The Canon EOS C300 and C300/PL are discounted to $13,999 at B&H (click here) and Adorama (click here).

Product description (taken from Adorama’s product page):

Bringing Canon’s expertise and decades of experience designing sensors, lenses, image processing and design to the world of motion picture capture, the EOS C300 camera has been designed to meet the demanding needs of cinema industry professionals, providing a modular, portable and eminently adaptable system of cameras, lenses and accessories built for moviemaking in the 21st century.

Featuring a unique Super 35mm Canon CMOS sensor, revolutionary Canon DIGIC DV III Image Processor and 50 Mbps 4:2:2 codec, the EOS C300 provides outstanding cinema quality movie capture. Compact, modular and compatible with Canon’s existing line-up of EF and new EF Cinema lenses as well as accessories from third parties, the stunningly simple to operate EOS C300 is designed to please cinematographers for any production large and small, on location or in the studio, from shoestring to Hollywood budgets.

The EOS C300 has a Canon EF lens mount and is compatible with all of Canon’s new EF Cinema lenses and current EF lenses, including compact primes, super telephotos, specialty tilt-shift, macro and fisheye – over 60 in all. Designed with SMPTE HD production standards, its MPEG-2 codec is an internationally recognized standard compatible with major NLE applications while additional features such as Canon Log ensure seamless integration with existing production workflows, making post-production easy. And with an entire support infrastructure designed to help you get the most from your equipment before, during and after production, the EOS C300 is ready to go to work.

Canon yesterday released a firmware update for the Canon EOS C300 and C300/PL (B&H | Adorama), click here to download the firmware.

Changes:

Firmware Version 1.0.8.1.00 incorporates the following fixes and improvements:

1. Some of the EF lens products that can be mounted on the camera can be controlled more reliably.

2. Corrections to the Spanish and German language texts in the View Assistance function [View Assist.].

3. Efforts to correct image color fringing when a subject is of high contrast have been made.

Note: Firmware version 1.0.7.1.00 incorporates items 2 and 3 above. Firmware Version 1.0.8.1.00 is for EOS C300/EOS C300 PL cameras with Firmware Version 1.0.2.1.00 through 1.0.7.1.00. If the camera’s firmware is already Version 1.0.8.1.00, it is not necessary to update the firmware. Once the camera is updated to the latest version, it cannot be restored to a previous version.

Canon’ professional cinema camera, the C300 is $1000 off at B&H, and goes on sale for $14,999 (click here).

Specifications:

• Super 35mm-Size CMOS Sensor
• EF Lens Mount for Broad Compatibility
• Canon XF Codec – 4:2:2 50 Mb/s MPEG-2
• 1920 x 1080i60 & True 24p Recording
• Rotating 4″, 1.23 Mp LCD Monitor
• HD-SDI Output, XLR Inputs
• Dual CF Card Slots
• Timecode I/O, Genlock In & Sync Out
• Canon Log Gamma
• Modular Design: Removable Grip & Monitor

[via The Digital Picture]

10 minutes video from Magnanimous Media on Vimeo about Canon’s C300 (click here for price, specs and description). Jonah Rubash explores and investigates the virtues of the Canon C300 and demonstrates the basic setup. Btw, if you want to play around with the settings (or mess them up) to learn about the EOS C300 before taking the decision to buy or not, there is an app for that! Canon provided a nice menu simulator for the C300 (click here). A pretty useful tools that lets you move through the menu(s) and select the various buttons on the device.

Finally, EOSHD made a chart comparison between the C300 and the Blackmagic Cinema Camera (click here for price, specs and description). The tackled issue is how the Blackmagic’s RAW mode compares to the C300. Test charts are used for the comparison.

How do the EOS 5D Mark III ($3,499), the EOS C300 ($15,999) and RED’s Scarlet (the pixel champion! <$10,000) compare one to the others? Good question, and over at nofilmschool they tried to answer the question. And what would be better than a bike race shot at night? Spoiler: The C300 beats them all, much better performance at low light (not really a surprise). However, given the big price difference, the EOS 5D Mark III performance is worth of consideration. Quoting:

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German site slashcam.de (Google translation) reports a rumor about Canon announce a new, and cheaper, model of the EOS C300 at NAB 2012. Cheaper because it would not have interchangeable optics.

This would make somewhat sense, since yesterday Nikon  (thanks Scotch) Sony announced two new models of C300′s direct competitors: the PMW-F3K/RGB and the PMWF3L/RGB (click here information), and both should be cheaper (but I couldn’t find a price so far) than the actually available C300 (around $16,000 body only), which, btw, just started shipping a month ago. The murmured “special edition”-C300 could hence be the chance for Canon to drop prices one step further and to counter Nikon’s announcement.

Let’s see what’s happening.

[via SC]