Emperor's New Clothes Or New Emperor?

The C300mkii was launched at NAB this year. What were Canon doing revamping the most popular camera in video production? Asks Danny Dawson, Managing Director at Alias Hire.

And it's not as if they even had changed the name, so what could be different? At least the C500 had a different name! And the Sony FS7 has been an outstanding camera this year, so have Canon just rushed something out to compete?

Well, when we were preparing ourselves for NAB there was only one destination for me and the guys from Alias Hire; CANON!

The mkii was announced just a few days prior to NAB and I was lucky/quick enough to book a first appointment for the Canon stand (10am if you're interested), and I had submitted orders for the C300mkii before even attending another stand. The one thing I knew was that I wanted them ASAP!

So what can we expect from the mkii (or mk2?)? As it turns out, pretty much everything. Starting from the sensor, through to the features and codecs, Canon have yet again gone toe-to-toe with Sony and once again, it looks like they have stolen a march on their competitors.

What's different and what's the same? Well, there's a brand new codec. At last MPEG-2 is gone, and replaced by XF-AVC which looks to me to be pretty much the same as Sony's XAVC codec (as used on FS7's, F5's-F55's etc) and that's impressive as there are very few codecs that offer so much for so little data.

It far outperforms Apple Pro-Res or DnX in comparison which will offer better post production. Who cares about post production though right? It's dark arts for most shooters.
Also added to the mkii is the truly wonderful Auto Focus option. This allows the operator to maintain focus on their subject (as long as they remain in the range of the lens being used) no matter how much the subject moves. I doubt this explanation is doing it justice but trust me, it's a work of art.
However, the lenses used must be canon lenses with servo's before you blame me for the function not working.

One final point, but massive nonetheless, is the ISO. It can be pushed to a whopping 102,400 ISO and though it’s unlikely that it will get pushed to that level, we have played with the camera at 2400+ ISO with fantastic results.

I suppose the key headline though is 4K. Internal 4K. Internal 4K recording to third-party CFast cards (Sandisk, Lexar etc) is also attractive. You may read this now thinking, “4K…pah!” and you could be right. Who needs it? Well we can all have our opinions on 4K but what we can’t deny is that: a). It's amazing quality and b). It's coming. 4K TVs are selling and selling big.

Quite a camera so far? With so much different it begs the question what's the same? Well, it's a Canon, so anyone who shoots any video and is under the age of 30 years old will already be used to shooting on a Canon having spawned from the 5D revolution. And let's not forget the fact that it is still a Canon C300, be it mkii or not. There isn't much we see that hasn't been shot on a C300 and I doubt that this will change.

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