Mobius by Vincent Laforet on the EOS C300

[Canon Rumors]

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<p><strong>Mobius in 1080P</strong>

If playback is choppy for you at 1080P, please try the <a href="http://vimeo.com/31525127">720P version</a>.</p>
<p><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/30215350" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen allowFullScreen></iframe></p>
<p><a href="http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/">Vincent Laforets Blog</a></p>
<p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span>r</strong></p>
<p> </p>

 

[Edwin Herdman]

Visuals are pretty competitive with regular film - though frame transitions at the beginning look a bit choppy.

I'll keep my thoughts about the actual content to myself. Vincent is a former PJ, though - I'm surprised he would sign on to sensationalize a topic like this. Oh well.

 

[PeterJ]

I just took a low-resolution screen capture of one of the frames (to avoid copyright problems) and noticed a 'baddy' appears to be shooting with all his fingers on the outside of the trigger guard. Maybe this model includes some new wireless trigger options?

 

[CJRodgers]

I think it definately competes with quality of cinema and high end t.v stuff. Looks great. How much will it be with it be with the lenses etc?

 

[Edwin Herdman]

I just took a low-resolution screen capture of one of the frames (to avoid copyright problems) and noticed a 'baddy' appears to be shooting with all his fingers on the outside of the trigger guard.

No. Look again.

 

[PeterJ]

I just took a low-resolution screen capture of one of the frames (to avoid copyright problems) and noticed a 'baddy' appears to be shooting with all his fingers on the outside of the trigger guard.

No. Look again.

Can't see it to be honest, still looks to me as though on that plane the trigger would be behind his index finger as normally used for the 'trigger' finger and you can see his knuckle clearly. I've recently started suffering from arthritis and now use my middle finger for any triggering including a camera and it's a mixed blessing because now I find while it might look odd I get a bit of extra stability from my index finger. In that shot though it looks like his middle finger would be below the trigger.

Anyway was just a bit of a fun post, I was thinking to myself that with increased video resolution a few production staff will probably need to get used to a bit more detail showing up. Not into video myself but I went on a tour of a movie set years ago and was amazed how unrealistic the set looked in real life when you'd never notice it at 480p or whatever the resolution of the day was.

 

[unfocused]

Script: The Photographer, now trapped by the desperadoes, glances up and sees the reflection of the sun bouncing off his own camera lens.

His final thought: Dang! I knew I should have used a lens hood!

 

[outsider]

His final thought: Dang! I knew I should have used a lens hood!

Or
I should have kept the sun behind me when shooting!

 

[rocketdesigner]

I just took a low-resolution screen capture of one of the frames (to avoid copyright problems) and noticed a 'baddy' appears to be shooting with all his fingers on the outside of the trigger guard.

No. Look again.

My question ... why did the bad guys jump out of their vehicle - after the good guy's car stalled and he took off on foot...they could have just ran him over

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

How come there isn't a lot of discussion about the new video camera? Are people disappointed? Isn't the 50Mbs the same data rate as the 5DMKII? Doesn't it use the same codec as 1Dx? So why the is it $20K?

 

[Edwin Herdman]

Hmm, Vincent actually allowed my novel-length bitchfest against the movie. I was expecting him to, but it's nice.

As much as I thought the plot was unbelievable and maybe even silly, you wonder if life imitates art sometimes: link (from yesterday!)

I just took a low-resolution screen capture of one of the frames (to avoid copyright problems) and noticed a 'baddy' appears to be shooting with all his fingers on the outside of the trigger guard.

No. Look again.

My question ... why did the bad guys jump out of their vehicle - after the good guy's car stalled and he took off on foot...they could have just ran him over

Because (to be ungenerous) it's a film with a stupid plot. That's all.

The use of the mobius strip to condense the plot is clever (when you walk around a mobius strip you end up in the same place, in 3D space, but on the different side of the strip so you wouldn't be able to "see" your starting point - this is essentially what the film is doing but in four dimensions, instead), but that doesn't really make up for the plot failings (imo). It's kind of silly to give the viewer a "god perspective" and then contrast that with the main character looking so stupid. Even if he's entirely reasonable to act that way, the "god perspective" makes him look silly. Is that supposed to be enjoyable?

 

[bobtur]

I own an Alexa Plus and I heard Canon call this a Red and Alexa killer. It's nice, but not true. With the C300's 8-bit 4:2:2 MPEG II codec, Canon has committed professional cinematography suicide, unable to kill anything, let alone the holy trinity's (Sony, Arri, and Red) 12-bit 4:4:4 codec(s) that makes DI color correction possible. No major production is going to risk their money, and images on the thin negiative 8-bit leaves digitally embedded on its CF cards. Sure the camera has an HD-SDI output, but what about Steadicam? I guess you'll just have to spend another $7K for a 4:4:4 recorder.

Another non-starter is that Canon, dispite having an amazing lineup of EF lenses, didn't include a way to servo control the focus of its lenses. I own every Canon EF L lens from the 14mm 2.8 to 400mm 2.8 EF IS L and pray for the day I can run them on my Alexa. Sure I have Master Primes, but there's nothing like Canon's 400mm.

Don't get me wrong, while I applaud Canon's vision, it's pretty miopic not to go just a little farther, and give its customers, and potential cinematographers what they truley need to go head to head with the big dogs, UNLESS, it's their way to sell 10 million units and then in 12 months announce the C300P, the "professional" version that incorporates servo control and a professional cinema codec as a way to double sales. Don't believe me? Just read a shampoo bottle's instructions written by a marketing guru: "Shampoo..REPEAT and rinse." Can't wait to see what Nikon has up there sleeves. Maybe they'll adress these essential issues.

One last thing, the camera, whether it's an Alexa, Epic, or C300 always takes a back seat to script, direction, acting, lightning, cinematography, and editing. Try watching the latest retread movies, like "The Thing," that in all its 35mm splendor, sucks.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

Q: Is the Bayer pattern on the C300 equivalent to chroma sampling 4k @ 4:2:0? It looks like it to me.

 

[Jedifarce]

I think it definately competes with quality of cinema and high end t.v stuff. Looks great. How much will it be with it be with the lenses etc?

One of their zoom lenses will go for $47K, which is a bit beyond most folks price range and their primes will go for about $2500 more than the Carl Zeiss CP .2's. What really sucks is the Red's Scarlet-X is a better deal with 4K resolution, comes with the EF or PL mount (which is great because that was a major sticking point with the old Scarlet that came with a fixed lens system), and is $10,000 for the body only. I don't know who Canon is competing with a $20K price range, the Sony F3? It certainly isn't the Scarlet-X. Why pay more for a video system that performs poorly against its cheaper rival? Only an idiot would do that.

 

[Jedifarce]

I own an Alexa Plus and I heard Canon call this a Red and Alexa killer. It's nice, but not true. With the C300's 8-bit 4:2:2 MPEG II codec, Canon has committed professional cinematography suicide, unable to kill anything, let alone the holy trinity's (Sony, Arri, and Red) 12-bit 4:4:4 codec(s) that makes DI color correction possible. No major production is going to risk their money, and images on the thin negiative 8-bit leaves digitally embedded on its CF cards. Sure the camera has an HD-SDI output, but what about Steadicam? I guess you'll just have to spend another $7K for a 4:4:4 recorder.

Another non-starter is that Canon, dispite having an amazing lineup of EF lenses, didn't include a way to servo control the focus of its lenses. I own every Canon EF L lens from the 14mm 2.8 to 400mm 2.8 EF IS L and pray for the day I can run them on my Alexa. Sure I have Master Primes, but there's nothing like Canon's 400mm.

Don't get me wrong, while I applaud Canon's vision, it's pretty miopic not to go just a little farther, and give its customers, and potential cinematographers what they truley need to go head to head with the big dogs, UNLESS, it's their way to sell 10 million units and then in 12 months announce the C300P, the "professional" version that incorporates servo control and a professional cinema codec as a way to double sales. Don't believe me? Just read a shampoo bottle's instructions written by a marketing guru: "Shampoo..REPEAT and rinse." Can't wait to see what Nikon has up there sleeves. Maybe they'll adress these essential issues.

One last thing, the camera, whether it's an Alexa, Epic, or C300 always takes a back seat to script, direction, acting, lightning, cinematography, and editing. Try watching the latest retread movies, like "The Thing," that in all its 35mm splendor, sucks.

A $20,000 C300 with 1080p vs a $10,000 Scarlet-X with 4K resolution...did someone at Canon forget to do the math? Personally, if the C300 were more reasonably priced at 7-8 grand, then Canon would have something and I'd consider buying it. But with the Scarlet-X and its better resolution and sporting an EF mount, why would you pick the Canon. As it turns out, I will probably purchase the Scarlet-X in the future.

 

[Meh]

A $20,000 C300 with 1080p vs a $10,000 Scarlet-X with 4K resolution...did someone at Canon forget to do the math? Personally, if the C300 were more reasonably priced at 7-8 grand, then Canon would have something and I'd consider buying it. But with the Scarlet-X and its better resolution and sporting an EF mount, why would you pick the Canon. As it turns out, I will probably purchase the Scarlet-X in the future.

I suppose Canon is, whether right or wrong, claiming by virtue of their design choices and pricing that the C300's 4k sensor that uses pixel binning to produce a final 1080p image will have better image quality than competing cameras.

 

[Meh]

I don't know who Canon is competing with a $20K price range, the Sony F3? It certainly isn't the Scarlet-X. Why pay more for a video system that performs poorly against its cheaper rival? Only an idiot would do that.

Perhaps that's exactly the answer... that Canon sees the C300 competing against the other similarly priced cameras. Or they believe the overall image quality, build quality, the Canon name, service, support, etc. is somehow superior to Red? Just posing the question, I don't presume to have that answer.

 

[daniel charms]

I don't know who Canon is competing with a $20K price range, the Sony F3? It certainly isn't the Scarlet-X. Why pay more for a video system that performs poorly against its cheaper rival? Only an idiot would do that.

Here's an article from Canon Digital Learning Center that, I think, gives a nice explanation of what exactly were the people at Canon smoking when they designed the C300 and who they think they're selling this thing to. What they're basically claming is that this camera performs well enough for most people potentially interested in buying one and it's way easier and faster to work with than any of the current 4K cameras. It would appear that they've done their research and discovered that there's plenty of "idiots" out there to justify the R&D costs.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

I don't know who Canon is competing with a $20K price range, the Sony F3? It certainly isn't the Scarlet-X. Why pay more for a video system that performs poorly against its cheaper rival? Only an idiot would do that.

Here's an article from Canon Digital Learning Center that, I think, gives a nice explanation of what exactly were the people at Canon smoking when they designed the C300 and who they think they're selling this thing to. What they're basically claming is that this camera performs well enough for most people potentially interested in buying one and it's way easier and faster to work with than any of the current 4K cameras. It would appear that they've done their research and discovered that there's plenty of "idiots" out there to justify the R&D costs.

And these people are idiots because?

Whats with the 4k obsession? Is there anyone out there gonna even use it? If the this camera (C300) does a better job rendering color than the Red cameras, than it might be worth it.

Ya know, the new i-phone has a 8 mpix camera, does that make it as good as the 1D mkii?

 

[Jedifarce]

And these people are idiots because?

Whats with the 4k obsession? Is there anyone out there gonna even use it? If the this camera (C300) does a better job rendering color than the Red cameras, than it might be worth it.

Ya know, the new i-phone has a 8 mpix camera, does that make it as good as the 1D mkii?

4K is the future, even though most people won't have the computer power to really harness it yet. With that being said, I'd rather work with 4k resolution than 1080, just because the latitude it gives when you're tweaking video. It's similar to photography, raw vs jpeg. Raw will give greater dynamic range when compared to jpeg. Canon tries to make up for these weaknesses by utilizing picture styles such as Cinestyle and other flat styles, while Red records videos in raw.

The folks at Red must be laughing their asses off at the C300 announcement.