Back in April, I said the Canon C500 Mark II
was the best camera I've ever used.
Well, today we're gonna see if the new C300 Mark III
can earn the same title, but at a significantly
lower price point. Let's get undone.
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What's happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone,
and the G is silent. So, this camera
is virtually identical to the C500 Mark II,
right down to the interchangeable lens mount,
and the acceptance of the same accessories and expansion units.
And this is a great thing, because this means that
it's also very well-sized, light and compact
for a cine camera, but with an intuitive button layout,
responsive controls, and easy hand-hold-ability.
And it also features the same digital
image stabilization that gives surprisingly steady results,
even at longer focal lengths.
Although, when you're using non-native manual lenses,
make sure you input your focal length
into the stabilization menu, or it can get shaky
and have a bit of that warpy distortion that you don't want.
But for native camera lenses,
it's easy, and the results are great.
The stabilization will add an additional 11% crop
to your image, just like with the C500 Mark II.
So, you have to factor that in when choosing your lenses,
as that's really the biggest difference
between the two cameras: their angles of view.
This is a Super 35mm camera,
although it's actually a little big larger than a Super 35.
Based on comparisons to my current full-frame cameras,
I found it came in at around 1.43-times crop in ultra-HD.
So, when compared to conventional Super 35,
you do get a bit more real estate,
but you'll need to consider this when choosing lenses.
Full frame lenses will work, obviously, but Cannon EF-S,
for the 1.6-times APS-C, will cause vignetting.
However, the Sigma 18-35 produces a large enough
image circle to cover this sensor,
even in DCI 4K, so that's good for the owners
of that lens, because it's still viable.
Now, when comparing a full-frame sensor to a smaller one,
we need to consider a few elements.
Does it produce a nosier image?
Does it have worse dynamic range?
And how will depth of field be impacted?
Now, the depth of field one is easy, because as I said,
you're gonna have to use wider lenses on this camera
to produce a similar field of view to the C500.
And wider lenses have deeper depth of field,
which means that if you're going for that shallow look,
you're gonna need to get faster glass,
which will be more expensive. I don't think it'll
be more expensive to the point that it'll completely erase
the $5,000 price difference between the two cameras,
but it will eat up some of those savings.
But to be completely honest, I didn't find it to be
a big issue, using primarily f/2.8 and f/4 lenses.
I think this camera's slightly larger than
the Super 35mm sensor is plenty to get the job done.
So, what about dynamic range and noise?
Well, that's where things get interesting.
This camera features a brand-new sensor from Canon,
which utilizes a Dual Gain Output.
This is not Dual Native ISO,
like you'd find on Panasonic or Blackmagic.
This is more of a dual readout at every ISO.
Similar to what Arri does,
essentially it reads out the sensor twice
at two different gains before the image is processed.
And then it merges those two readings together,
one prioritizing clean shadows and another
for granular saturation, giving you effectively
an HDR composite that offers the best of both worlds.
And it actually works extremely well!
From a noise perspective, it's cleaner than
the C500 Mark II, and every other full-frame camera I have.
And this kind of stuff is always difficult to show on YouTube,
but for an easy comparison, the C300 Mark III has similar
noise in XF-AVC with noise reduction turned off,
to the full-Frame Sony a7 III, with noise reduction turned on,
which is crazy impressive.
And when you put on just one notch of noise reduction
on the C300 Mark III, which is the default
on the C500 Mark II, it just flat out
beats anything I've put it up against.
I guess the fact that noise reduction is turned off
by default on the C300 Mark III is a sign.
So, it can definitely see into the shadows better--
what about the highlights? Well, it's not an Arri Alexa,
but it's the closest you're gonna get for 10-grand.
I think it might be a hair worse in the highlights
in the C500 Mark II, but it's very hard to tell.
And I'd be willing to bet that most people would fail
the Pepsi Challenge between those two
for highlight retention, which is big praise considering
the C500 Mark II is an absolute monster
for dynamic range at its price point.
The other benefit to the C500 Mark II is that
it has a 6K sensor, that can be used to create
oversampled 4K images, where the C300 Mark III
only has enough pixels for 4K.
Now, the difference isn't huge, but it is there.
Even when compared to my Sony a7 III,
which uses a similar 6K over-sampling,
you can see finer details a bit clearer, compared to the C300,
when you're using the same lens, of course.
I'd say at 200% magnification,
the 6K sensor is 5 to 10% better on contrasty edges.
This is by no means a deal-breaker,
but worth pointing out, since it's not like the C300 Mark III
renders the C500 Mark II obsolete or anything.
But I do feel comfortable saying that at 4K resolution
at 100% view with no magnification,
the only real benefit you're getting
from the C500 Mark II is its wider field of view.
But you're not only benefiting from cleaner shadows on
the C300 Mark III, but the raw files are also more usable now.
One, because they're more manageable and easier to edit
now that they aren't the 6K raw files from the C500 Mark II.
But also that issue of the striped vertical pattern
and the noise on the C500 in raw
is gone on the C300 Mark III.
In fact, the noise is now very similar to what you'd find
in XF-AVC, making your workflow easier
if you plan to intermix raw and AVC footage together.
And the issue I raised in my C500 review
about the raw files being significantly noisier
when changing ISOs in post, versus shooting at that ISO,
is still present on the C300 Mark III,
but it's much less problematic now
because of how much cleaner the images are.
So, while there's still a penalty for changing ISOs
in post, it's less painful than it was on the C500 Mark II,
making it more rewarding to shoot raw.
Unless you're shooting above 60 frames per second.
When you shoot higher than 60p, this camera no longer uses
the Dual Gain Output, and switches to a more standard
readout like you'd find on the C500.
You do lose a little bit of dynamic range,
bringing you closer to a pocket 6K level,
and your shadows are back to a normal Super 35 level of noisy,
and you go back to the more significant punishment
for pushing your exposure too much in post.
One or two stops is still doable but 2 to 3 stops underexposed,
and your image is really going to start to really fall apart.
But I think that's a reasonable trade-off,
to get such a nice 4K 120, and you really
wanna avoid underexposing your images anyway,
but we'll talk more about exposure in a minute.
Overall, though, 4K 120 is impressive on this camera.
You have to put it in S&F Mode for anything over 60p,
which is Canon's in-camera slow motion,
which means you do lose audio above 60 frames per second.
But you keep autofocus now, which is fantastic.
Now, the autofocus isn't the exact same when in this mode.
You can't do tracking or face detection.
But you can still dial in the speed, and you still
have the flexible box, and it works pretty well.
It's not as good as the AF when in 60p
or lower, and it requires you to bump the speed
and responsiveness to get something usable.
But I still think it's a great feature to have,
considering we're talking about 120 frames per second in 4K.
And to my eye, the image is still just as detailed
and sharp with no noticeable artifacts.
The autofocus up to 60 frames per second is identical
to the C500 Mark II, which is my current pick
for best autofocus in any camera.
It's smart, it's snappy, but has very smooth,
organic motion to the pulls that can
be dialed in to a precise degree.
And it can all be controlled using the touch panel,
which can even be an asset when manually focusing,
because you can touch on a spot you want Canon's excellent
manual focus guide to asses, and then pull focus easily.
The panel is the same as the one on the C500 Mark II,
so it's a great size, plenty bright and very responsive.
My only issue with it is that
it shakes too easily when tapping on it.
Also, as I mentioned in my previous video,
the waveforms don't scale on this display correctly.
The waveforms go up to 92%, where the Zebras only go to 86%.
This is design choice from Canon to re-map those values
based on the limited range of this display.
But it can be confusing if you're new to Canon Log.
The easiest way to know if you're gonna clip on CLog2,
though, is to just set your zebras to 85%.
And if you see zebras, you're probably clipping.
And just like with the C500 Mark II, when shooting
with the default CLog2 profile, you can use
Canon's official LUT to convert to 709
and get terrific colour and tonality in just one step.
Not only does this workflow match your shots identically
to the C500 Mark II, but I find the images strike
a very impressive balance between pleasing and accurate.
However, my advice still stands
that if you're coming from another system,
you might find that Canon shoots a little magenta,
and shifting the tint to minus 2 CC
will likely correct that for you.
This is only really an issue on paler skin tones like mine,
as many darker and less pink individuals,
typically like what Canon does to their skin.
But, of course, if you've got time in post,
you can play with the colours to your liking,
as the camera offers 10-bit 4:2:2
in both an IPB and All-I codec, plus raw options.
And these images are robust enough
to push 'em around to match other cameras.
And as someone who shoots on Blackmagic a lot,
I found it particularly easy to get a very similar look
between my Pocket 4K, and the C300 Mark III.
There's also been improvements when it comes
to exposure over the C500 Mark II.
One of my issues with the C500 was that
it didn't scale the ISOs in a completely linear way.
Full stops were cleaner than the 2/3 stop that proceeded them.
And there was a noticeable benefit to overexposing,
even though that made the built-in LUTs less useful.
Well, all that is different on the C300 Mark III.
First off, the ISO scales exactly how you'd expect now:
each 1/3 stop is slightly noisier
than the one before it, and you can expect a nice,
even increase in exposure as you bump it up.
But there's no benefit to overexposing on this camera,
which I had to triple-test just to believe.
Every camera that I've used before this one,
I've always had cleaner images in log if you shot
a stop or more higher, and then pulled it down in post.
This camera doesn't work like that to my eyes,
likely because of the Dual Gain Output.
Overexposing by one stop of ISO and pulling down the mids
in post creates an image that's about one stop noisier.
And while this is a bit foreign and different
from my other cameras, it actually makes more sense
from a simple gain perspective, and I prefer this method--
especially considering it means a 709
that will always be spot on.
And the in-camera metering becomes much more useful,
because that's something I praised in the C500,
is how accurate the exposure and white balance metering was,
and the same is true here on the C300 Mark III.
But, I mean, how great is that? The image is cleaner, and you
don't need to overexpose to beat its full-frame counterparts.
And in most cases, you don't even need
to use noise reduction. This sensor is fantastic.
I also threw some intense red, green and blue light at it
to see if one of the channels was significantly
hotter than the others or skewed.
And they seem to be fine. I'm getting the correct values
out of each channel. And they're all pretty close to each other,
so you don't have to worry about one channel clipping
much earlier than another. And changing ISOs
has no impact on your white balance consistency.
Colour is accurately maintained
throughout the entire standard ISO range,
which is from 800, to 25,600,
with some extended options beyond that.
Now, the ISO can go lower than the native 800
when shooting an XF-AVC, but you should be careful
not to do that when shooting in Canon Log 2, and instead,
save those lower ISOs for the other gamma curves.
I noticed that when lowering the ISO below 800 in CLog2,
things that were near-clipping
didn't really roll-off any better.
Instead, it just seemed like the waveform
was being squeezed down, and your zebras
stop working if you drop below 800 as well.
So, I just leave it at 800, and use the built-in NDs
if you're coming in too hot.
It's got the same neutral density system as the C500.
Two, four and six-stop options, an extended range
for eight and ten stops, by combining two filters together.
But those last two will impact your focus.
And just like on the C500 Mark II, the ND
is good, neutral, and doesn't degrade the image.
Now, if we jump back to those shots between
the Sony a7 III and the C300 Mark III,
for the over-sampled 6K versus 4K comparison,
you notice that even when using the same lens,
there's significantly more chromatic aberration
on the Sony shots.
This is something I didn't mention
in my C500 Mark II review,
but the lens profile corrections
on these cameras are excellent.
This was using this Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 Mark III,
and the C300 Mark III pretty much eliminated any issues.
It has corrections for Distortion,
Aberration, and Peripheral Illumination.
And they're very handy when using native lenses,
but I also wanted to warn you
about the Peripheral Illumination Correction,
if you're someone who tends to underexpose.
It can ruin your shots. If your lens is wide open,
and thus in need of correction, and your image
is still too dark, not only will the vignetting
correction kick in to overdrive, but when you recover
your image in post, you'll notice this concentric
anti-vignetting pattern that will completely destroy
any hopes you had of using that image.
So personally, just to be safe,
I'd recommend turning this feature off.
But the other options, like Aberration Correction,
again, are excellent. Also, when it comes to
corrections in post, the 12-bit raw
is noticeably better than the 10-bit raw.
In fact, I'd suggest the 10-bit XF-AVC might even be
a bit better than the 10-bit raw as well.
If you need to recover an underexposed image,
12-bit maintained colour quality far better
than the 10-bit version. So, you might want to consider
only using raw at frame rates of 30p and below, because anything
higher than that, and you'll switch to 10-bit.
That's not specific to this camera, though.
That's just the nature of Cinema RAW Light.
But when it comes to Cinema Raw Light versus XF-AVC,
the 12-bit Raw seems to retain the highlights
a little bit better than both 10-bit AVC or Raw.
And the shadows are good too, but in the shadows,
there's no real benefit over XF-AVC,
as long as you're reasonably close on your white balance.
So, if maximum highlight recovery
and flexibility is your game, shoot 12-bit Raw.
But if you're shooting above 30p,
or care more about clean shadows, stick with XF-AVC.
By the way, I noticed a quirk on this camera
when switching from an AVC to Raw.
Your focus point is reset to the centre.
Pretty minor, but I did find it
a bit annoying at times during my tests.
It also does this when you turn the camera off and on.
Strange that it can't seem to remember
my focus point position, and I couldn't find
anything in the menu to address that.
And while we're on the topic of menu items,
something that came up during my live stream test
for this camera is that you have to turn
some tools off independently over HDMI.
Turning off onscreen display over HDMI only removes
the majority of the tools, but some of them-- like zebras--
will stay on for some reason. And then you look like
a goofball with zebras on in your live stream.
Now, there is an independent but simple menu setting
to turn the zebras off over HDMI.
So, I'm glad there's an option, and usually
I'd prefer more control than less.
But just keep in mind that there's no
one button clean feed on this camera.
And you need to make sure you're correctly controlling what's
coming out of that port by turning things off individually.
But to its credit, that also means your image
is always hi-res over HDMI, even when your tools are on,
which is something I complained about in my Z Cam review.
And speaking of things I complained about
in my Z Cam video, I of course tested what happens
if you're recording, and you have a sudden power loss.
In this case, I just yanked the battery out mid-record,
and when you boot the camera back up, presents you with
an option to recover the file, which just takes a few seconds.
And then you're good to go, and the file is usable up
until about half a second before you lost power.
So, no complaints there. Speaking of that battery though,
it's pretty good. It's the same one that's on
the C500 Mark II, and you get a very similar battery life.
You might get 5% more on the C300 Mark III, reaching
a bit closer to the two hours of run time in ideal conditions.
Now, you might have predicted that it would last
significantly longer than a full-frame 6K camera,
but you have to factor in that Dual Gain aspect.
The senor's effectively being read twice,
which will equalize any smaller sensor advantages
when it comes to power and speed.
Because the rolling shutter on this camera
is pretty much identical to the C500 as well,
even though the senor is smaller-- and, again,
that's because of the Dual Gain Output.
Now, the rolling shutter was fine on the C500, so don't let
that stress you out. It was very fast for a full-frame sensor.
The only difference is that you're not getting
Super 35mm rolling shutter benefits in this camera
unless you shoot above 60p, which, again, turns off DGO,
and then you'll see faster read speeds, and less
rolling shutter, because it's not Dual Gaining anymore.
But keep in mind there's no way to
turn off DGO manually in the menu.
It just turns on or off by itself based on frame rate.
Also, something I forgot to mention in my C500 Mark II
review is that these cameras do not have an electronic level.
Pretty minor issue, but it's something I use
from time to time, when available, and I appreciate
when cameras include it, and I did miss it a little.
Lastly, let's talk about audio for a minute.
Again, it's pretty much identical to the C500 Mark II.
You've got the choice between a built-in mic,
a 3.5mm mic jack, and two XLR inputs with Phantom Power.
You can record up to four channels, and you can make
one of those channels a safety track
for your primary inputs at a lower level if you want.
There's ample control for gain, attenuation and routing,
and there's also a limiter, and a 3.5mm mic power option
to enable on-camera shotgun mics
that have an auto on/off feature.
The only criticism I have is that the gain knobs
are tiny and very, very sensitive.
The smallest turn will have a large impact on your output.
And the dots aren't that logical either.
There's three dots between 0 and 5, instead of four.
So, in the future, I'd love to see this knob be a touch bigger
with a proper 10-scale on it,
but admittedly, I'm nitpicking a little.
As for the actual quality of the audio, it's quite good.
The camera itself makes a little bit of noise,
and you can sometimes pick that up.
-[soft click] -[faint whirring]
But it's quieter than my lights, and it can be set
to silent for short duration recordings.
But the fan will force itself on after about 15-20 minutes,
or if it gets too hot in that mode
But here, have a listen to my Oktava MK-012
recorded on the C300 Mark III,
and then through my usual Zoom F6 for comparison,
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Overall I found the recordings a little less transparent
on the Canon compared to the Zoom, and a touch noisier.
I think the reason why the noise is more perceptible
is because it sounds to me like there's a bit of a high-end
boost on the Canon, with more presence than my Zoom F6.
And this could be handy for doing field recording
or for talent wearing a lav under clothing.
And it definitely gives a more finished sounding EQ,
so overall I like the audio, even if it's not
quite as pure as what I'm getting out of my Zoom F6.
Alright, let's go back to my opening question.
Does this camera deserve to sit alongside the C500 Mark II
as the best camera I've ever used.
Well, considering it does pretty much everything
the C500 Mark II can, the answer would have to be yes.
Sure, it would be nice if it, too, was oversampling
from 6K for just that tiny extra bit of detail.
And it would be great if I didn't have to use wider
lenses for this camera compared to my full frame cameras.
But those are minor concessions in exchange for a cleaner,
more-useful raw image, a substantial bump
in 120 frames per second quality,
and an exposure system and gain structure
that is the most satisfying of any camera I've ever used.
And to get all that, and save $5,000,
is an incredible proposition.
Now, we should factor in that the C500
comes with a 512GB CFexpress card
and reader, where the C300 Mark III does not.
So, that closes the price gap a little bit,
but you're still getting a considerable deal here
based on the bracket set by the C500 Mark II.
And at this specific price point, between the C300 Mark III
and the Sony FX9, I would take the Canon.
It just feels like a more polished package,
was nicer to use,
and I enjoyed my time with it more.
At the end of my C500 Mark II review,
I said as long as 120fps wasn't a necessity,
then it was the best camera you could get at that price point.
Well, now, with the C300 Mark III,
you get that terrific 120fps
that was lacking in the 500,
keep all the rest of the features I loved,
and take 35% off the price.
Making the Canon C300 Mark III my new favourite camera.
That's gonna be it for me. I hope you
found this video entertaining, or at least helpful.
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But if you did not find this video helpful
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Alright... I'm done.