New Canon XC10

[BernardLanguillier]

What do you pro video shooters think about the XC10?

To my ignorant eyes it feels like Canon may have gotten it very right here.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Christopher Sanderson]

Looks very impressive with a nice large sensor for shallow dof - so does the 4K C300 ll.

But at first glance that leaves a big price gap to get to interchangeable glass between the fixed lens 4K XC10 and the 4K C300. I would expect something in the 'middle'... he said, hoping ))

[EDIT] What am I thinking?? 1" sensor is tiny... Hmmmm maybe less impressive than I thought. I'll stick with my GH4s ))

[michael]

That's the rub. It's too small a sensor from a DOF perspective. Otherwise not bad.... except...no stabilization in 4K; only in HD. That makes it a fail to my eyes.

M

[Rhossydd]

It's too small a sensor from a DOF perspective.

Nonsense. It's fine.
Yes, the kids kidding themselves they're 'cinematographers' having uploaded a handful of dreadful out of focus vimeo clips will wail about too much DoF, but it's going to be a really important camera for the industry.
A growing number of people are realising that shallow DoF doesn't automatically make good pictures, in fact it rarely does.

Paul
(A broadcast professional who actually makes programmes for a living.)

[michael]

Nonsense. It's fine.
Yes, the kids kidding themselves they're 'cinematographers' having uploaded a handful of dreadful out of focus vimeo clips will wail about too much DoF, but it's going to be a really important camera for the industry.
A growing number of people are realising that shallow DoF doesn't automatically make good pictures, in fact it rarely does.

Paul
(A broadcast professional who actually makes programmes for a living.)

Of course the issue isn't whether or not there is enough depth of field, the issue is what the user's purpose it?

Many people want shallow DOF for a theatrical / filmic look. Others not.

So, with all due respect, it's not "nonsense" and it's not "fine". One first has to find out what the shooters intentions are, then it's either appropriate or not.

If shallow DOF were not important to many people for creative purposes the DSLR video revolution wouldn't be where it is now. Certainly no one bought the Canon 5D because it was such a great video camera.

Similarly the lack of stabilization in 4K will be a deal killer for some, but not for others. For the theatrical production crowd, not so much, as they may be on sticks much of the time. For run-and-gun, as a said, a deal killer.



Michael

[Rhossydd]

Many people want shallow DOF for a theatrical / filmic look. Others not.
So, with all due respect, it's not "nonsense" and it's not "fine". One first has to find out what the shooters intentions are, then it's either appropriate or not.

Er, you were the one that started by saying "It's too small a sensor from a DOF perspective".

Now you're saying you shouldn't judge a camera until you know what people want from it. Make your mind up.

[bcooter]

Looks very impressive with a nice large sensor for shallow dof - so does the 4K C300 ll.

But at first glance that leaves a big price gap to get to interchangeable glass between the fixed lens 4K XC10 and the 4K C300. I would expect something in the 'middle'... he said, hoping ))

[EDIT] What am I thinking?? 1" sensor is tiny... Hmmmm maybe less impressive than I thought. I'll stick with my GH4s ))

Canon is like that kid in class that hands in a 200 word essay when 500 words is required (x-10) then get's admonished so next time writes 4000 words and hands it in 4 weeks late.  (C300 II).

In today's world nobody needs a small 1" sensor in a small camera, large or small, unless your shooting from a drone or small handheld and lack of IS is going to be an issue.

When they announced this Camera, the guys at Panasonic were probably dancing down the hallways.

Anyway . . .

For shooting advertising especially fast lifestyle one of the biggest "challanges" on location is selective focus and watching out for logos, signs, recognizable bystanders in the background.  

We just completed a project and for legal clearance removed 5 logos and we we're very, very, very mindful of this and produced art work to cover most of the logos that were accessable.

Without the ability to throw the background soft, we would have had to remove 50.

For all of these mid range to low priced  cameras every company should have superb shake reduction/image stabilization.    No excuses, even for home movies.

I really would have loved for Canon to make a full sensor read out 70d  sampled to 4k or uhd,   with a little better sound shielding and input/outputs and a clip on evf.    That would have been a gh4 competitor and kept a lot of people in the Canon arena and I assume that will be in the next 5d4 though I think apsc/ super 35 is a better format than full frame 35mm just due to sensor read out and jello cam issues.

Now the 4000 word essay camera.

The C300 might be a winner, but they're still priced higher than some of the competition and still require a separate model for EF or PL mount lenses.  (that one I truly don't get).

Anyway, I was looking forward to the c300 II and will give it a test when it's out, though this week worked a little bit with a Sony F5 and that's one hell of a camera for the price.   It's got the same  Sonyness proprietary weirdness of adding internal boards for 2k (only) pro rezz and separate recorders for 4k raw, but in size, weight, battery power and build quality it's a very good professional camera.

I hate rumors but I was told a few times that people that should know that when the 5d video craze hit the streets a few years ago, the suits in Hollywood, invited Canon in with a request to build an easier to use, cheaper, faster (i.e. cheaper) camera to produce episodic TV and medium budget theatrical.

Obviously people use Canons on set all the time, but not so much for A camera work, usually B cam, small area cam, in car cam, background plates etc.

The Arri has dominated medium to high end for A cam and I think some of this is DP's and operators are accustom to Arri, but given how fast they edit and do post today, I  believe the main advantage of the Arri is the ability to produce an in camera 444 prores or DNxHD with a lot of stops and color.

That's why the next RED will shoot prores.

But bottom line is if you want more dof, it's easy, just stop down.  (note to pesky kids and their out of focus vimeos)  insert smiley face.



BC

[michael]

Er, you were the one that started by saying "It's too small a sensor from a DOF perspective".

Now you're saying you shouldn't judge a camera until you know what people want from it. Make your mind up.

We'll this is your second post in a row where you've been somwhat rude. I ignored the first one, but not this time.

It is possible to have a debate without an aggressive tone. I suggest that you give it a try.

Michael

Ps: Of course the intended application is important in any product review.

Sometimes it's implicit rather than explicit.

I assume an adult, literate audience, and therefore don't always feel the need to spell things out.

[Chris_Brown]

1" CMOS Sensor and DIGIC DV 4 processor
UltraHD 4K at 29.97/25/23.98p
H.264 recording in MFX wrapper
Up to 305 Mbps 4K / 50 Mbps HD recording
SDHC/SDXC and CFast card slots
HDMI output - supports 4K monitoring
10x zoom / 8.9 to 89mm focal length
f/2.8 to 5.6 aperture range
100 to 20,000 ISO range
Ergonomic tilting hand grip
Built-in Wi-Fi

Dear Canon, just because you can build it doesn't mean you should.

[eronald]

There is a large corporate/institutional market for video cameras; these need to make sharp images, have a decent zoom, decent sound and work in the hands of random people and make their operator look "professional". Such cameras are seen at events, talks, conferences, tradeshows, theaters, sports etc and are used to create an institutional memory of what took place.

A camera that fits this market should be slightly expensive but not too much.

I guess the Canon will fit this market well. Canon don't care about us members of this forum, they care about their sales numbers, and corporate video is a market which is doing very well thank you, as cellphones don't have zooms, are rarely seen on tripods, and don't work well for long recordings because the owner wants to text

I hope I have obeyed the tradition of this forum and bashed the product without disrespect to other forum participants, all of who doubtless bring much more knowledge to bear than my humble and cynical worldview

Edmund

[Robert Roaldi]

What I know about video rounds to zero, but could this kind of "platform" be where (high-end) consumer camcorders are headed? The price of this model is a bit steep for that market, I suppose, but higher production volumes or less feature-rich variants could change that pretty quickly.

[BJL]

... the issue is what the user's purpose it?

Indeed, a lot of gear debates fall at the first fence by assuming that one particular measure of excellence [like “BOKEH!!!"] is what every camera should be judged by; it makes more sense to me to ask what range of uses a particular tool is good for, and try to judge how well it competes for that usage.

One common goal for some users of video cameras is the ability to quickly move over a fairly wide range of focal lengths, which means offering a lens with a zoom range like 10x or more.  Combine that with a desire for portability, which limits the physical size of the lens, and I can see a good case for a format like 1" or not much bigger.  Once any bigger format alternative has to keep the bulk of the longer focal length lens needed under control by it having a higher minimum f-stop, hopes for better low light performance and stronger OOF effects go out the window, and a smaller sensor might have some natural advantage for high frame rates, due to shorter signal paths and easier on-chip syncronization.

That said, I wonder how the XC10 will compare to say a Panasonic GH4 with 14-140 lens? The high bit rate options of the XC10 might be an advantage, at least for now.

Note: as both these cameras use a 3840 or 4096 pixel wide crop for video, the effective sensor sizes for video are closer than the 1" vs 4/3" comparison suggests.  [UPDATE:]  For "per-pixel-peepers" of spec sheets, the pixel pitch comparison is 3.2 microns for the XC10, 3.75 for the GH4, so a 17% linear difference, 37% area, or about a half stop.  But let us see how Canon now compares to Sony/Panasonic on photosite tech.!

[eronald]

BJL - The Panasonic is a non-runner as a camcorder in Europe because recording time is limited to 30 minutes. For some reason Pana refuses to pay the tariff and this cripples the camera as an institutional camcorder. The direct competitor to the XC10 as an easy to use institutional recorder is probably Sony's AX100, which is also in the sub-$2K class as well as the pro version the PXW-X70. Incidentally the Sony's also use a 1" chip, which might be the same one, but they have low rate 4K codecs, with 4K an option on the pro (!) model, all in the tradition of Sony's salami-sliced marketing techniques. The XC10 looks pretty good, I might actually get one, except day-to-day indoors usage also means high-ISO and here the 1" chip and slowish lens does seem to be a weakness. In 4K video mode the GH4 is unbelievably good for its price, IMHO, and you know that I'm very hard to please

Edmund

Indeed, a lot of gear debates fall at the first fence by assuming that one particular measure of excellence [like “BOKEH!!!"] is what every camera should be judged by; it makes more sense to me to ask what range of uses a particular tool is good for, and try to judge how well it competes for that usage.

One common goal for some users of video cameras is the ability to quickly move over a fairly wide range of focal lengths, which means offering a lens with a zoom range like 10x or more.  Combine that with a desire for portability, which limits the physical size of the lens, and I can see a good case for a format like 1" or not much bigger.  Once any bigger format alternative has to keep the bulk of the longer focal length lens needed under control by it having a higher minimum f-stop, hopes for better low light performance and stronger OOF effects go out the window, and a smaller sensor might have some natural advantage for high frame rates, due to shorter signal paths and easier on-chip syncronization.

That said, I wonder how the XC10 will compare to say a Panasonic GH4 with 14-140 lens? The high bit rate options of the XC10 might be an advantage, at least for now.

Note: as both these cameras use a 3840 or 4096 pixel wide crop for video, the effective sensor sizes for video are closer than the 1" vs 4/3" comparison suggests.  [UPDATE:]  For "per-pixel-peepers" of spec sheets, the pixel pitch comparison is 3.2 microns for the XC10, 3.75 for the GH4, so a 17% linear difference, 37% area, or about a half stop.  But let us see how Canon now compares to Sony/Panasonic on photosite tech.!

[BJL]

BJL - The Panasonic is a non-runner as a camcorder in Europe because recording time is limited to 30 minutes.

I often wonder about that: as far as I know, that tax-category inspired 30 minute limit is on each continuous shot, so how often is is that people want uninterrupted shots anywhere close to 30 minutes long -- outside of surveillance and a few "experimental" movies like Andy Warhol's Empire?  The longest single shot that I know of in a movie that anyone would actually want to watch is eight minutes, in Robert Altman’s The Player.

[michael]

Many people require long shooting time.

Someone filming a speech,a ceremony or a stage performance, for example.

Someone documenting an industrial process.

News gathering, where the beginning or climax of an event can't be predicted.

etc, etc.

Narrative is just one type of film making. In most instances shots are only seconds long, so your point is correct. But only in this one application.

Michael

[eronald]

BJL,

As Michael points out, anyone setting up a camera in a conference or ceremony or speech wants a continuous long run. That is what I call "institutional use".

But in a music video I did recently, a colleague  set up two unattended cameras, of which one mounted above the stage to provide another viewpoint. They just ran and were retrieved at the end of the session. There were also two attended cameras running during every take.

Multiple camera work, and the use of unattended cameras is one of the innovations by which modern video practice with untrained camera operators  differs from old style film-driven cinematography. In fact one of the reasons why the gopro is so popular is that a lot of people use it for a cheap fixed-focus second viewpoint, sometimes even hotshoed on the main camera. Also, running one miked camera continuously provides a reference for takes and external sound recorders. Syncing tracks is a huge issue nowadays as multiple recorders are invariably in use at different times. Small productions can run without clappers and take notes.

As far as I'm concerned, the XC10 is an institutional and backup camera; a solid camcorder if you will. With the Canon label and the big "4K" sticker stuck on, everyone is going to be buying one, how much they will actually use the XC10 is a different issue. Think of it as the 35mm SLR which every photographer has in his bag even if he is using a Hasselblad as his main camera. Unfortunately, the XC10 does seem under-specced, and looks like a repackaged Sony RX100 zoom subcompact, and I wonder if it's using some version of Sony's bestselling 1" BSI sensor; for all I know, it may well fail on image quality when it hits the pro market.  

What I find disturbing is that Canon is now making much of its money now from "good enough" products.  In a sense they have no incentive anymore to be at the top of the game. If I were working at Canon, I would be sad to know that people use Canon or buy Canon only if they cannot afford Red or Alexxa, or lack the ability to make the best from the Blackmagic workflow.

Edmund

I often wonder about that: as far as I know, that tax-category inspired 30 minute limit is on each continuous shot, so how often is is that people want uninterrupted shots anywhere close to 30 minutes long -- outside of surveillance and a few "experimental" movies like Andy Warhol's Empire?  The longest single shot that I know of in a movie that anyone would actually want to watch is eight minutes, in Robert Altman’s The Player.

[BJL]

Thanks Michael and Ronald for the responses; I think I am getting a clearer idea of the niche that the XC10 serves, and that competitors like Panasonic and Sony do not yet -- though they probably can do so quite easily if and when they deem it a profitable direction to go in:

- options like 4K and high bit rates up to 305Mbs without needing an external recorder (thanks to the internal CFast card writer, rather that just SD or Memory Stick)
- ergonomics better suited to video and extended handholding than you get from a still camera form factor like the GH4
- a larger sensor and larger photo-sites than the 2/3" or less of a lot of the competition in its price-range,
- lower cost than video cameras in larger formats like "APS-C" or Super 35mm.
- far less bulk than getting 10x zoom range in larger formats like  "APS-C", Super 35mm and 36x24mm.

I wonder if Panasonic will try again with a dedicated 4/3" format video camera, or offer a GH4 variant with the 30 minute shot limit removed.

I wonder if Sony will put an XQD card (its struggling CFast rival) into a camera in this price range.

I sort of hope that the more widely adopted CFast wins the high bit-rate card format war against Sony's XQD, or that a future evolution of SD gets fast enough.

[bcooter]

If I shot events, or concerts and needed to put cameras on jibs, cranes, arms, trusses and run many multicams, this might be the deal, or as some mentioned if your running long interviews and how to videos.

But this wasn't what the market expected.    They expected a gh4 upgrade, probably in aps c or super 35,  which is kind of strange because Canon's 70d is an inch away from that if it only had full sensor readout and less color bleed . . . and sound and well a bunch of stuff, but still the 70d is damn close to real good for about 800 bucks.

800 bucks buys you two cables from Arri or RED.

IMO

BC

[eronald]

GH4 users were hoping for a Vlog upgrade, for those cases on location when you have uncontrolled highlights that blow out.
This upgrade didn't drop.

Panasonic also released an institutional camera, the DVX200.

After being unique for a year wit the cheapest 4K solution, Pana have a serious problem now because the Samsung NX1 is the new best of class, and Blackmagic are years ahead of them in color science, with the 70D providing more competition as "BC" points out. I think Pana is going to try to squeeze some money out of the market by doing a GH5 with a slightly better sensor with raw out  and Vlog, release an anamorphic lens or converter to get some revenue, and they probably have no visibility past the point where that product runs out. Maybe they don't even care because institutional video with fixed-lens camcorders is where the money really is.

Blackmagic is innovating like crazy.

What I find cute in the video market is that you can find interesting products capable of very high image quality in every price range, so unless you have a big lens investment it really doesn't matter what you're using today because something else will come round tomorrow. 

I'd like to have a better camera, but frankly I'm not so sure I need a better camera - for now I think I just need to shoot more, I've moved to directing and I need an assistant who can actually pull focus. I aim to do about one project per month or so for a year.

Edmund

If I shot events, or concerts and needed to put cameras on jibs, cranes, arms, trusses and run many multicams, this might be the deal, or as some mentioned if your running long interviews and how to videos.

But this wasn't what the market expected.    They expected a gh4 upgrade, probably in aps c or super 35,  which is kind of strange because Canon's 70d is an inch away from that if it only had full sensor readout and less color bleed . . . and sound and well a bunch of stuff, but still the 70d is damn close to real good for about 800 bucks.

800 bucks buys you two cables from Arri or RED.

IMO

BC

[lowep]

"One first has to find out what the shooters intentions are..."

easier said than done, even for the shooter