HockeyFan12

In my experience, Red is very generous with its ratings. The MX was rated very high, but I remember in practice it had about one stop less DR than the C300 (which is a more recent sensor design, so it makes sense) when I used it, which in turn had two to three stops less DR than the Alexa. Then the Dragon was noisier in the shadows than the MX but had more highlight detail, still trailing the Alexa by a lot. That was the original OLPF, I think they switched it up. For the time it was pretty good, but today's mirrorless cameras have more DR than the MX ever did. Dragon looks great exposed to the left, though. Good tonality. Recently, Red's gotten a lot better. My friends who've used the Gemini think it's just great. Super clean, good resolution, great DR, too.
I've found CML does really good tests that correlate closely with real world use:
https://cinematography.net/CineRant/2018/07/30/personal-comments-on-the-2018-cml-camera-evaluations/
They give the Gemini half a stop less than the Alexa–not bad. They also post Vimeo links, where you can see skin tones, etc. Venice looks awesome.
Not sure about the Alexa and Amira being any different. Same sensor design and both to me seem leagues beyond anything else I've used. Not just best DR but best tonality and texture and color in the highlights. I remember that the original Alexa had worse performance than the Alexa Mini (pretty subtle, but it was there) and Arri confirmed that they did little tweaks that push the newer models to 15+ stops. But that should favor the Amira, if anything. In my experience the Amira is just as good as the Mini, though, 15+ stops. I think Cinema5D changed their testing methodology so their results are inconsistent, and they've always seemed pretty careless to me.
 

This book is very old and only covers the very very basics, but I believe it's the most well-established text on the subject, or was when I purchased it:
https://www.amazon.com/Color-Correction-Handbook-Professional-Techniques-ebook/dp/B004KKXNTQ
It's more a theoretical and aesthetic approach than a technical one. I should dig up my old copy.
I think on the technical side, the Ripple tutorial is well-regarded. 

I shot 6x7 for a while... I found the look similar to a wide open Otus on FF, I'd guess? Good micro contrast, a surprising lack of aberrations, low amounts of grain (for film), shallow depth of field. Look for Hasselblad 500 photos on Flickr for reference. Or the Revenant has that look, but highly processed. I really liked it. The lenses split the difference between super sharp and vintage, and have a lot of depth and micro-contrast to their rendering. A lack of aberrations and very sharp (overall, not per given mm) but also good contrast and unfussy bokeh due to simpler designs with fewer air to glass surfaces and less exotic glass.
I found I needed much more light in order to get enough depth of field and to get the right shutter speed (on film I used the reciprocal rule, which doesn't quite hold up on digital, but which disadvantages longer focal lengths needed for the same FOV on MF). It's not great for photojournalism, better for studio work. Hasselblads were popular for fashion. Okay for landscape and architectural/real estate, but you really want a tech camera for that stuff to get lens movements and that gets $$$.
There's no magic to MF, though, particularly on digital where the sensors are much much smaller than they are on film, and barely larger than full frame. MFDB are often 33mmX44mm; by contrast, Fuji Rangefinders were nearly 60mmX90mm of film. Just think one step beyond FF but without a lot of lenses available. 
If you shoot a lot of fashion or high end portraiture, I think you'l like the look a lot. Another big advantage is the leaf shutter, which syncs to higher shutter speeds (I think, forget the details) and is also much lighter. So despite the massive film plane, the shutter has very little mass, like a rangefinder. 

I know, I've worked on a few Netflix shows, as I mentioned before, and even mixed in a limited amount of footage from 1080p sources. However, they do limit the amount of footage from those cameras. I was just guessing that the OP had a show he was pitching to Netflix or that Netflix had just green lit and he wanted to shoot in a more handheld/verité style and he was doing research to see if he could pitch using a crash cam as an A cam, maybe a sort of Blair Witch style thing or something closer to Crank. But in that case I'd look at the Venice as an A cam and maybe a bunch of GH5s for B cams–or just talking with Netflix directly instead of randos like us on a message board. 
They're flexible, but not that flexible. They can and will say no, even to the biggest names. I remember there was one feature where the director wanted to use an Alexa and was forced to use an Alexa65 to meet their standards. Which doesn't seem like a compromise, but I'm sure it added to the budget and made some camera moves more difficult. Regardless, it wasn't his first choice. Netflix is flexible, but they still take the 4k native thing really seriously, and they're putting up the money. If you get a show there you can try it, but I would have a back up plan (Hulu?).

Fair enough. I suppose he didn't mention his circumstances so either one of us could be right, but I wouldn't assume just because you're working with low budgets so is he. I'm just saying, other than this one thing I happened to work on, I haven't heard of a series being picked up as a Netflix original that wasn't shot specifically as an original. And the irony there is this series was shot in 1080p! So I definitely wouldn't recommend shooting a series hoping for Netflix to acquire it as an original since it's exceptionally rare, and I especially wouldn't recommend letting that dictate the camera you use. Having a good cast and IP will help more.
To me going with Netflix standards seems a little arbitrary anyway. 98% of features and tv are still finished on 2k and most of that is Alexa. And all of that is still eligible for Netflix licensing under their normal (non-original series) terms. If I could afford an Alexa for a production, I would never rule it out just because Netflix does for the content they produce themselves. Netflix also released its recommended post requirements and the only vfx suite they include is After Effects. And they don't include FCPX for editing or Nucoda for finishing. What if I want to work in Nuke and FCPX and finish in Nucoda? (I don't, but what if I did?)
The fact that they even publish these requirements publicly seems weird to me, like a marketing ploy of some sort. But maybe I'm just frustrated I'm not at the level where I can pitch to Netflix and I'm still mostly making personal projects on spec.

Fair enough! I certainly don't have access to that kind of money either. I'm just confused why someone would be concerned with requirements for Netflix originals unless they were already in talks with Netflix and were looking for recommendations from lower-budget filmmakers for crash cams or smaller cameras, etc.

Wild guess: the mount could be a more extreme version of EF-S: same backward-compatible mount, but a special pin to prevent forward-compatibility. And then lenses with the RF mount are allowed to have a much deeper rear element, but it won't butt up against the mirror on a dSLR because it can't be mounted on one despite the superficially similar mount and forward-compatibility of the RF, due to the pin...
With the new lenses, the rear elements can go much deeper, so the rear element needs to be protected, so there's a deeper plastic ring extending around the rear element, and the lens caps are much deeper, too, to accommodate it. But otherwise it's the same basic shape of the EF mount. Telephoto lenses etc. will never be RF, because they don't need to be. Rear lens caps will not be interchangeable, but RF lens caps will mount on EF lenses, they'll just also extend too far.
Wild guess: RF stands for rangefinder, or something similar is implied.
Would be nice to see this mount on the FF 6k C300 Mk III when it's released in mid-September. (Another wild guess.)
Hoping that'll knock down the price of the C200. ? 

I feel the opposite way, the Mavic Pro 2 HQ clips with sharpening at 0 look better than any consumer drone footage I've seen by far. Whereas even the clips posted above with +1 sharpening look more like over-sharpened consumer drone video to me, but still very good. The unsharpened log clips look much more like a cinema camera to me, though (then again, most 4k cinema cameras are very soft per-pixel, except maybe the F65). Overall, I think the Mavic Pro 2 HQ mode looks way better than any previous Phantom or Mavic or consumer drone, with tonality that resembles the Inspire raw footage (but nowhere near as sharp). But it's just my opinion. I was hoping not to like the footage since I don't need a drone, but now I'm looking at how I can afford one...
I'm guessing the sharpening setting will be able to fix things for you to your liking,  though but I also think mosquito noise and aliasing look a lot like sharpness and this seems to have less of both. (Just like how the 5D Mark II looks sharper than the 5D Mark III because of aliasing and noise, and imo it does look better in some cases.) For a super sharp image, maybe this isn't the right drone, but you could buy another Mavic Air if that's the case. That said, it looks sharper than an Alexa Mini, and the Alexa Mini drone footage in the Revenant intercut with Alexa 65 fine and looked fine from the front row, so I'll take it. .
But yes, compared with the older consumer drones and Inspire, it looks softer to me, too, but with much better tonality, which should mean it can take more sharpening without falling apart. Just a matter of taste whether the sharpening is something you want. I suspect in-camera sharpening will help get toward the image quality you want, and/or sharpening in post, or just using a higher contrast grade. I wouldn't give up on it yet!

I have more experience with the Mk I than Mk II (a lot more) but the low light on the Mk I is outstanding and I understand it's much better on the Mk II (due to more in-camera NR). If you expose properly and boost your ISO rather than trying to underexpose and push the footage in post, which is a mess with AVCHD, you'll have a usable image up to 20,000 ISO and a great image up to 4000-5000 ISO. So I would say a massive improvement over a Canon dSLR, but still significantly worse than an A7S for low light (where I would consider an f4 zoom fast enough). The A7S is much cleaner at extreme ISOs but smudges color more so it's a bit subjective which is preferable in medium low light, but I think the A7S is pretty clearly the extreme low light king.
I think you could get by with the 24-105mm, but I never found the 24-105mm great (granted, I was using it on FF) and I find the 18-135mm USM with the rocker zoom a lot better for crop. Constant aperture is less of an advantage if there's no rocker zoom, AF is worse, and it's not parfocal, so I wouldn't dwell on the one-stop advantage on the long end. If you have access to the 18-135mm and to the 24-70mm f4 IS, you're more than good for slow zooms imo.
I had two 17-55mm f2.8 IS lenses, but sold both. They're very useful but a bit old, not optically up to the latest. We put one up against a $50k Angenieux zoom and the Angenieux was much much better, but by f4 it was close enough. I think the newer Canon zooms would compete better. But I still slightly preferred its image to the 24-105mm. The  24-70mm f2.8 is also good zoom range to complement the 70-200mm and adequately fast, but poor for small spaces and terrible for real estate; I used the version one on a C100 and I liked it, but it could have gone wider. For me the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8, a 50mm f1.8, and the 70-200 zoom make a great kit, but you have to be okay with swapping lenses. For documentary use or short form narrative I'd say that's an ideal kit, but for videography or news the 18-135mm Nano USM is far preferable. But imo the 24-105mm feels redundant with, and generally worse than, the superb 18-135mm Nano USM (I just sold one but I loved it while I had it, though I found the zoom rocker really cheap). 
If you have the money and don't need wide angle, the 24-70mm f2.8 Mk II is sick and might be the lens that spends the most time on your camera. Great image. Haven't used one myself but worked with someone who had one and was really impressed with the images and ergonomics. Can't vouch for the AF, though. Lack of IS is not a big deal with it since it doesn't go that long. I remember I rented out my 18-35mm Sigma as part of a kit and the DP refused to use it and went with the 24-70mm f2.8 II IS instead. I think the image is even better with the 24-70mm than with the Sigma, but both of those are outstanding lenses and the trade offs between them will depend on personal preference and brand loyalty. The Canon has better build quality, though, will last much longer imo.
I'd wait on a new lens until you're familiar with the camera. 

Wish I could afford either. ?
There's some sample footage here:
https://www.tomstechtime.com/dronefootage
I already linked to the Mavic footage, but that link forwards to clips from the Phantom 4 and other cameras, too.
The Phantom 4 Pro looks much sharper than the Mavic Pro 2 footage but it has sharpening artifacts and thin tonality. Looks bad to me by comparison. I suspect it's not a full pixel readout/downscale, or if it is then it's a low quality one. But preferences vary.
To me, the Mavic looks dramatically better–like night and day. Difference between a (low end) cinema camera and dSLR as far as tonality and color are concerned. Still don't love the way green is rendered, too yellow, but it has a much better look to me overall, though preferences will vary.

I have more experience with the Mk I than Mk II (a lot more) but the low light on the Mk I is outstanding and I understand it's much better on the Mk II (due to more in-camera NR). If you expose properly and boost your ISO rather than trying to underexpose and push the footage in post, which is a mess with AVCHD, you'll have a usable image up to 20,000 ISO and a great image up to 4000-5000 ISO. So I would say a massive improvement over a Canon dSLR, but still significantly worse than an A7S for low light (where I would consider an f4 zoom fast enough). The A7S is much cleaner at extreme ISOs but smudges color more so it's a bit subjective which is preferable in medium low light, but I think the A7S is pretty clearly the extreme low light king.
I think you could get by with the 24-105mm, but I never found the 24-105mm great (granted, I was using it on FF) and I find the 18-135mm USM with the rocker zoom a lot better for crop. Constant aperture is less of an advantage if there's no rocker zoom, AF is worse, and it's not parfocal, so I wouldn't dwell on the one-stop advantage on the long end. If you have access to the 18-135mm and to the 24-70mm f4 IS, you're more than good for slow zooms imo.
I had two 17-55mm f2.8 IS lenses, but sold both. They're very useful but a bit old, not optically up to the latest. We put one up against a $50k Angenieux zoom and the Angenieux was much much better, but by f4 it was close enough. I think the newer Canon zooms would compete better. But I still slightly preferred its image to the 24-105mm. The  24-70mm f2.8 is also good zoom range to complement the 70-200mm and adequately fast, but poor for small spaces and terrible for real estate; I used the version one on a C100 and I liked it, but it could have gone wider. For me the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8, a 50mm f1.8, and the 70-200 zoom make a great kit, but you have to be okay with swapping lenses. For documentary use or short form narrative I'd say that's an ideal kit, but for videography or news the 18-135mm Nano USM is far preferable. But imo the 24-105mm feels redundant with, and generally worse than, the superb 18-135mm Nano USM (I just sold one but I loved it while I had it, though I found the zoom rocker really cheap). 
If you have the money and don't need wide angle, the 24-70mm f2.8 Mk II is sick and might be the lens that spends the most time on your camera. Great image. Haven't used one myself but worked with someone who had one and was really impressed with the images and ergonomics. Can't vouch for the AF, though. Lack of IS is not a big deal with it since it doesn't go that long. I remember I rented out my 18-35mm Sigma as part of a kit and the DP refused to use it and went with the 24-70mm f2.8 II IS instead. I think the image is even better with the 24-70mm than with the Sigma, but both of those are outstanding lenses and the trade offs between them will depend on personal preference and brand loyalty. The Canon has better build quality, though, will last much longer imo.
I'd wait on a new lens until you're familiar with the camera. 

What lenses were you using with the C100? In my experience the output is dramatically sharper than any Canon dSLR, and sharper than downscaled 4k Red to 1080p or Alexa 1080p... (not as sharp as 3.2k or 4k when upscaled, though). Absolute night and day difference, same with dramatically better lack of aliasing, better color, incredible battery life, better low light (even than the 5D III raw, which is also much softer than the C100 with less DR) etc. Better sensor than the Red MX, imo, and a half stop better dynamic range, just a much worse codec. (Dragon sensor is another story–better than either except for low light.) I'm not trying to call your experience with it into question, but I'd make sure you were using good lens samples and exposing properly if you got those results since it's far from my experience with the camera. (And I've shot it extensively as a b camera next to the C300, F5, Red MX, BMCC, Amira, Alexa, new Varicam, etc. and a lot of that footage ended up on tv, including tier one cable and I think even Netflix, where it intercut seamlessly.)
While it's my absolute favorite camera for the money, I still basically agree that it's not going to offer much over the 80D for web shooters. Yes, you get a much much better image with far more dynamic range and better tonality, but for most clients, either image is good enough and for those clients who require something really good... most of them don't want AVCHD and do want timecode sync. And the external recorders are a PITA and the lack of timecode sync sucks. I had to use them then sync with plural eyes and I can't stand them and can't stand plural eyes, either. 
So I agree with your sentiment, but not your experience. I suspect the lenses you were using with the C100 were faulty (shoddy adapter resulting in incorrect focus marks or something) in some way if those were your experiences.
I do agree that the Mk II is too long in the tooth to command its current price, but I find the Mk 1 to be an absolute steal at $2k. Personally, I would look to the C200, except it lacks proper timecode sync, too, so maybe I'd look to the FS7, but by then you're getting a quite large camera and quite expensive. ?
Of course I disagree respectfully, just trying to offer my own experience. But I'm stumped re: your experience with sharpness and DR as it does not mirror my own at all. I also find the neutral NDs to be a godsend, even if the strongest one isn't strong enough. Never had any luck with ND faders (color shift and the cross polarization messes with skin specularity) and even IRNDs have color shift, so I'm a big fan of internal NDs. Same with the ergonomic improvements and video features (waveform monitor, focus peaking, etc.)–indispensable. 
But the EVF is unusable and lack of slow motion is very ten years ago. I agree there. I'm not saying it's the right camera for the OP, just that its sharpness is stellar and I didn't share any of your ergonomic complaints except the EVF.

It looks very underexposed to me but I wasn't there. And I haven't seen the ungraded image so I can't say. I found my light meter correlates pretty well with the C100 and C300's internal meters in Canon Log 1, and produces results similar to what Canon's white papers would predict, but that does result in a significantly darker image than most people shoot, and I wasn't very scientific about things at all. Pro DPs have informed me my meter (758 cine) might as well be junk, and the pros either use Pentax digital spot meters or Spectras.
Regardless, it matched pretty well, but I found myself underexposing significantly more than online sample footage.
Looking at Canon's white papers:
https://learn.usa.canon.com/app/pdfs/white_papers/White_Paper_Clog_optoelectronic.pdf (page 6)
The original C300 has a 5.3/6.7 over/under at base ISO (850) in Canon Log. So 5.3 stops in the highlights, 6.7 in the shadows.
The C300 Mk II (and C200, presumably) has an over/under of 6.3/8.7 in Canon Log 2 (at ISO 800):

So it gains a stop in the highlights, and gains two stops in the shadows. Not sure I buy it. The C300 seemed to have 12 stops for real, but the C200 doesn't seem to have 15 stops for real...
Arri Log has a 7.4/6.6 over/under, at 800 ISO on the Alexa Classic:

I don't trust that either. The Alexa Mini in my experience has FAR more highlight and shadow detail than that would indicate, and Arri's newer charts show 7.8 stops over at 800 ISO (and internally but not publicly Arri rate the Alexa Mini's sensor at 15+ stops, not 14+ stops–even 15+ seems conservative to me.) I'd guess 7.8/8+ for the Alexa Mini based on my experience with it, and with a more aesthetically clean noise pattern than the C200. That said, the Alexa has very noisy shadows, much like the C200, and much noisier than non-cinema cameras with noise reduction or highly compressed codecs like dSLRs, and possibly noisier than would be acceptable to most on this forum, especially at 3200K.
Based on what I've seen online (tests at CML), the C200 at base appears to have 1.5 stops less highlight detail than the Alexa Mini at base, but shadow detail is similar, which correlates with the numbers above. And based on my own experience shooting with the Alexa Classic and C300, this seems pretty consistent with that.
What I'm getting at, is when you rate the C200 two stops slower to get cleaner shadows, you might get more shadow detail but you're moving your over/under to 4.3/10.7. That's 3.5 stops less highlight detail than the Alexa Mini, which is the gold standard, and which still has far less highlight detail than 5219.
I know this is all complicated/unscientific since I'm trying to dig up random figures online from sources that get them in different ways and I also think Arri is super conservative on their shadow detail numbers, so I'm throwing my own bias into it. But for me, a 4.3 over seems about accurate for the C200 overexposed two stops or shot at 200 ISO and for me it's unacceptable. I know there are DPs who can light their way around this limitation, and many on this board do all the time, but I'm not one of them. I mostly work in post, for me this is hard!
I think it's also a matter of taste. Online, it seems there's a big aversion to digital noise. Whereas with film, grain was an aesthetic choice, and it doesn't really bother me, and it seems to be less of a concern on the tv shows and features I've worked on because those are being viewed in theaters or on tv, not being pixel-peeped. I'm a bit old school and come from a film background so for me I would probably just rate at 800 ISO or 640 ISO rather than ETTR, and embrace the noisy shadows, while realizing the C200's image is too noisy for most at base ISO. And definitely noisier than I wish it were.
Pick your poison I guess. For me, I'll take highlight detail over clean shadows, and I can't think of anything else other than the EVA1 maybe that would work for me.
That said, what you posted looks much more underexposed than I'd expect. I wish my meter were better calibrated and my lenses had t-stops rather than f-stops so I could investigate this myself in a way that might be useful to others, but I don't want to spread any misinformation online if I can avoid it. So while I plan to get my hands on a C200 and see how it works when I meter it with my 758cine, I'd rather not draw conclusions for others based on that experience, as I am biased and my equipment improperly calibrated for meaningful tests.
But you've inspired me to run my own tests to figure out how I'll meter in the future, since it's all internally consistent within my inconsistent ecosystem at least.  
Thanks for the measurements on the screen. Looks like the Kinotehnik loupes will be a bit too small.  The Hoodman loupes are much worse but their 4" riser might work and still be cheap.

But we can afford ND grads, which aren't perfect but can do a pretty good job.

Thanks, very interesting. In theory that should work almost exactly as an incident meter would (though with the limitation that whatever's facing the camera is lit by whatever source is hitting it frontally, so a bit trickier to meter for some lighting set ups that aren't front-lit, but if anything that would likely promote overexposure).
Are there zebras or false color for RAW clipping or just for CLOG3? I supposed the clipping point might overlap, so maybe either way would work. I wouldn't need a spot meter at all if I had false color, but I'm not talented enough to light without an incident meter.
I would personally expect a much brighter image than what you posted if the footage were exposed with an incident meter at key (or a gray card at key, same result), so perhaps overexposing a bit is a good idea. I do remember from my days shooting slide film I'd try to get the darkest part of the sky at 18% gray to get a vivid sunset, in which case everything else would be a black silhouette in lighting similar to what you posted. But I also noticed with the Sony F5 that 2000 ISO base was really more like 1000-1200 ISO and if you exposed that way you had a ton of DR, double what slide film had at least; the A7S also benefits from a stop or two pull (imo). I'm not a big ETTR fan because I think it changes the color of some objects and can cause banding with some codecs, but it does seem like a good idea with digital cameras to overexpose a bit, and the more experienced members of this forum all advocate ETTR.
5000 ISO maximum would be similar to the C500. I do think the C200 appears to have very noisy shadows, likely noisier than the C500 and certainly with a different (imo worse) texture.
 

Where'd you get such a good price? $6k US is about my cutoff so I would have jumped on that, too.
And Jeez... I might switch to FCPX. How good is its integration with After Effects and Resolve? I don't use dynamic link (I export to After Effects manually) so dynamic link isn't an advantage to me, but I'd want to be able to render out/export 4k 444 ProRes in Canon Log 2 without a LUT and then ingest that into a timeline that's otherwise raw light and edit online in raw light. Amazed to hear it's real time on an older machine... maybe I won't need to upgrade after all.  
Then again I don't even really need 4k, but the extra highlight dynamic range on this and 60p seem nice...
Or how is the online/offline workflow in FCPX?
I've used the 18-35mm on a C100 and a C300 and I noticed that, compared with the 17-55mm f2.8 IS (of which I think I had two copies) the image is shakier when using the viewfinder, and significantly. But if you rig up a shoulder rig (I love the Shape offset rig, not the standard one, but the offset one, though you need a loupe for the viewfinder imo) and balance it okay.... I think the 18-35mm is great handheld and even lenses up to 135mm are fine without IS. Most ops I know prefer not to use any IS at all and instead rely on shoulder rigs, but I have to admit the 55-250mm STM for instance is magic and rarely glitches out or misbehaves enough to ruin a shot, while being stable enough to use without any rig at all (not the case without IS).

Thanks. I like how the skin tones look. 

Nice work.
Were you also the DP? I noticed these are very noisy, but that's not a surprise with a Canon. 
They seem to be exposed traditionally, as film would usually be exposed, rather than exposed to the right as digital often is. The most experienced shooters on this forum usually prefer ETTR with digital (and it's proven to work well with the Red Dragon, which is also very noisy), but I'm stuck in my old ways.
I was curious how you or your DP exposed these. What ISO in camera, what ISO he rated the camera at. 800/800? Exposed through the camera's meter? Or with an incident meter (generally how I still work)? They look good, but are also exposed differently from most C200 clips I've seen, which usually look overexposed, so I wanted to ask. Thanks.
Just waiting on a price drop and I think I'm going to buy one of these cameras. 

I've been trying to shy away from controversial opinions, and this isn't going to help. Apologies in advance–everyone's opinion is there own.
But what do people make of this test:
(Forgive me if it's already been posted.)
Am I the only one who prefers the C100's colors? (And thinks the +5 sharpening on the C200 looks terrible (like video)?)
C200 still looks great. Fwiw, I also prefer the C500's skin rendering to the Alexa's (see Shane Hurlbut's tests to get an idea what I mean). And the C200 looks like it's trying to be an Alexa-style camera in terms of look (just like the FS7), so no surprise. The C300 had darker skin tones, it exposed that color less brightly and more warm yellow less magenta.
Just wondering if I'm crazy. What do others think? I might have a bias. But the C100 color looks so much better to me at 3:30 and the sharpness is not night and day.
Deciding between these two for a shoot... well, maybe or maybe not. Just thinking about it now. I'm normally a 4k naysayer (I like soft, for me JFK and War of the Worlds–very soft looking images are my favorite, but I know that's passé, but I did think Black Panther was sharp enough despite the 2k DCP) but now I'm thinking why don't I try something new.

Disney is a corporation. If they think it'll help their shareholders to fire someone with negative PR, they're compelled to fire someone with negative PR. Guardians of the Galaxy is a kids' movie and they don't want edgy content associated with that brand. How could they not fire Gunn?
YouTube is a corporation. If they think it'll help their shareholders to "shadowban" neonazis, they're compelled to "shadowban" neonazis. YouTube is an advertising company and they don't want advertisers associated with neonazis. How could they not demonetize holocaust denial videos?
(I'm not drawing any equivalency between the two, just examining two distinct and understandable phenomena that are eliciting similar outrage from opposite ends of the political spectrum.)
The govt protects free speech in the US, but Disney and YouTube/Google have no duty whatsoever to protect what their vendors say or do. They're private corporations. It's Disney and Google's free speech being protected when they're allowed to jettison whomever they want at a moment's notice. This is the system working well.
Imo (and this is purely subjective because a lot of people are very happy with the direction the country's taking) what's broken is the culture. It's the culture that gets politicians elected and it's the culture that dictates what's considered a fireable offense in a corporate environment. It's the culture that leads to most YouTube personalities being trolls and sociopaths in the first place (which is maybe why Alex Jones doesn't even seem that bad as online content goes), and why more and more politicians and political surrogates are taking similar tactics. It's the culture that leads to CNN broadcasting 24/7 negative Trump coverage. That's what gets ratings. Ratings make money. (Trump at least understands this.) It's the culture that leads Colbert's ratings to go way up when he starts viciously attacking the right. It's the culture that feeds Alex Jones millions when he starts demonizing the left.
The political and corporate machines are functioning. (I have some strong complaints here but unrelated to that article and specifically relating to policy.) Culture isn't. The solution isn't complaining about the "other side" from one side of the aisle; they're doing the same thing about you from their own echo chamber. It's the same mechanics at play that lead to stupid arguments about gear, ironically. Sony echo chamber. Canon echo chamber... with very few movies being made by those whose primary medium is online outrage...
The solution isn't complaining about what's wrong; it's doing what's right. If enough people want to actually boycott Marvel that Disney is forced to re-hire James Gunn, maybe they'll re-hire James Gunn. But until that number of people is larger than the number of people who are grossed out by his comments, they will have made the right choice as a private corporation in firing him and the govt will have maintained the right choice in protecting Disney's right to fire him.
Fwiw, I do think we're at a cultural nadir. Most blockbusters are terrible. This wasn't true 15 years ago. But it's up to the market to determine what gets made and what doesn't. Who gets fired and who doesn't. Disney fired Gunn because they were afraid to offend people (on the right). That alienates some filmmakers and some progressives. PC culture exists to prevent offending people (on the left). That alienates some conservatives. It's a fear of being offended that's driving this cultural divide. Free speech is not under attack on either side; our threshold for offense is just pathetically weak. That's the scary part: we actually do have the power to fix things and we aren't. 
I personally disagree with Disney's actions. I don't blame Disney... it's making them money.
I personally disagree even more strongly with Cernovich. I do blame him for his rhetoric, while also understanding it's making him a ton of money, too. But everything he's said and done (except for any criminal charges against him, I haven't researched those) are within his right to say and to do. And demonizing him for his politics is just going to have the same kind divisive and polarizing result criticizing Gunn's tweets will... it will feed him. Same as the Russia investigation is increasing loyalty among Trump supporters because it makes him look like a victim of the "deep state" or whatever. The other side isn't the problem. The divide between us is.

I’m in the minority, I love the CX00 series, so I’m a biased.
But while I can agree with most of the complaints against them, including poor highlight dynamic range (relative to A7S/A7RII, FS7, etc. where there's about one stop missing in the highlights–not relative to mirrorless or dSLR, where they're still excellent) and thin codec, sharpness isn’t one. What settings did you have when you were using the C100 Mk II that led to a soft image when you used it? Perhaps it was the lens or underexposure or something else?
Imo, that series still has the sharpest out of the box 1080p image I’ve ever seen, sharper than Alexa 2k or downscaled Red MX (and I've intercut the three in the same scene before). I think because it’s exactly 2x oversampled without being downsampled it’s razor sharp since there's no loss of sharpness in the downsampling algorithm, but I also think it has a thin AA filter on top of that because the C500 is sharper at 4k than you’d expect, and aliases where the Red MX doesn't. (Not necessarily good.) The cinema lock mode on the C300 has most sharpening disabled and is still razor sharp, sharper at 1080p than 2k Alexa , which has always been sharp enough for me, and is plenty sharp enough for theaters.
But the rest is outdated, particularly the codec, and I agree it isn't the best deal for the price based on image alone. I'm just surprised you found sharpness to be the big problem with this camera. But otherwise I agree it's long in the tooth.
To the OP, I would rent and try it out. We all have different needs. Personally I would also look elsewhere on the basis of technical image quality alone, which is the concern of most on this forum (either spend less or spend more for best price/performance) because the AVCHD codec is a bit thin for pushing things hard in the grade, and it has a three-frame GOP (group of pictures, not the party) where you can get ghosting artifacts in the shadows or desaturation for dark scenes or very high contrast scenes that fill the full 12 stops. But the ergonomics are great for an owner/op (bad for traditional production where you have two ACs)... so it might be a good doc camera and the basic look is great imo, the basic look of Canon Log is pretty baked in and requires less grading but has great skin tones and proper chroma rolloff (most dSLRS don't, though GH5 does), which makes up for the thin codec a bit, assuming you like the look.
Not trying to start a flame war or big argument, just offer my opinion. Sharpness is the one area (despite the 1080p resolution) where I found the original C-series cameras to be rock solid, so just offering a difference of opinion. DPs I work with recommend using light diffusion filters on them when interacting with Alexa, in fact.
I've been working lately on content graded by Technicolor, the Mill, and Company 3 and sharing stories with others who sit in there and haven't heard anything from them in the way of using post sharpening with any camera–and that includes a piece shot on the AF100–so I'm confused about why it's brought up so often on this forum. But again I'm not a colorist, just offering a differing opinion, that's just that–an opinion. No one's is more right or might wrong. If you're producing content for 4k tv displays specifically, that's different from Technicolor producing 2k for a theatrical DCP, and so in that case Technicolor's opinion might be wrong. Just offering my perspective. 
To the OP, I recommend trying the camera out. I love the C-series the best of anything and recently considering a C100 Mk II but decided otherwise. The price/performance on the C100 Mk II is not good from a technical perspective in today's market so I'd go downmarket (original C100 is nice, GH5 is nice) or upmarket (FS7) unless it very specifically fits your needs. That said, sharpness isn't the concern I would have with that camera, I always tended toward using diffusion filters or vintage lenses with it to intercut with the Alexa at 2k, in fact.

I don't like external recorders much from an ease of use perspective, but you don't have to convince me when it comes to the image being very nice and there are circumstances where the external recorder helps. It's weird since it varies between shots it seems if it helps a lot or a little.
 A stop more highlight detail would be nice, but it's still leagues ahead of any dSLR I've used, and not too far behind an A7S. At $1999, I think the original is a steal. 

I don't like external recorders much from an ease of use perspective, but you don't have to convince me when it comes to the image being very nice and there are circumstances where the external recorder helps. It's weird since it varies between shots it seems if it helps a lot or a little.
 A stop more highlight detail would be nice, but it's still leagues ahead of any dSLR I've used, and not too far behind an A7S. At $1999, I think the original is a steal. 

There's a much bigger audience online, but, as you're probably learning quickly, people aren't always as nice!
So the first question is who your audience is. (Online? Festival? Broad? Niche?) The second question is what your goal is with that audience. (Are you doing spec work to get hired to direct at somewhere like Buzzfeed? Trying to build a following for your own unique brand online? Trying to find like-minded creatives to work with or for? Trying to get a technical/craft job or exclusively writer/director?)
The bigger your audience, the more you'll have to stoop to the lowest common denominator. Look at YouTube stars like Pewdiepie and Jake Paul; that's the image of a successful online filmmaker. If your work doesn't resemble that, maybe don't go that route. If you want to direct spec ads, imitate ads and apply to production companies. If you want to direct at Buzzfeed, imitate Buzzfeed videos and apply at Buzzfeed. If you want to go to film school, submit according to the application process. 
But the more niche your voice/its potential audience, the harder it will be to find the audience and the harder it will be to monetize. But also, the more creative freedom you'll have, and hopefully the longer your brand will persist. (There are a few niche web series I love. They don't seem to make much money, but one of them has been around ten years now.)
But even finding your audience is sort of irrelevant unless you're great at marketing.
A family friend used to sell roles in his high school movies to finance them. I think he's now running one of the largest YouTube empires and is making seven figures. Ditto a friend of mine used to sell DVDs and now he runs a very successful corporate video production company. They changed audiences, but their strong sales skills remained. Ultimately it's the same marketing and promotional skills that worked in person that later worked online, and it's more the marketing than the filmmaking that gets you in the door, and then the filmmaking talent that sustains the success. I don't know if I have any talent with video, I hope I do! But I know I don't have much with marketing, or at least I'm uncomfortable with it due to low self-esteem. :/ And frankly not really liking a lot of online content these days or even a lot of theatrical films as much as I used to.
So I won't even be attempting what they did, but my audience is different anyway. We all have different audiences, or maybe we have many audiences for our different projects. I might be doing spec work rather than making a YouTube channel, or I might be applying to festivals... or even getting a PA or low-level job at a company that makes my favorite work just to meet the right people there. Or I had another idea that maybe someone might watch on YouTube. But a letter never goes anywhere if you don't know who to mail it to. If you just want to be internet famous, be a sociopath on YouTube. If you're inspired by a director you really love, reach out to him or her. If you feel you appreciate his or her work better than others, try to work for him or her. Be stubborn about it. Track your heroes down. Find their email. Ask every month to be a PA on a set of theirs. Travel to where they live for an interview. Then hand them that DVD (or script, or Vimeo link) in person. That's your audience of one. This actually works. Regardless of specific tactic (it all depends what you want personally), know your audience and what they want. Your audience might be one person. If you're doing a fan film it might be Marvel fans. If you're doing a camera vlog it might be camera fans. If it's something new... risky, but go for it. Plenty of different approaches depending on your audience. But know them. And know yourself.
Even the festival scene, which is somewhere in the middle of those two options, is all about marketing. I have friends who've gotten into nearly all the top ten festivals and the trick is they're part of that social network and they really really push hard with their applications, even hiring people to promote their films. The other trick is that once you get into a top ten festival, other festivals will ask to program you. The whole festival scene is a bit of a farce, but the farce is simply the disconnect between how they market and what the truth is. Big festivals need content to match their brand, so they're fairly conservative. Even if your brand is "edgy" you have to stay on brand, so it's a conservative approach to edgy. Small festivals need films that played big festivals, so they're even more conservative! (But knowing programmers personally–the DVD route, so the speak, matters here. And I was surprised to learn that a short at a major festival attracts more attention from a talent agency than a Vimeo staff pick and by far.)
The other really sneaky thing is that a lot of the most successful Vimeo videos are actually made with assistance from larger production companies or agencies or post houses, but are marketed as very guerrilla. This isn't always the case, some stories are true, but don't believe everything you read online. (Certainly don't believe me. If I knew what I were saying, I would be working now–not posting this!) But internet platforms aren't all they promise to be; that promise is just the marketing by YouTube and Vimeo to get you to produce content for them so that they can monetize it. The success stories of online filmmakers are their marketing. And they're very good at marketing. And you're their audience. So if you haven't had a lot of success online, maybe try a different route? 
The one thing NOT to believe is that if your work is creative and unique and great others will discover that and flock to you. I saw one of your videos and you have a good voice and should keep doing what you're doing, or exploring what you want to do next, whether it's more of the same or something new. Probably the most original voice I've seen on this forum, but this forum seems mostly to be about image quality and specs. I've seen more creative voices at Slamdance and SXSW and Sundance and Rooftop, for instance. (No offense, perhaps they're just more developed. and I have friends who pay the bills doing corporate and then make really wild and awesome festival films–so you can be interested in both markets for sure.) 
But the idea that people online will immediately recognize what you have to offer and leap to make more of it is a very myopic view. Look at Spielberg's first spec film, it's not a personal story. It's more an example of visual talent and competency. His creative voice developed after he got in the door directing TV. I think Eraserhead is the only example I can think of of a really outsider voice nailing its first landing. People see Jake Paul succeed and assume everyone should see their work and judge it better because of what an asshole Jake Paul is, but that's not how it works. Jake Paul is a genius at what he does. What he does is just act like a high school bully. The Kardashians are geniuses at what they do. But what they do is appeal to lowest common denominator, which is also the biggest audience there is. Don't judge them based on their audience; find a different one.
I'm on time out here for posting incorrect technical information, which I again apologize for. And I feel like I'll probably get some pushback for a lot of the above being factually incorrect; I expect a lot of it is, and I wouldn't take my advice if I were you, since I'm just an anonymous guy online. So take it with a grain of salt. But I do think knowing your audience, knowing how to market your work to them, and knowing how to meet them halfway is crucial. The first thing film schools do is to "normalize" your voice. They look for creative voices then tone them down and improve production value so those voices are tolerable to the other students and faculty and then eventually to festivals. (Although a lot of film schools aren't worth the money, so if you aren't rich, consider that they're also marketing their wares to you and want you to think they're gonna do things for you that maybe they can't. Some are good. But be wary and make sure you apply to the right ones if you do, and you definitely don't have to.) All media are social media, so look at your relationship with your audience as a relationship with a person (or cohort...), whether you make it a real personal relationship (selling DVDs, pursuing your favorite director or production company) or a virtual one. I think maybe this forum isn't the right audience for you (or for me) if we're trying to get into festivals, for instance. If I knew more technical stuff, it might be better for me. Different values. For instance, I have a lot of friends who've gotten into top ten festivals recently with 1080p/2k films, but here I keep getting reminded I need 4k. Both can be true, just for different audiences. (To be fair, some of those were shot at higher resolutions and delivered at 2k DCP... I ate my words once and I'll keep chewing.)
But the festival route is really hard and really slow. (Like filmmaking used to be!) And online feedback is really fast and comes with instant gratification. I don't know if the festival route is right for me, I don't know if anything is, if I even have the talent, or if I do, if there's an audience for it. But I think the replies you're receiving in this thread speak to a disconnect between what you're making and your audience's expectations. (Not to be rude.) So I'd give that some thought. Removed from your current outlets, what are your goals as a filmmaker? Who are your favorite filmmakers? If you could make anything and show it to one person what would it be and who would you show it to?
That's the trick. You're marketing yourself to get into a festival/get YouTube famous/work for your favorite director or at your favorite company. But they're also marketing toward you so you watch their content and believe in their brands. And marketing isn't about the audience or the creator exclusively, it's where the two meet. Know yourself. Know your audience. Meet halfway. 
But also take everything online (including this) with a grain of salt. Online relationships are rarely worth as much as those in person.
 

There's a much bigger audience online, but, as you're probably learning quickly, people aren't always as nice!
So the first question is who your audience is. (Online? Festival? Broad? Niche?) The second question is what your goal is with that audience. (Are you doing spec work to get hired to direct at somewhere like Buzzfeed? Trying to build a following for your own unique brand online? Trying to find like-minded creatives to work with or for? Trying to get a technical/craft job or exclusively writer/director?)
The bigger your audience, the more you'll have to stoop to the lowest common denominator. Look at YouTube stars like Pewdiepie and Jake Paul; that's the image of a successful online filmmaker. If your work doesn't resemble that, maybe don't go that route. If you want to direct spec ads, imitate ads and apply to production companies. If you want to direct at Buzzfeed, imitate Buzzfeed videos and apply at Buzzfeed. If you want to go to film school, submit according to the application process. 
But the more niche your voice/its potential audience, the harder it will be to find the audience and the harder it will be to monetize. But also, the more creative freedom you'll have, and hopefully the longer your brand will persist. (There are a few niche web series I love. They don't seem to make much money, but one of them has been around ten years now.)
But even finding your audience is sort of irrelevant unless you're great at marketing.
A family friend used to sell roles in his high school movies to finance them. I think he's now running one of the largest YouTube empires and is making seven figures. Ditto a friend of mine used to sell DVDs and now he runs a very successful corporate video production company. They changed audiences, but their strong sales skills remained. Ultimately it's the same marketing and promotional skills that worked in person that later worked online, and it's more the marketing than the filmmaking that gets you in the door, and then the filmmaking talent that sustains the success. I don't know if I have any talent with video, I hope I do! But I know I don't have much with marketing, or at least I'm uncomfortable with it due to low self-esteem. :/ And frankly not really liking a lot of online content these days or even a lot of theatrical films as much as I used to.
So I won't even be attempting what they did, but my audience is different anyway. We all have different audiences, or maybe we have many audiences for our different projects. I might be doing spec work rather than making a YouTube channel, or I might be applying to festivals... or even getting a PA or low-level job at a company that makes my favorite work just to meet the right people there. Or I had another idea that maybe someone might watch on YouTube. But a letter never goes anywhere if you don't know who to mail it to. If you just want to be internet famous, be a sociopath on YouTube. If you're inspired by a director you really love, reach out to him or her. If you feel you appreciate his or her work better than others, try to work for him or her. Be stubborn about it. Track your heroes down. Find their email. Ask every month to be a PA on a set of theirs. Travel to where they live for an interview. Then hand them that DVD (or script, or Vimeo link) in person. That's your audience of one. This actually works. Regardless of specific tactic (it all depends what you want personally), know your audience and what they want. Your audience might be one person. If you're doing a fan film it might be Marvel fans. If you're doing a camera vlog it might be camera fans. If it's something new... risky, but go for it. Plenty of different approaches depending on your audience. But know them. And know yourself.
Even the festival scene, which is somewhere in the middle of those two options, is all about marketing. I have friends who've gotten into nearly all the top ten festivals and the trick is they're part of that social network and they really really push hard with their applications, even hiring people to promote their films. The other trick is that once you get into a top ten festival, other festivals will ask to program you. The whole festival scene is a bit of a farce, but the farce is simply the disconnect between how they market and what the truth is. Big festivals need content to match their brand, so they're fairly conservative. Even if your brand is "edgy" you have to stay on brand, so it's a conservative approach to edgy. Small festivals need films that played big festivals, so they're even more conservative! (But knowing programmers personally–the DVD route, so the speak, matters here. And I was surprised to learn that a short at a major festival attracts more attention from a talent agency than a Vimeo staff pick and by far.)
The other really sneaky thing is that a lot of the most successful Vimeo videos are actually made with assistance from larger production companies or agencies or post houses, but are marketed as very guerrilla. This isn't always the case, some stories are true, but don't believe everything you read online. (Certainly don't believe me. If I knew what I were saying, I would be working now–not posting this!) But internet platforms aren't all they promise to be; that promise is just the marketing by YouTube and Vimeo to get you to produce content for them so that they can monetize it. The success stories of online filmmakers are their marketing. And they're very good at marketing. And you're their audience. So if you haven't had a lot of success online, maybe try a different route? 
The one thing NOT to believe is that if your work is creative and unique and great others will discover that and flock to you. I saw one of your videos and you have a good voice and should keep doing what you're doing, or exploring what you want to do next, whether it's more of the same or something new. Probably the most original voice I've seen on this forum, but this forum seems mostly to be about image quality and specs. I've seen more creative voices at Slamdance and SXSW and Sundance and Rooftop, for instance. (No offense, perhaps they're just more developed. and I have friends who pay the bills doing corporate and then make really wild and awesome festival films–so you can be interested in both markets for sure.) 
But the idea that people online will immediately recognize what you have to offer and leap to make more of it is a very myopic view. Look at Spielberg's first spec film, it's not a personal story. It's more an example of visual talent and competency. His creative voice developed after he got in the door directing TV. I think Eraserhead is the only example I can think of of a really outsider voice nailing its first landing. People see Jake Paul succeed and assume everyone should see their work and judge it better because of what an asshole Jake Paul is, but that's not how it works. Jake Paul is a genius at what he does. What he does is just act like a high school bully. The Kardashians are geniuses at what they do. But what they do is appeal to lowest common denominator, which is also the biggest audience there is. Don't judge them based on their audience; find a different one.
I'm on time out here for posting incorrect technical information, which I again apologize for. And I feel like I'll probably get some pushback for a lot of the above being factually incorrect; I expect a lot of it is, and I wouldn't take my advice if I were you, since I'm just an anonymous guy online. So take it with a grain of salt. But I do think knowing your audience, knowing how to market your work to them, and knowing how to meet them halfway is crucial. The first thing film schools do is to "normalize" your voice. They look for creative voices then tone them down and improve production value so those voices are tolerable to the other students and faculty and then eventually to festivals. (Although a lot of film schools aren't worth the money, so if you aren't rich, consider that they're also marketing their wares to you and want you to think they're gonna do things for you that maybe they can't. Some are good. But be wary and make sure you apply to the right ones if you do, and you definitely don't have to.) All media are social media, so look at your relationship with your audience as a relationship with a person (or cohort...), whether you make it a real personal relationship (selling DVDs, pursuing your favorite director or production company) or a virtual one. I think maybe this forum isn't the right audience for you (or for me) if we're trying to get into festivals, for instance. If I knew more technical stuff, it might be better for me. Different values. For instance, I have a lot of friends who've gotten into top ten festivals recently with 1080p/2k films, but here I keep getting reminded I need 4k. Both can be true, just for different audiences. (To be fair, some of those were shot at higher resolutions and delivered at 2k DCP... I ate my words once and I'll keep chewing.)
But the festival route is really hard and really slow. (Like filmmaking used to be!) And online feedback is really fast and comes with instant gratification. I don't know if the festival route is right for me, I don't know if anything is, if I even have the talent, or if I do, if there's an audience for it. But I think the replies you're receiving in this thread speak to a disconnect between what you're making and your audience's expectations. (Not to be rude.) So I'd give that some thought. Removed from your current outlets, what are your goals as a filmmaker? Who are your favorite filmmakers? If you could make anything and show it to one person what would it be and who would you show it to?
That's the trick. You're marketing yourself to get into a festival/get YouTube famous/work for your favorite director or at your favorite company. But they're also marketing toward you so you watch their content and believe in their brands. And marketing isn't about the audience or the creator exclusively, it's where the two meet. Know yourself. Know your audience. Meet halfway. 
But also take everything online (including this) with a grain of salt. Online relationships are rarely worth as much as those in person.