# Canon Releases White Paper for Cinema EOS C300 Mark II



## Canon Rumors Guy (Aug 22, 2015)

```
The Canon EOS C300 Mark II is nearly release after being <a href="http://www.canonrumors.com/2015/04/announcement-canon-eos-c300-mark-ii/" target="_blank">announced last April</a> at NAB 2015. The biggest development in the C300 Mark II that DSLR users are hoping for, is the claimed 15 stops of dynamic range in the new camera. Currently Canon DSLRs are running at around 12 stops, which is a few stops below the competition from Sony/Nikon.</p>
<blockquote><p>The original EOS C300 digital cine camcorder employed an innovative new 4K UHD Super 35mm CMOS image sensor developed by Canon. The readout system dissected that 4K sampling into four parallel HD components. The summation of the two green components reduced aliasing that, in turn, supported a higher Luma MTF. The new C300 Mark II preserves these basic strategies but within a totally new 4K CMOS image sensor design. The new camera is intended to significantly extend the overall image performance of HD beyond that of the C300 while further supporting the alternative 2K cinema format. A 15-stop dynamic range is provided by a new photodiode design that simultaneously lowers the noise floor while elevating the saturation level – offering excellent HDR functionality.</p></blockquote>
<p>The Cinema EOS C300 Mark II white paper will give you all the technical information you could possibly want about the new camera.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.usa.canon.com/CUSA/assets/app/pdf/camera/brochures/WhitePaper-imageperformanceenhancements-eosc300markii.pdf" target="_blank">Download the White Paper</a> | Preorder: </strong><strong><a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1134579-REG/canon_0635c002_eos_c300_mark_ii.html/BI/2466/KBID/3296" target="_blank">Canon EOS C300 Mark II EF</a>| <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1134580-REG/canon_0635c009_c300_markii_cinema_eos.html/BI/2466/KBID/3296" target="_blank">Canon EOS C300 Mark II PL</a></strong></p>
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## sanj (Aug 22, 2015)

Brilliant news!


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## BeenThere (Aug 22, 2015)

For the sensor gurus among you, how much of this sensor technology could translate to better still images? The better micro lenses sounds good as well as high s/n ratio analog amps. Anything else?


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## privatebydesign (Aug 22, 2015)

Very interesting. The time and money is being spent on the log calculations and hardware to map 15 stops of DR into 14-8 bits in much more realistic ways, this can only be a good thing for us photographers. 

I'd expect shadow detail in jpeg stills (and RAW files) to be much better in future stills cameras once the stills camera sensors inherit those improved diodes and on sensor noise reduction for a lower noise floor and higher saturation levels.


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## mb66energy (Aug 22, 2015)

BeenThere said:


> For the sensor gurus among you, how much of this sensor technology could translate to better still images? The better micro lenses sounds good as well as high s/n ratio analog amps. Anything else?



Yes! (beware: no sensor guru)

(1) "noise floor is lower": electronic noise added during readout "smears" the real values of a pixels electron content - better readout electronics reduce this "noise floor"

(2) "elevated the saturation level of the charge well": a photosite can be charged up to a maximum charge which represents the highest level of light it can detect. If more light enters the photosite, you cannot see changes anymore (highlights are clipped in that case). Canon has more charge capacity in the photosites well or has perhaps found a non-linear approach of saturation ...


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## privatebydesign (Aug 22, 2015)

dilbert said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > Very interesting. The time and money is being spent on the log calculations and hardware to map 15 stops of DR into 14-8 bits in much more realistic ways, this can only be a good thing for us photographers.
> ...



As you well know you can't fit more than 14 stops of linear capture information into a 14 bit file without some kind of remapping of the information, nobody can. But if they are remapping things we can't see with the human eye to allow space for things we can see with the human eye then I'd take lossy 'RAW'. All lossy 'RAW' is not equal.

But the white paper shows you the curve they are applying to the linear capture information, it seems like a decent sort of human vision type of curve to me. Time for us all to read about gamma curves and how the eye actually sees different tonalities at different luminance levels.


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## traveller (Aug 22, 2015)

I hate to be a killjoy and I'm by no means a sensor expert, but the diagram in Canon's C300 mkii White paper still seems to show the A/D conversation happening off chip. I thought that the fact that Exmor does A/D conversion on the chip prior to signal amplification was one of the main reasons that their sensors can maintain such a low noise floor? Is the 15 stop DR of the C300 mkii more to do with oversampling and processing of a video signal (dual ISO style) than pure sensor performance?


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## privatebydesign (Aug 22, 2015)

traveller said:


> I hate to be a killjoy and I'm by no means a sensor expert, but the diagram in Canon's C300 mkii White paper still seems to show the A/D conversation happening off chip. I thought that the fact that Exmor does A/D conversion on the chip prior to signal amplification was one of the main reasons that their sensors can maintain such a low noise floor? Is the 15 stop DR of the C300 mkii more to do with oversampling and processing of a video signal (dual ISO style) than pure sensor performance?



But we don't know what is meant by _"on chip noise cancellation technology"_, or how effective it is.


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## privatebydesign (Aug 22, 2015)

traveller said:


> ...
> Is the 15 stop DR of the C300 mkii more to do with oversampling and processing of a video signal (dual ISO style) than pure sensor performance?




No, they are saying they have a higher full well capacity and a lower noise floor, so the sensor is capable of recording 15 stops of information natively. To fit that 15 bits of information into a 14 bit file, or the 10 bit and 8 bit options also available on the C300 MkII, they are applying a gamma curve to the readout signal information.

Now for us photographers the question becomes if this is applied to a stills camera is the curve smooth enough in the right places to increase the IQ over true linear RAW or will they go with a true 16bit file which won't be as much of an issue at still capture rates. To be sure this is quite a different approach to the one Sony take with their lossy RAW files.


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## BeenThere (Aug 22, 2015)

traveller said:


> I hate to be a killjoy and I'm by no means a sensor expert, but the diagram in Canon's C300 mkii White paper still seems to show the A/D conversation happening off chip. I thought that the fact that Exmor does A/D conversion on the chip prior to signal amplification was one of the main reasons that their sensors can maintain such a low noise floor? Is the 15 stop DR of the C300 mkii more to do with oversampling and processing of a video signal (dual ISO style) than pure sensor performance?


The way I read it looking at the block diagram is that there is an analog amp/buffer on the sensor chip and A/D is off chip; then some digital gain off chip.


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## rfdesigner (Aug 22, 2015)

traveller said:


> I hate to be a killjoy and I'm by no means a sensor expert, but the diagram in Canon's C300 mkii White paper still seems to show the A/D conversation happening off chip. I thought that the fact that Exmor does A/D conversion on the chip prior to signal amplification was one of the main reasons that their sensors can maintain such a low noise floor? Is the 15 stop DR of the C300 mkii more to do with oversampling and processing of a video signal (dual ISO style) than pure sensor performance?



I design radios.. with high speed ADCs sampling baseband analogue radio waveforms. (I also built a home designed CCD camera many years ago)

It's a straight choice.. ADC in the radio. spewing EMI muck throughout the radio, or ADC in the digital domain meaning you have to feed your delicate analogue baseband signals into the filthy digital domain. ideally the ADC bridges the gap.. but muck still crawls all over the place.

There is no single "right" solution.

Don't let anyone tell you an off sensor ADC is bad and can't acheive a certain performance, it's all about the very fine detail of how it's done.


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## RGF (Aug 23, 2015)

looking forward to seeing this in dSLR


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## 9VIII (Aug 23, 2015)

I really wish they would just let us eat the file size and use a 16bit file.

Theoretically 10 bit displays are going to become mainstream in the coming years (to match the UHD Blu-ray spec), which could make the extra detail in gradients more important.
Or maybe I'm just a picky technophile who dislikes compression.


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## privatebydesign (Aug 23, 2015)

9VIII said:


> I really wish they would just let us eat the file size and use a 16bit file.
> 
> Theoretically 10 bit displays are going to become mainstream in the coming years (to match the UHD Blu-ray spec), which could make the extra detail in gradients more important.
> Or maybe I'm just a picky technophile who dislikes compression.



I'd happily take the file size, especially if the MP are kept at a reasonable mid 20's. Sure the 5DS/R look like very nice cameras, but I'd definitely take the 16bit 15 stop over the 14bit 50MP any day.


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## tiger82 (Aug 23, 2015)

Wouldn't the sensor for this 4K camera be 8 megapixels? Would anyone want that in a DSLR?


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## traveller (Aug 23, 2015)

tiger82 said:


> Wouldn't the sensor for this 4K camera be 8 megapixels? Would anyone want that in a DSLR?



The 22mp sensor in my 5d Mk3 isn't far off 8mp if you crop to Super 35 format.


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## privatebydesign (Aug 23, 2015)

tiger82 said:


> Wouldn't the sensor for this 4K camera be 8 megapixels? Would anyone want that in a DSLR?



Yes it is an 8.9 MP sensor, but that isn't the point, nobody wants that exact sensor for their stills camera, we are interested in if the tech they are showcasing can be transferred to a stills camera sensor. 

Like I said, I'd happily take a true 16 bit RAW file of a 25MP sensor that has 15 stops of DR, and I'd probably be happy to take the current 14bit file in a remapped 'RAW' file if it gave me a big improvement in shadow detail, but I'd rather the former.


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## privatebydesign (Aug 23, 2015)

traveller said:


> tiger82 said:
> 
> 
> > Wouldn't the sensor for this 4K camera be 8 megapixels? Would anyone want that in a DSLR?
> ...



Exactly, the 5D MkIII has a pixel pitch of 6.25µ, the C300 MkII has a pixel pitch of 6.4µm


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## mb66energy (Aug 23, 2015)

9VIII said:


> I really wish they would just let us eat the file size and use a 16bit file.
> 
> Theoretically 10 bit displays are going to become mainstream in the coming years (to match the UHD Blu-ray spec), which could make the extra detail in gradients more important.
> *Or maybe I'm just a picky technophile who dislikes compression.*



I really dislike lossy compression too: I am not a picky technophile but love nature.
If I reproduce an image of nature (etc.) I like it to be as close as possible.
Perhaps it has nothing to do with morbus "picky technophilie" 

That's what I observed comparing 5D classic-files with EOS M files (newest cam/sensor I own):
The 5D reproduces fine detail much closer to what I see than EOS M - I don't know exactly why,
but I think it is the precision of sensor-amplifier-ADC + the large photosite advantage.

And that leads me to my conclusion about upgrading to a current 5D: 25-30 MPix in a 5D iv
with the C300 ii-per-pixel quality we would expect from what we read in the white paper would
lead to a very versatile high end DSLR. I would prefer it compared to the 5Ds(r) variants ...
maybe the delay of the 5D iv release is caused by sensor optimization?


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## Ebrahim Saadawi (Aug 23, 2015)

I'd be surprised if I knew the EOS cinema sensor development/manufacturing/designing is separate completely from the stills sensors drsign/development teams. I would bet big money that they're probably the same team/company using their expertise and technology in developing sensors for both the large chip cinema line and DSLRs, which makes me pretty confident that any breakthroughs in sensor performance in the cinema line could very likely be utilized in DSLR sensors. 

But just another point, remember that this is a 20 thousand dollars camera. So the sensor technology and performance and accuracy will probably be ahead from the sensor technology put on a 3K DSLR. Just a though. Even the C100 MKII, a 6000$ cinema camera doesn't get these sensor technology upgrades, so more likely to see 15 stops of DR and noise levels of a C300II in a 1DxII rather than a 5D MK IV? 

I have no idea, just thinking out and loud. 

But again, the main reason these c300II sensors are so expensive is because they shoot 30 frames per second for years, so perhaps a sensor with the same technology and image quality on frame-to-frame basis would be a viable 5D solution, just without the heavy load a cinema/video camera puts on a sensor/processor. A scaled up C300 II sensor to FF would yield about 21mp? (it's 9.3 megapixels APS-C size), without the 30p, 60p, 120p capability, the cinema ridiculous colour gamut covering all film stocks every produced, the intelligent and innovative 2K/HD downsample, could be a cheap one to imploy in a 5D/1D. 

Just with normal decent video downsample to 4K like all cameras do now instead of the C300II magical complicated processes (Takes the 14bit data, applies gain, then WB to the 14bit original data, separates the RGB layers into 2 green, 1 Blue, 1 Red layers, upscales each layer to full 4K, applies complex false colour and anti-aliasing algorithms, lens pixel abberation correction in 4K, remaps 14bits into a Canon LOG gamma, then combines the 4 up-sampled 4K layers into a super-sampled 1080p image, then after all of that store it in a 12bit 4:4:4 RGB codec with 405 megabits second, I mean that nuts to do in real time, nobody takes such effort to just produce 1080p but now I know why the C100/300 HD images look better than any other 1080p image out there that are just reading a 1920x1080p pixels and debayering. I always saw it clearly being MUCH superior to all HD cameras but didn't understand until now. 

I eagerly await the day that 1080p quality comes to sub 3000$ canons. The closest I've got now is the generation one C100 at 2900$ but the lack of any slowmotion and useless EVF put me off entirely, the C100 MKII is perfect 1080p and ergonomics wise, but out of my range. 

Well, maybe the 5D MKIV 4K image will answer my prayers of a consumer Canon LOG cinema line looking image with canon colour science and joy to use and grade,


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## 9VIII (Aug 23, 2015)

privatebydesign said:


> 9VIII said:
> 
> 
> > I really wish they would just let us eat the file size and use a 16bit file.
> ...



Which brings up an interesting point in that for many years they had no problem using files that were oversampled by two or three bits. Basically the entire industry moved to 12 and then 14 bit files regardless of the capability of their sensors, but now all of a sudden everyone wants to cap it at 14 bit even when sensor technology surpasses that spec.
What gives?


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## emko (Aug 23, 2015)

9VIII said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > 9VIII said:
> ...



file size i assume they cant get a big enough buffer for continues shooting


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## rfdesigner (Aug 23, 2015)

9VIII said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > 9VIII said:
> ...



The problem could be ENOB

That's Effective Number Of Bits.

you can have a million bit ADC, but if it's non linear or noisy then it might only have an ENOB of 8 bits.

What you're asking for in an ADC with an ENOB of at least 15 bits.. ideally I'd want a bit more than the signal source which means an 18~20bit ADC, with a 16 bit ENOB. And more ENOB means it takes more time for each conversion.

Now ADCs have come a long way. I was looking at a 10bit 4Gsps ADC from Ti a few months back.. not fast enough for our application but interesting never the less. Crucially an 18 bit ADC is not going work as fast as a 14 bit ADC everything else being equal. That means slower readout, which could hamper video and high frame rates.

What I'd be much happier with is a non-linear 14 bit path for video/sports and a slower hyperlinear ADC with >16bits ENOB for slow frame rate, or multiple readout paths each with it's own ADC. But that's more stuff.. more to test.. more to go wrong (lower production yield.. once it's built right it should stay right).. that's going to add cost.


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## syder (Aug 23, 2015)

Ebrahim Saadawi said:


> But just another point, remember that this is a 20 thousand dollars camera. So the sensor technology and performance and accuracy will probably be ahead from the sensor technology put on a 3K DSLR. Just a though. Even the C100 MKII, a 6000$ cinema camera doesn't get these sensor technology upgrades, so more likely to see 15 stops of DR and noise levels of a C300II in a 1DxII rather than a 5D MK IV?



The C300 mk ii is a US$16K camera. Which is a similar amount + inflation to where the C300 mk i launched, like the C100ii is not far off where the C100 launched price-wise. And like the mk i has been and will continue to be until 4K is the main broadcast format (which is a long way off) it will probably be a staple for broadcast work where that is a relatively small outlay.

And compared to the C100ii, the C300ii has a boatload of features (4K, slo-motion, etc), whereas the mki's were differentiated by recording media (CF/SD), codec (XF/AVCHD) and EVF quality.

Unless I'm reading wrong, the white paper also suggests that the C300ii will allow 4K RAW output via 3G-SDI, which I might have missed before now, and previously was the main difference between the C300/500 (as in the C500 did this and C300 didn't).

Its probably worth noting that the 8-bit C300/100 have 12 stops of dynamic range - slightly more than the 1DX/5Dmiii's 11.8/11.7 14-bit stills, which is achieved by using C-LOG. We can probably expect something similar with the C300ii and any increased in DR with similar tech in a linear 1DXii/5Div, especially given that the C300ii is using 2xDigic DV5s to drive the processing. But then it's spitting out 4K at 30fps... 

Reading the white paper I'm not sure if the expected use of DPAF tech to increase dynamic range is what we're seeing here. It's also interesting to compare the situation of where the dynamic range sits with the C300 mki/ii - two of the the extra three stops are below 18% grey.



Ebrahim Saadawi said:


> now I know why the C100/300 HD images look better than any other 1080p image out there that are just reading a 1920x1080p pixels and debayering. I always saw it clearly being MUCH superior to all HD cameras but didn't understand until now.
> 
> I eagerly await the day that 1080p quality comes to sub 3000$ canons. The closest I've got now is the generation one C100 at 2900$ but the lack of any slowmotion and useless EVF put me off entirely, the C100 MKII is perfect 1080p and ergonomics wise, but out of my range.



C100 mki can do slo-motion if you shoot 60i and then conform to 24p. Using Avid's timewarp effect (both fields/interlaced source/progressive output/adaptive deinterlace) looks great. If you want really slow footage - say 120 frames per second, then you're out of luck in-camera, but depending on the amount of control you have over the light you can often do a decent job using something like twixtor. The EVF is unfortunately crap. Your best option there would probably be to use the zacuto c100 z-finder. 

To be honest, even if the 5Div has better dynamic range, 4K and gets CLOG2 and proper monitoring without Magic Lantern I'd still rather use a C100 for most things I'd do, where the built in XLRs, NDs, and ergonomics and handling just make it a far better overall package where the image quality is still plenty good enough (especially when shooting DNxHD/Prores onto an atomos external recorder). But then the 5Div will almost certainly also be a great stills camera...


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## IglooEater (Aug 23, 2015)

Would any of the gurus/gearheads happen to know what the difference in file size would be between 14 and 16 bit RAW (for a stills camera) would be? I don't recall people having trouble going from 12 to 14 bit..


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## privatebydesign (Aug 23, 2015)

IglooEater said:


> Would any of the gurus/gearheads happen to know what the difference in file size would be between 14 and 16 bit RAW (for a stills camera) would be? I don't recall people having trouble going from 12 to 14 bit..



Well it depends a lot on subject and iso, but Hasselblad H5D-50 16 bit RAWs come in around 65mb and Canon 5DSR 14bit files come in around 52mb. So not a big difference between the two 50MP cameras.


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## jeffa4444 (Aug 23, 2015)

privatebydesign said:


> IglooEater said:
> 
> 
> > Would any of the gurus/gearheads happen to know what the difference in file size would be between 14 and 16 bit RAW (for a stills camera) would be? I don't recall people having trouble going from 12 to 14 bit..
> ...


That difference is also explained in the larger image area for the Hassalblad over the Canon 5DS.


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## IglooEater (Aug 23, 2015)

jeffa4444 said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > IglooEater said:
> ...



That's cool, so we're talking like 20% increase, not like double or something. Thanks!


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## jeffa4444 (Aug 23, 2015)

I feel that Canon have used the C300 MKII to try & narrow the gap with the Sony F55 something the C500 has never done. Because of the Netflix dic-tat that its 4K shows must shoot with a 4K camera the F55 has taken off to some degree in 2015 even though its been around for 3.5 years because officially the Alexa is 3.8K in its latest guise. 
The F55 in raw mode is 16 bit and its maximum DR is 14 stops this must have been a bench mark for Canon along with the Sony F55 XAVC compression ratios, ProRes & DNxHD compatable formats. 

Both these cameras at the high end however will not userp the Arri Alexa even though the camera is not true 4K because its the only camera to offer open gate which means its a true anamorphic camera which 16x9 cameras will never truly be. Add to that Arri colaboration with Codex & being first out the gate with CFast 2.0 on the Amira (now on the Alexa) and they have a lot of catching up to do. 

The way forwards is colorspace not more MP, 8K sensors oversampling to 4K and using Rec.2020 / H.265 is what were come to see as normal in the not too distant future and if Canon President is serious about taking on Arri & the Alexa the C300 MKII and or 16X9 sensors wont cut it oh and the mere fact that the Arri Alexa II will also be with us in the not too distant future.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Aug 23, 2015)

Ebrahim Saadawi said:


> I'd be surprised if I knew the EOS cinema sensor development/manufacturing/designing is separate completely from the stills sensors drsign/development teams. I would bet big money that they're probably the same team/company using their expertise and technology in developing sensors for both the large chip cinema line and DSLRs, which makes me pretty confident that any breakthroughs in sensor performance in the cinema line could very likely be utilized in DSLR sensors.
> 
> But just another point, remember that this is a 20 thousand dollars camera. So the sensor technology and performance and accuracy will probably be ahead from the sensor technology put on a 3K DSLR. Just a though. Even the C100 MKII, a 6000$ cinema camera doesn't get these sensor technology upgrades, so more likely to see 15 stops of DR and noise levels of a C300II in a 1DxII rather than a 5D MK IV?
> 
> I have no idea, just thinking out and loud.



The problem is that if Canon can only do it in ways that only make it feasible to put into 20k cameras and others can do it with sensors that can go into consumer-priced DSLRs....

I think it's hard to believe the tech in this sensor can be truly priced at 20k though from what we see here, although it's always possible it might be 2x-3x more expensive than other tech, which would be unfortunate. It's also quite possible that it barely costs more at all and could appear in their other stuff, unless they can only get it to work at low MP counts, which is also possible.





> the cinema ridiculous colour gamut covering all film stocks every produced



Canon DSLRs already produce a huge color gamut, much larger than even a wide gamut PC monitor of today shows. As a side note I should also add, that all those complaining about Canon blowing red so fast should invest in a wide gamut monitor and stop with the horribly outdated sRGB. You'll instantly realize that so many of your issues with intense reds or things like flowers, super brilliant clothes/cars, extreme sunset bright color bands, etc. are nothing to do with Canon sensors not being able to grab colors or one needing to underexpose 4 stops to save red, etc. it's all that you are insisiting to stick with sRGB! (and IMO it's more than time that Zenfolio and Smugmug, who is ultra snotty about it, end their ridiculous forced ban on wide gamut images).

Also, little known, there is already a consumer camera that can shoot HD video in extreme wide gamut.... the 5D3 with Magic Lantern installed and RAW video mode set to on! It's pretty cool. I've made some custom gamut (set to the exact gamut of my wide gamut monitor) videos of brilliant stuff like flowers or crazy intense fall foliage/sunsets and it makes quite a difference (of course for many things there is no difference at all). In this one sense the 5D3 is still state of the art in some ways for video since it does extreme wide gamut RAW HD (thanks all to Magic Lantern).


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## privatebydesign (Aug 23, 2015)

jeffa4444 said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > IglooEater said:
> ...



jeffa, I hate to disagree with you but the size of the pixel has nothing to do with the bit depth or the size of the file that it creates. One pixel is one pixel, the readout from that is one number, the only difference between the Hasselblad and the Canon is the bit depth and less than 1MP.


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## douglaurent (Aug 24, 2015)

The future is 4K 60fps. Even without that 60fps would be the minimum to expect from a $15.000 camera, looking at a $1.000 Sony RX IV pocket camera and its 4K look and slowmo specs. This means the C300 II will already obsolete and i won't buy. With 60fps and for around $12.000 i would. A C500 II might contain 60fps, but of course will be way to expensive and again few people will buy that. I bet it will be tough to distinguish the image of the C300 II from the 1DC in most cases. So i keep the 1DC and have a great photo camera on top. By the time Canon starts to sell a decent cheaper 4K 60fps camera in 2-20 years, the market will be full of competition with better features and cheaper prices. I will never buy a Canon camera again as long as they hold back features and keep prices to high.


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## privatebydesign (Aug 24, 2015)

douglaurent said:


> The future is 4K 60fps. Even without that 60fps would be the minimum to expect from a $15.000 camera, looking at a $1.000 Sony RX IV pocket camera and its 4K look and slowmo specs. This means the C300 II will already obsolete and i won't buy. With 60fps and for around $12.000 i would. A C500 II might contain 60fps, but of course will be way to expensive and again few people will buy that. I bet it will be tough to distinguish the image of the C300 II from the 1DC in most cases. So i keep the 1DC and have a great photo camera on top. By the time Canon starts to sell a decent cheaper 4K 60fps camera in 2-20 years, the market will be full of competition with better features and cheaper prices. I will never buy a Canon camera again as long as they hold back features and keep prices to high.



The problem with 4K on a spec sheet is it means very little. There seems to be a bigger difference between the quality out of the various 4K cameras than between good 1080 and '4K'.

See the comment about high quality 1080 and native 4K viewed n a 4K monitor here http://petapixel.com/2015/08/17/is-shooting-4k-resolution-worth-it-for-web-video/


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## Ebrahim Saadawi (Aug 24, 2015)

douglaurent said:


> The future is 4K 60fps. Even without that 60fps would be the minimum to expect from a $15.000 camera, looking at a $1.000 Sony RX IV pocket camera and its 4K look and slowmo specs. This means the C300 II will already obsolete and i won't buy.



*This is what we get by reading specs, that the rx100iv is 4k like the c300ii and has better slowmotion, it's higher speced than the c300, it's obsolete.

What specs forget to mention is that it does 4k for 5 minutes and slowmotion for 2-4 seconds depending on the frame rate with near standard definition resolution and hideous aliasing. While this shoots unlimited 4K 10bit 4:2:2 footage and 120p continuous slowmotion at perfectly full 2K resolution with 15 stops of dynamic range.

Need 60p at 4K? this is not your camera. Get a cheaper C500 mark one with a 7Q or an FS7 or a Red Scarlet. Is 4k 60p the future? No. Almost nobody is shooting it, nobody is talking about it, nobody is delivering it, nobody even wants it except for a few eastern Japanese markets wanting it for sports in 2020. It is in no way even a feature that will be used by 95% of the target shooters who will be shooting 4K 24p and 25/30p for broadcast and HD for slowmotion as 60p is not enough today anyway.

The C300 has every single feature out there jammed in it except for 4k 60p, this is the one canon camera I've seen in years with a full-fledged spec list actually, but we still deem it obsolete because it lacks one.*




privatebydesign said:


> The problem with 4K on a spec sheet is it means very little. There seems to be a bigger difference between the quality out of the various 4K cameras than between good 1080 and '4K'.
> 
> See the comment about high quality 1080 and native 4K viewed n a 4K monitor here http://petapixel.com/2015/08/17/is-shooting-4k-resolution-worth-it-for-web-video/


*
I agree specs mean zero, I wrote this: http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/8900-do-specifications-mean-anything-regarding-cameras-performance-a-research/

but the information and claims made in this video is absolutely horrifying that so many are believing it, just 100% wrong information.*


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## syder (Aug 24, 2015)

Ebrahim Saadawi said:


> I agree specs mean zero, I wrote this: http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/8900-do-specifications-mean-anything-regarding-cameras-performance-a-research/



Great post.

Specifications do mean something, but they're often very difficult to understand in context, because effectively what you're looking at is corporate marketing, not an attempt to provide an objective and balanced take on a camera.

The Blackmagic cameras are a great example. Internet forums were filled with people wetting themselves with excitement based on the specs, because when they saw prores/raw, 13 stops DR etc they thought that meant taking all the things they liked about their existing camera and just adding those features on rather than the issues with reliability, batteries, and anything at or above 1600 iso being unusably noisey. By contrast the C100 and C300 were absolutely slated by the same Internet 'experts' who compared the C300 to the 'similarly priced' red scarlet which was announced on the same day, but have been hugely successful because they've been reliable and versatile cameras which deliver very good (if not mind blowingly great) images which don't need much post production work done to them (add the clog LUT and you're often almost there).

On the positive side, digital cinema cameras have come along an awfully long way in a relatively short time. Nowadays 99% of the time the problem isn't the equipment, it's the operators.


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## rosaklebhead (Aug 27, 2015)

If anyone here is in the NYC area, Adorama is doing a demonstration of the C300 Mark II on September 16. It's free. And, yeah, full disclosure... I work there.

http://www.adorama.com/alc/browse/pages/free-film-school-camera-cinema-featuring-new-canon-c300-mark-ii


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