The Canon C200 is a strange camera. One of the major camera announcements (so far) this year, the newest addition to the Cinema EOS camera lineup, the Canon C200 offers internal 4K Raw recording onto a single CFast 2.0 card in a brand new format called Cinema Raw Light in addition to a more compressed 8bit 4:2:0 UHD recording in the MP4 format.
The omission of a more standard 10bit 422 codec as featured on the C300 Mark II has raised a few eyebrows, but apparently there is an 4:2:2 codec coming as a firmware update, scheduled for early 2018; however, Brent Ramsey from Canon has confirmed that the XF-AVC implementation in the C200 will be in an 8bit format.
I keep hearing that the internal UHD in the MP4 wrapper is quite good despite the lower bit rate and gimped chroma sub-sampling. Faisal Hashmi from Hashmic House Films recently used a Canon C20o on a short film called ‘Skipped’, which you can check out below.
And yes, it was shot in UHD MP4 internally (not in Cinema Raw Light), so you can judge the quality of the internal compressed codec for yourself. I personally, think it holds up well, and seeing the camera used in a more controlled narrative environment gives us somewhat better representation of what the camera can do.
Skipped (2017) – Sci-Fi Comedy Short Film from Faisal Hashmi on Vimeo.
Shot on the Canon EOS C200 in Dubai on 4K UHD MP4 internally and Canon EF Cinema Prime Lenses.
Written, Directed and Edited by: FAISAL HASHMI
Cast – TAREK GHANDOUR, GHALIB AL SAADY
Director of Photography – RAFEY HASHMI
First Assistant Director – KURT BARRETTO
Assistant Camera – JULLZ BEK
Sound Design and Mixing – KANE RODRIGUES
Editing – FAISAL HASHMI
Production Assistants – DANIEL FREEMAN, YOUSEF HANNOUN
Behind the Scenes – JOAQUIM GONSALVES
Canon EOS C200 at the Media Production Show 2017 in London
Canon C200 Highlights & Features
- 4K DCI Cinema RAW Light to CFast 2.0
- 4K/60p – 10 bit
- 4K/30p – 12 bit
- Internal Compressed Codec options:
- 4K/60p Long GOP 8bit 4:2:0 at 150 Mbps in MP4
- 4K/24/25/30p Long GOP 8bit 4:2:0 at 100 Mbps
- 2K/HD at 35 Mbps 8bit 4:2:0 in MP4
- Full HD 120fps Continuous with no sensor crop
- Records onto SD cards
- Can do 2K/Full HD Proxies on SD card and Raw on Cfast 2.0
- Up to 15-stops dynamic range (Cinema RAW Light)
- Wide DR, Canon LOG & Canon LOG 3
- Dual Pixel CMOS AF with touch control and extensive shooting functions
- Expanded Built-in ND Filters: 2/4/6/8/10 stops (from C300 MK II)
- ACES 1.0 Support
- BT.2100 (PQ) HDR support
- HDR ST-2084 LUT (in EVF)
- Uses BP-A30 and BP-A60 batteries (same as C300 MK II)
- 8bit 4:2:2 XF-AVC 4K internal codec coming Q1 2018 as free firmware
- NO Way to Output 4K Raw (has to be recorded internally)
- HDMI Output:
- 1920 x 1080p – 10bit 4:2:2
- 3840 x 2160 – 8bit 4:2:2
- SDI Output:
- 2048 x 1080 / 1920 x 1080 – 10bit 4:2:2 – Raw Light
- 1920 x 1080 – 10bit 4:2:2
- Price: $7,499 (B&H, Adorama)
And here is some behind the scenes footage from the shoot:
So, what’s the consensus on the Canon C200 out there? Granted, the camera has hardly started shipping, yet but that hasn’t stopped people from creating nice images with it and posting them on the web. Seen any other awesome C200 footage? Share in the comment below.
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