, can't possibly form any opinion of the camera from watching something shot with it in a real world scenario. The only way is to shoot the exact same shot with two cameras and then grade them the same?
Why do you presume the way that you assess a camera is the only way it can be done? Do you have experience shootng with high end cameras? There are people out there with enough experience to be able to assess the basic quality of a camera from watching it's footage. I personally would wager that the c300mkii has the hallmarks of v1. Poor highlight roll off and overly sharp with a videoy feel.
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No you are not because there are no straight comparison shots with Alexa right there. You are using a "mental image" of the perfect image of Alexa as a benchmark, not actual reality.
I don't need direct comparison with the Alexa. I have shot with the Alexa multiple times and that forms the basis of my comparison, not an imagined benchmark. The idea that you need to see direct comparison from one camera to another in order to form an opinion is one that can only come from somebody not familiar with these cameras. The highlight roll off on the c300 mkII sucks, the over sharpened image feels like video. If you like that look fine.
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I think these kinds of comments are wrong and just show how much the writer doesn't know what makes a cinematic image.
Yes, the video was Not That Good but you completely forget that these cameras are tools. If you light a bit shitty and grade it with your left hand, it will look like it. An Alexa would not save you. Or it might if you like the milky image the Alexa gives you right away, but usually those are graded too and you can mess that. A contrasty, saturated look is "videoey" and if the makers don't know what aspects constitute a "cinematic" image then they won't achieve it.
This doesn't just apply to the C300mkII but every single camera that comes out. There are shortfilms done with a t6i that look more "cinematic" than that video.
I am perfectly capable of assessing an image and deciding whether i like it or not irrespective of lighting. Gale clearly knows what a cinematic image is and that's not in question here. He didn't light it badly, i'm not judging the camera on that at all. There are plenty of saturated and contrasty films that look cinematic.
The camera has a nasty highlight rolloff, that's plainly obvious from this video. It has a video feel like the C300 MK1. If you disagree fine. I'm assessing this camera with the Alexa as a benchmark and it isn't close, i was hoping it would be.
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You have no idea what you're talking about, any kid with a DSLR can film an event and claim it as something, lets be realistic here.
There's NOTHING special about what you have in any of your videos, just descent enthusiast projects. Now for the working class who really get paid to work I suggest you sit back and relax, you might learn something......
My problem is people who don't even make a living in this industry commenting all day claiming this camera this and this camera that, lets be realistic here and start respecting working professionals in this industry.
I am a working professional. The highlights on the camera have a nasty roll off, it's plain as day. The camera has a videoey look like the C300. It depends on what your aesthetics are regarding a cinematic image, at the moment this camera doesn't fulfil mine.
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There are some shots in there that look great, the outdoor shots are beautiful. Yes, the indoor shots are not lit perfectly and I guess the idea was to show off the DR, but I have no doubt this camera is the real deal (Same with the Ursa 4.6k)
Fantastic options. If I can scrape the cash, i'll probably opt for the C300 II..... NDs, size and DR throughout the ISO range are a big deal to me. If the maths don't add up though, Ursa mini will be mine!
But it's plain to see the dynamic range isn't there. The highlight roll off and latitude is bad.
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The C300 Mark ll is not going to let anyone down.
2015/2016 Camera of the Year.
Book it.
Unfortunately it has let down anyone hoping it would have an image close to the alexa. The dynamic range is clearly exaggerated. Highlight roll off is nasty and the overall image is videoey judging by the recent video. Again, great cam for corporate and doco but cinematic? No.
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I disagree 100% on your negatives , footage looked great, love the "film like grade" and framing looked great. Would love to see some of your work for comparison.....
*Dynamic Range looks INSANE!!!!!!!
This does not look film like at all. This video makes it clear that the new c300 still has video look and the dynamic range is clearly exaggerated. The highlight roll off is nasty. Dissapointing. Nowhere near alexa level. Will still be a great corporate and doc camera but for cinematic stuff no.
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Looks interesting. Really not sure how anyone can deduce that this will look better than the Alexa just because it is 8K. How is resolution going to make the image more cinematic? That has been disproven time and again by the Alexa. Along with many other elements that make up the Alexa's image, one of the most powerful things is the highlight rolloff, which no camera out there has currently been able to replicate. We'll have to wait and see if the Weapon gets close.
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I wouldn't choose film, it would slow me down too much.
I wouldn't even choose a large complex cinema camera like the Alexa, again too slow.
I want to be nimble enough to get the spontaneous unplanned moments. I think it's vital and makes a much bigger difference to the end result than overall image quality.
Anamorphic on the other hand, makes digital look far more film like and organic. I would take that, but I wouldn't go so far as shooting film.
The Sony F35 and Digital Bolex proves that digital can ape the look of film very closely indeed. The F66 and Alexa shows that too.
I find the difference minimal at best now. Thus, those clamouring to save it are vastly overrating it and forgetting about the advantages digital brings to a shoot, creatively.
F35 looks like film? You have to be joking. Honestly this latest article comes across as really arrogant. Why?
Directors 'clamouring' to save it are 'vastly overrating and forgetting'. Tell that to hoyte van hoytema, a wonderful cinematographer who clearly chooses film for many projects because it LOOKS DIFFERENT! Not because of some romantic notion. Why do you have so little respect for these artists? How much have you shot 35mm film? Film isn't slow to use, one of it's great benefits is it's FASTER not slower. I haven't yet seen a digital movie with the look of The assassination of Jesse james, or The Master. If you can point me to a single digitally shot movie that looks like these please do but until then the fact is that film looks different.
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i don't think it looks like 'video'. but it certainly doesnt look like film either. The look pretty much gave me a feeling of moving still images, stylised in a fashion suitable for the current sportswear marketing style. This look will be coming from the lenses, in combination with the full frame image area - both of which are the stable diet of still photographers working on this type of material for big brands the world over. Set the same equipment up for video work and when done superbly like this, with a really nice lighting style i think it works really nice for this type of promo.
The fact that this looks as technically good as if it had been shot on Alexa (thanks to the amazing raw hack), but using a non cinema camera and lenses other than cookes or zeiss cinema lenses the obviousness of the repurposed still photography equipment will be boosted due to the rest of the production value being of a level which normally would include an alexa and cookes.
It's an aesthetic thing i guess. To me it looks videoey, like a C300. This doesn't look like an Alexa at all to me, burnt highlights being particularly un Alexa like. The MKIII Raw also looks nice, i just wonder if this has been overly sharpened. Or, perhaps it's just bad web compression!
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Was sharpness added? Nice ideas in the lighting especially at the end, though not a fan of the hard light close up at 3sec with burnt out shoulder, or overall pinky/magenta skin tones. the cu at 3sec is that a hard light fill, or is that a kino just not reacting well to slightly sweaty skin, either way MKIII not reacting to it well, which makes me wonder if that's exacerbated by some post sharpening. Has a videoey quality trying to work out where that's come from.
Canon C300 Mark II - $15,999 4K camera
In: Cameras
Posted
I don't see the same colour as Alexa, higher resolution is of little benefit compared to the open gate mode the Alexa already gives, and the dynamic range is not as good, particularly in the highlights which do not roll off like the Alexa. Which professional film uses AF, hardly worth putting that in there as a bonus. The c300MKII from everything i've seen is not as pleasing as the Alexa. I think more tests and shooting will make this clear. To each their own i guess. Anyway, i look forward to seeing more and using the C300MKII, but i won't be choosing it over Alexa anytime soon whenever i have the choice, not least for the organic image the Alexa gives.