Jay P.: Hi, I'm a Canon C300.
Kenneth: And I'm a Sony FS7.
Jay P.: So it's time to make a comparison.
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Jay P.: Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan.
Kenneth: And this is Kenneth Merrill.
Jay P.: And we're back for another camera comparison.
This is the third we've done in this series and we're excited about the format, we're
excited about the things we're showing, we're gonna make some tweaks.
This next one is very similar to the last two we've done.
We're looking at the FS7, this one the FS7, versus the Canon C300 Mark II, which is the
only reason you can make this comparison is because the Canon dropped their price so drastically
not so long ago.
Kenneth: That's true.
That is very true.
Jay P.: Because now they're starting to getin to the same category.
I mean $12,000 for the Canon versus 7 or 8 for the C300.
Kenneth: Yeah, roughly that.
Jay P.: So I mean, I still...
Kenneth: And vice versa.
Jay P.: Vice versa.
I say that it's vice versa.
So I mean, you're still, if money is the object then the FS7 is pretty attractive.
Kenneth: And honestly, looking through this footage, I think you'll see that it's a good
thing Canon dropped their price because I don't think it warrants that much more money.
Jay P.: It'd be hard to justify that $16,000 price tag when you look at the FS7 and look
at the footage comparably.
It's pretty, pretty amazing how close these cameras are.
Kenneth: Very close match though.
Jay P.: So let's look at the footage.
Let's look.
What do we have?
ISO up first or...?
Kenneth: Yeah, let's do the ISO test.
Jay P.: So this is geeking out for sure because we got just ISO forever starting at 800, which
800 is native for the Canon, right?
Kenneth: Yeah, that's the base ISO.
If you go lower than that, you're gonna get less dynamic range.
So we go 8, then 16, and then we'll have the Sony jump in at 2,000 which is its base ISO,
which isn't really a problem because you have built in NDs.
Jay P.: On both these cameras have built in NDs, which is fabulous.
I mean, if you're working and then running and gunning, have built in NDs is just incredible.
Kenneth: That's probably the top reason to buy something other than a DSLR.
Jay P.: Yeah, it's one of the big ones because ek ek ek, you know, start putting filters
on.
And variables are good but they're not amazing.
There's some major flaws with them.
So we missed all this here.
Kenneth: Well, they're honestly almost identical.
Jay P.: You've got to get up to the break.
Kenneth: About 3,200.
Once you get into 6,400, you start to see a little bit of graininess.
Jay P.: So who starts falling apart first, do you think?
We've got the 6,400.
I mean, Canon's holding pretty, pretty strong at 6,400.
Kenneth: Canon's holding up pretty well but I do notice it doesn't hold its...
Actually, both cameras kind of get a lot of noise in the red channels first which is interesting.
Jay P.: Well, the blacks are certainly dancing.
That black dress on the left when you hit, you know...
Kenneth: Sixty-four hundred.
Jay P.: Sixty-four hundred is definitely...
And her hair is falling apart but who shoots at 12,500?
You know, buy a light.
Kenneth: Yeah.
Jay P.: It's the light again.
Kenneth: It's true.
I mean honestly, you'd rarely use that and both of these cameras are very capable up
to about 3,200, even 64 you run some neat video over that and 64 probably would be clean.
Jay P.: So they seem to be pretty comparable.
I think the Sony starts to fall apart a little sooner than the Canon on the high end.
Kenneth: Yeah, a little bit.
Jay P.: A little bit.
But pretty, I mean, really comparable.
Kenneth: It's really close.
It's really close.
Jay P.: These cameras are head-to-head competitors, there's no doubt about it.
Kenneth: Yeah, definitely.
And I think a lot of which one you choose to go with will depend on who you've been
with before.
Jay P.: Yeah, and why is that?
Why is that do you think?
[crosstalk]
Kenneth: They're very different.
I mean, honestly, I've used the Sony FS5 quite a bit and I've also used the C100 and C300,
so I'm more familiar with the Canon.
I pick up the Sony FS7 and it's like an alien.
But you know, there are people that say it's just as useful as the Canon.
I think it really just depends on your background.
Jay P.: You just have to get used to it.
I did find using the two of them that the, just the ease of use for the Sony was a little
more difficult than the Canon.
The Canon is just a little more intuitive.
But then, I do have well, I don't know, at this point I have as many Sonys as I have
Canons.
I have a whole case of both, so I'm using both of them, but more of the DSLRs.
So when I get the Sony, the Canon felt like it was easier to get to the manual, it was
easier to find things.
Sony was a little more difficult but then it's probably just a matter of exposure.
Once you get involved with it, it wouldn't be as difficult.
Kenneth: I think a lot of it comes down to customizability like we talked about in our
last review.
The Sony has a lot more buttons, it has a lot more menus, a lot more, you know, picture
profiles and looks, because you can really dial it in to what you need which is a real
advantage for some people.
Jay P.: The more options.
Kenneth: Yeah.
Jay P.: That's great.
Well, let's look at how this falls apart.
What's our...
Kenneth: What's our maximum dynamic range?
Jay P.: Yeah, maximum dynamic range.
Kenneth: So we shot in this test, we shot the Sony in Cine EI mode, which basically
means it just sets, I guess, the white balance is burned in, but it sets a white balance.
Your ISO is 2,000 no matter what, and you can't really adjust the picture profile.
It's just a flat S-Log3 picture profile.
The Canon we shot in C-Log2, which is their flattest profile.
We thought that would probably match up best with the Sony S-Log3.
And they're both looking really clean and really great.
What's interesting is to look at the colors that each camera does better.
I think the Sony picks up on yellows a lot better.
Jay P.: Much better.
Kenneth: But it can also reflect some yellow in the skin.
If you look at the incandescent reflection on her right arm, it's a lot more pronounced
than it is in the Canon.
Jay P.: Yeah, that's interesting.
Kenneth: Maybe not a lot.
Jay P.: But you do see the warmth on her arm, yeah.
Kenneth: Yeah, different colors are gonna react differently for each camera and you
have to just be prepared.
It's something you should really test out.
If you're gonna make an investment, you should really test both of these cameras out.
Jay P.: Well the red dress just looks a lot better on the Canon than it does on the Sony
for sure.
It has kind of a, it's just, I don't know, kinda washed out a little bit.
Kenneth: As we get up to a +4 stops, both of these cameras are still holding really
well.
Jay P.: It's amazing to me, you go +4 stops and they're...
Kenneth: Looking fine.
Jay P.: So you've taken this footage.
It's +4, and you've just pulled it back into the correct exposure.
Kenneth: Yeah exactly, with color grading only.
Jay P.: Yeah, that's incredible.
I mean, and they're both holding up.
Kenneth: The Sony starts to clip a little bit in her face at +5 stops.
Jay P.: Yeah, I see the highlight on her cheeks a tiny bit.
And look at the Canon.
Kenneth: The Canon clips very hard at 5.
Jay P.: Yeah, it's like it fell off the cliff.
Kenneth: So that's telling me that the Sony is gonna have, you know, at least a half-stop
more in the highlights.
Jay P.: There's the Sony, yeah.
Kenneth: Yeah, and once you reach six, I mean, I don't know a single camera on Earth that
can do 6 over.
Jay P.: No.
Kenneth: Except ALEXA's pretty close.
Jay P.: Is it pretty close?
Kenneth: Pretty close.
Jay P.: Yeah, but they comfortably do four.
Kenneth: Yeah, both of these camera comfortably do four, which is really great.
Now, we look at the underexposure test.
I noticed in grading this, if you start at a proper exposure on the Sony, it's already
a little bit noisy.
You really should go one stop over.
That's just across the board with S-Log it seems.
Jay P.: Well, you're always better to give just a little bit more exposure.
It's just gonna give you a little bit more chunk to your...
It's that the word?
That's a technical term.
More chunk to your image.
Just more guts to your image.
More to deal with.
Kenneth: In this underexposure, as usual, the S-Log doesn't perform super well.
At -2, you're already seeing a ton of noise in the dresses on the left.
The Canon here is a little better but not by a huge margin.
I would probably say the Canon would outlast by one stop in the shadows.
Jay P.: Yeah, it looks like it.
Minus 3 of the Sony is really in trouble.
Kenneth: Yeah.
Jay P.: But the Canon at -3 is I mean, not near as bad.
I think you're right.
You're getting at least a stop.
Kenneth: The issues here really become color separation.
I think the Sony actually holds onto its color, like her skin tone is a lot better underexposed
on the Sony even though the noise is completely useless, whereas the Canon loses the saturation
in all the colors pretty quickly.
Jay P.: It does.
Well, there you go.
So now we're gonna look at this scene in just a really harsh backlight situation.
So this has gotta be the Sony, right?
Kenneth: Yeah, this is the Sony.
Now, the point of this test was to see how much shadow and how much highlight or detail
can we retain at the same time.
Jay P.: Yeah, so she's not lit at all.
Kenneth: Not lit at all.
Jay P.: She's just dead, dead.
I mean there's a little bit of ambient in the room but she's pretty dark in that scene.
Kenneth: She's really dark.
Jay P.: And you're looking at the outside scene, bright windows outside.
Kenneth: Both cameras do pretty well but you can definitely see an advantage in the Sony.
Jay P.: It's fascinating what you call an advantage, which is an advantage.
It's more open, you got everything, but I look at the Canon image and it looks a lot
nicer to me.
Kenneth: You think?
Jay P.: Absolutely.
I mean, look at that.
You have, it's almost a usable image.
All I need is a little bit of light on her face and I'm ready to go, you know, without
grading it.
But you love the fact that you just got total, you got everything's there and you can now
grade it [crosstalk]
Kenneth: Yeah, exactly.
Jay P.: Whereas the Canon's a lot more contrast-y so you're not gonna do much with those little
shadows on the Canon.
It's pretty dark.
It's not gonna do that.
Kenneth: Now there is one thing I noticed and I wanna point this out with caution because
I'm not sure if this is a copy of the camera that we had or if this is just a general flaw.
I did read up and hear some people were having this issue with the C300, but if you look
closely on her face, in the shot from the C300, you can see these magenta and green
streaks coming across her hair and her face
Jay P.: Oh my word.
Is that from these highlight bars from the background, from the windows behind?
Kenneth: It is.
I have encountered that one other time on a documentary shoot I had with the C300.
I posed the question online to see if anybody had found a fix for that in case you are backed
into a corner and have to shoot in this situation.
Someone told me that doing a black balance on the camera would solve that problem.
So I have yet to test it but there you go.
If you run into it, that might be the answer.
On the other hand, the Sony doesn't have any of that so I don't know.
Food for thought.
Jay P.: Interesting.
So I think you're looking at some of the highlight and the shadow ratios is causing a flare or,
I don't know if flare is the right word, some sensor weird...yeah.
Kenneth: Sensor is weird.
Jay P.: It's a weird sensor thing.
Kenneth: Anyways, I think like we said before, the cameras are a really close match.
Jay P.: Very close match.
So it kinda comes down to what are you used to using, how much money do you want to spend,
and what lenses do you have.
Kenneth: And what features do you need.
Oh, what lenses.
Jay P.: I mean lenses always, I mean if you got a whole collection of certain lens type,
you're gonna make a decision on that, but you can put Metabones on the FS7, can't you?
Kenneth: Yeah, so actually, the mount on the FS7 E-Mount actually makes it really flexible
because you can, the short flange depth means you could adapt any lens that you want to
that system.
I think if you're shooting slow motion, FS7 all the way.
Jay P.: Well, yeah, you get...it's a weird frame rate, like a hundred and...
Kenneth: A hundred and eighty frames in 2K.
Jay P.: In 2K, 180 frames in 2K.
That's huge.
Kenneth: It's huge.
I don't actually don't know of any other camera that shoots that frame rate for under 10,000.
Jay P.: Yeah.
So on the Canon, you only get what, 60 at 2K?
Kenneth: Well, actually you can do 120 at 2K but it's in the crop mode so your crop
factor is gonna be three times compared to a full frame sensor.
Jay P.: So the advantages of the Sony is you have the ability to do slow motion in 2K.
Kenneth: And in 4k.
It does 60 at 4K.
Canon only does 30 in 4K, so if you do slow motion, go with the Sony.
Jay P.: What are the other advantages?
Either way.
They've both got built-in NDs.
Kenneth: They both have built in NDs that are great.
I think they're both very flexible in post.
They both have pretty good color.
It probably just depends on your taste.
I would say the Canon probably has better preamps in its XLRs, which is nice if you
need to put audio right into your camera.
Jay P.: That's another reason why these cameras are so fabulous.
So it's got two XLRs on the Canon, the same with the FS7.
Kenneth: I'm pretty sure, yeah, it's the same with the FS7.
Jay P.: So you think the preamps are better on the Canon?
Kenneth: I think so.
Jay P.: Canon has pretty incredible preamps in there.
Kenneth: They do.
Jay P.: They really do.
That's a huge advantage.
If you're running sound, not having to have an external recorder and just, you know, if
you're doing interviews or things that are quick, it's really easy to get the sound back
to the media on the cameras.
Kenneth: One thing that we should talk about that we forgot to talk about in our last review
is autofocus.
The autofocus on the Canon is incredible.
Jay P.: That has that little green thing as you're going on there, as you get in or out,
you know, so if you're doing an interview and the person's kinda rocking in their chair,
it gives you the ability to keep them right in focus.
Kenneth: Exactly.
Even if you don't want to use the autofocus feature itself, you can still use those electric
contacts to tell you are they too close or are they too far, because the camera knows.
It's really incredible.
Jay P.: Yeah, that's good.
Kenneth: The Sony also has autofocus.
I haven't ever experienced Sony's autofocus.
Jay P.: We didn't use it on set because we were shooting, all these tests were done with
a 50mm Canon lens and so we're gonna use the same lens that you're looking at lens to lens
comparison.
Lens wasn't an issue in the comparison.
Kenneth: Exactly.
The FS7 would need native E-mount lenses to autofocus.
Jay P.: Yeah, you have the native lens.
Kenneth: Adaptors can be finicky sometimes.
Jay P.: Even now, the Metabones on lot of my Sonys, I've got to turn them sometimes
and reconnect the lens to get them to, you know, not always but sometimes it'll happen.
Kenneth: On the other hand, if you like speed boosters, you could use a speed booster with
the FS7 because it's a crop sensor, so that's cool.
Jay P.: That would be fabulous.
How about weight and form function?
I mean, for me, the Canon was easier to use but...
Kenneth: Right.
Actually, there are a couple of things in terms of form factor.
Jay P.: Form factor is nowhere as important.
Kenneth: The Sony does go on your shoulder easier which is nice.
That's generally how people use cameras whereas a Canon is meant to be, I guess held in front
of you, which is strange for a cinema camera.
Jay P.: It doesn't make a lot of sense.
Kenneth: Doesn't make a lot of sense.
Jay P.: I was looking at it going, "How do I stabilize this?"
You know, you're gonna have to put it against your eye and your elbow, it's back to the
old 35mm, it's back to DSLR basically.
Kenneth: I have found that it works really well with an EZ Rig though.
It's a vest contraption that has an arm that comes over in a cable and it'll hook on to
the C300 and the camera just floats in front me which is really convenient.
Jay P.: How expensive are those?
Kenneth: The one I use is only $1,500 because it...
Jay P.: Only $1,500.
Hey, pick up two.
Kenneth: Compared to the full size one, it's like 4,000 so.
Jay P.: That'd be great if you're doing those kind of that floating look, you know, it will
be really easy to do in front of you.
But if you really want to stabilize it, that doesn't stabilize it.
Kenneth: No, definitely not.
That's for a very specific kind of use.
The one thing that the Canon does have over the FS7 I think is the EVF.
The FS7 has one screen and it's about a 4-inch screen that has a loop on it so it can either
be a monitor or an EVF.
The issue is that it's not particularly good at either thing because a looped monitor,
in my opinion, never looks as good as like a real EVF, and the tiny screen is just really
small.
Jay P.: Really small.
Kenneth: Yeah.
The Canon has a really great EVF, I think.
Jay P.: Well, it's got an EVF and it's got a screen.
Kenneth: And plus it's got an articulable screen so...
Jay P.: Which gives you both those options which is nice.
So if you're wanting to hold it out here and work down low or something, you can do it,
or you can get it right on the camera.
Kenneth: Also, the Canon is very strippable.
You can take your screen attachment off, the top handle off, the side handle off, and you'll
still have full control of the body in just like a little box almost.
Jay P.: My only problem with that side handle is it's like, there's a little cord you plug
in and you turn it, and I'm going, "Really?"
Kenneth: And sometimes it doesn't connect so you have to unscrew it again.
It's kind of cumbersome.
Jay P.: That seems kinda wrinky-dink to me at $12,000 camera, you know, we got a little
cable in there.
What if that breaks?
You have to buy a whole new handle?
Kenneth: Yeah, I guess so.
Jay P.: So that concerned me a little bit, but I've never heard anybody saying they had
those issues, you know.
Maybe you just put it together and leave a built, you know, and that way you're not...
Kenneth: Yeah, that's what a lot of people do.
I mean these cameras are small enough you can do that for the most part.
Jay P.: They are pretty small, throw it in the case so...
All right, so there you have it.
A look at the FS7 and the Canon C300 Mark II.
Conclusions are they're pretty head-to-head.
Kenneth: They're pretty head-to-head.
Both great options, comes down to how you want to shoot and what you're familiar with,
and both can be obviously, you know, when you get up to the $10,000 range, if you can't
make a good image out of it, I don't think the camera is the problem.
Jay P.: That's probably the truth.
So just to wrap this up, in my mind, check your wallet, check the footage, and make your
own decision.
So keep those cameras rolling and keep on clicking.
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Kenneth: So we have a lot of tests that we want to do in the future.
Jay P.: A lot of tests.
Kenneth: A lot of tests.
There are lots of great cameras out there and we want to put them head-to-head, but
we're wondering about the format.
Do you prefer this kind of format where it's studio lit or doing this kind of long slog
of over and under exposure and ISO test, or do you wanna see us go out and shoot more
real footage in real locations that seems more practical?
Let us know in the comments.
Jay P.: Yeah, let us know what you think, what you think would be of value to you and
tell what cameras you'd like to see head-to-head.
Kenneth: Seriously, we could always use your recommendations for that.
Jay P.: Yup, love to hear what you're thinking.
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