{"id":319,"date":"2011-11-27T21:02:39","date_gmt":"2011-11-28T04:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/?p=319"},"modified":"2011-11-27T21:02:39","modified_gmt":"2011-11-28T04:02:39","slug":"canon-cinema-eos-c300","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/2011\/11\/27\/canon-cinema-eos-c300\/","title":{"rendered":"Canon Cinema EOS C300"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, Canon announced the C300<\/a> as the first product in their new Cinema EOS <\/a>series,\u00c2\u00a0which they see as their next step in the world of digital filmmaking.\u00c2\u00a0 They stumbled into the forefront of DSLR film-making entirely by accident, and are trying to figure out how to capitalize on that position.\u00c2\u00a0 Their new camera is intended to bring some of the benefits of DSLR type filmmaking to the high end market, without the limitations presented by the existing\u00c2\u00a05D<\/a> and 7D<\/a> cameras.
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\nCanon\u00c2\u00a0advertises\u00c2\u00a0the C300\u00c2\u00a0as having a 4K imager, although that is misleading for two reasons.\u00c2\u00a0 QuadHD<\/a> (3840×2160) is not technically 4K, and regardless of imager resolution, it only records 1920×1080.\u00c2\u00a0 This seems like a wasteful oversampling until you compare it to other cameras at a technical level.\u00c2\u00a0 A traditional 3-chip <\/a>video camera with full resolution sensors is capturing 3 times the output resolution, with the\u00c2\u00a0extra data\u00c2\u00a0used to generate color information.\u00c2\u00a0 A DSLR type camera has a single large sensor, and doesn’t use a prism to isolate the colors, so a bayer pattern filter <\/a>is used instead.\u00c2\u00a0 This usually requires a complex demosaicing<\/a> process to extract the color information from the RAW image, like an R3D or CR2 file, and this involves a lot of interpolation<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 If a full resolution decode is not required, then it is simpler to assign the values from a square of four pixels to the three channels of a new single pixel.\u00c2\u00a0 This is how a fast 2K decode works from a 4K RED file.\u00c2\u00a0 Canon took advantage of this concept to create a camera with a single large imager, that doesn’t require a processing intensive demosaicing because they are oversampling.\u00c2\u00a0 This allows them to compress the resulting 1920×1080 three channel image in an existing standard codec instead of having to create something new, and then supporting the required new workflow that would entail.\u00c2\u00a0 They chose to use their existing XF codec, which is\u00c2\u00a04:2:2 MPEG-2 at 50Mb\/s\u00c2\u00a0and is already compatible with most systems and software.\u00c2\u00a0 This method of processing the image from the sensor will alleviate many of the moir\u00c3\u00a9<\/a> and aliasing<\/a> issues caused by the line skipping method used on existing DSLRs to pull an HD image from an 18-Megapixel sensor.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately\u00c2\u00a0this\u00c2\u00a0will not necessarily solve all other\u00c2\u00a0rolling shutter <\/a>issues that are prevalent in DSLR footage, but those are also\u00c2\u00a0found in footage from RED cameras, and nearly every other large sensor imager<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 All in all it is a very effective design, but Canon’s 4K marketing is misleading.\u00c2\u00a0 It would be more\u00c2\u00a0accurate to call it a full color single sensor HD camera.<\/p>\n

Canon’s existing video DSLRs<\/a> have two major things going for them.\u00c2\u00a0 One is that\u00c2\u00a0their small lightweight form-factor is easy to use and allows the cameras to be put into places that any other high quality camera wouldn’t fit.\u00c2\u00a0 The second is that with such a large imager,\u00c2\u00a0they\u00c2\u00a0give a unique style to the images\u00c2\u00a0they shoot, that many people prefer, even when compared to the results of cameras that cost 10 times as much.<\/p>\n

When compared to existing HDV<\/a> and AVCHD<\/a> camcorders, the idea of a video DSLR totally revolutionized the low end market.\u00c2\u00a0 It had so many advantages in that space, that it even caught the attention of the high end market, in places the Canon never dreamed that it would go.\u00c2\u00a0 For the money, nothing else even comes close in regards to image quality, so DSLRs are an obvious choice for students and other independent filmmakers, and freelance videographers.<\/p>\n

But people who are familiar with larger professional cameras look at a DSLR and see a huge stack of limitations. (SDI<\/a> output, 15min record limit, remote control, excessive moir\u00c3\u00a9 and aliasing, etc.)\u00c2\u00a0 They are looking for the image style and quality of a DSLR, but without those limitations, regardless of the cost and size of the resulting product.\u00c2\u00a0 The C300 seems to be aimed at that market, and instead of revolutionizing it, it is just going to offer itself as one more option, which is a disappointment to those who were expecting more.\u00c2\u00a0 It offers nothing to further the interests of the independent videographer or film-maker, because that is not who it is targeting.\u00c2\u00a0 It is designed to tie into the existing equipment that larger organizations have invested millions of dollars into, the benefits of which, they are not willing to forego, in favor of the image style and depth of field\u00c2\u00a0<\/a>offered by existing\u00c2\u00a0DSLR sensor systems.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether it will be successful in its target market remains to be seen, but I am confident that many of its key features will eventually make it into future products that are more similar to the existing 5D and 7D DSLRs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, Canon announced the C300 as the first product in their new Cinema EOS series,\u00c2\u00a0which they see as their next step in the world of digital filmmaking.\u00c2\u00a0 They stumbled into the forefront of DSLR film-making entirely by accident, and are trying to figure out how to capitalize on that position.\u00c2\u00a0 Their new camera […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[44,45],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}