Canon C300 Mark II $4,000 price drop, now at $11,999

Canon C300 Mark II

Canon C300 Mark II at a glance:

  • New Canon 8.85 Megapixel CMOS Sensor
  • Dual Canon DIGIC DV5 Image Processors
  • Canon XF-AVC H.264 Codec
  • Internal 4K/2K/Full HD Recording
  • Twin 3G-SDI Outputs for up to 30p 4K
  • Full Manual Control
  • 1.77 Megapixel Color OLED EVF With Adjustable 60o Tilt Angle
  • Uses All Canon CN-E Cinema Prime and Zoom Lenses
  • Uses All Canon EF and EF-S Photo Lenses (Including Specialty Tilt-Shift and Other Models)
  • Built-In Mono Microphone
  • Removable LCD Monitor and Control Panel with XLR Inputs
  • Removable Hand Grip
  • Improved Low-Angle Camera Handle Extension
  • Built-in Dual-Band Wi-Fi for Remote LiveView Display and Camera Control

Guess the Canon C300 Mark II didn’t sell as expected. Canon dropped the C300 Mark II price by $4,000, now it is on sale to $11,999 (B&H Photo | Adorama).

A firmware update is expected for July, bringing C-Log 3 to the C300 Mark II.

A Canon EOS C300 Mark II on the summit of Mount Everest

EOS C300 Mark II
Philip Flaming and a Canon EOS C300 Mark II on Mt. Everest

Thanks Daniel for the tip. All pictures © Furtenbach Adventures, and used with permission.

A Canon EOS C300 Mark II made it to the summit of the Everest. It happened on May 19, 2016, when an Austrian expedition reached the summit of the highest mountain on earth. The EOS C300 Mark II was used for what is going to be the first 4K production of Mt. Everest. The expedition was organised by Furtenbach Adventures.

There is a long interview with the guys who did it, mainly about the mountaineering-challenges, and it is in German. However, you can get a pretty decent machine translation here (at least you’ll grasp what is said). An excerpt:

Using the latest camera technology, the team led by Tyrolean expedition organiser Lukas Furtenbach, filmed all the way to the summit. It’s the first full 4K production from Mount Everest. Overall, they spent more than 1.5 hours at the top to create footage with various camera systems (including 360 ° VR cameras) for two projects of a German private television station and a cinema project.

EOS C300 Mark II
Shooting 4K on Mt. Everest

The Canon EOS C300 Mark II was sponsored by Canon Germany as part of a case study for the company. As Lukas Furtenbach told me via email, they were very happy with the EOS C300 Mark II and its performance, which all along the way to the summit never missed a hit. The EOS C300 Mark II was operated by German cameraman Philip Flaming. The two projects mentioned above are TV-documentaries. Hope there will soon be a “making of” of these productions.

EOS C300 Mark II
Shooting 4K on Mt. Everest

Furtenbach Adventures, the company that organised the ascension to Mt. Everest send me a brief press statement that I translated for you.

After no one was on the summit of Mount Everest for almost two years, we were one of the first expeditions reaching the summit of Mount Everest from Nepal. On 19/05/2016 at 6:15am there were 5 of 6 participants and a camera crew at the top. And they wrote film history.

After decades there was again an expedition of a Tyrolean [Austria, editors note] organizer with special features:

We were the first commercial expedition ever which has acclimatised  at home as cohesive team high in the mountains, six weeks before the start of the expedition. This gave us an almost twice as long acclimatization time compared to other teams and we were better prepared to do the summit, could climb faster, and head right back to the secure Camp 2 (usually after having done the summit, people descends only into the more exposed Camp 4). As successive events on Mt. Everest have shown in the following days, this was the key to a safe ascent and descent. There were six deaths and more than eighty people with severe frostbite. The time our expedition had to spent on spot was far below that of most other teams, thanks to our acclimatization efforts at home. For us this is the future of commercial high altitude mountaineering, as it increases security and chances of success.

We had connected two film projects. Using the latest camera technology we shot all the way to the top. It is the first full 4K production from Mount Everest. Overall, we spent more than 1.5 hours at the top, to use the various camera systems (including 360 ° VR cameras) for two projects of a German private TV station. Our expedition also hosted the mammoth 360 Project.

EOS C300 Mark II
Canon EOS C300 Mark II

Canon C300 Mark II (B&H Photo | Adorama) at a glance:

  • New Canon 8.85 Megapixel CMOS Sensor
  • Dual Canon DIGIC DV5 Image Processors
  • Canon XF-AVC H.264 Codec
  • Internal 4K/2K/Full HD Recording
  • Twin 3G-SDI Outputs for up to 30p 4K
  • Full Manual Control
  • 1.77 Megapixel Color OLED EVF With Adjustable 60o Tilt Angle
  • Uses All Canon CN-E Cinema Prime and Zoom Lenses
  • Uses All Canon EF and EF-S Photo Lenses (Including Specialty Tilt-Shift and Other Models)
  • Built-In Mono Microphone
  • Removable LCD Monitor and Control Panel with XLR Inputs
  • Removable Hand Grip
  • Improved Low-Angle Camera Handle Extension
  • Built-in Dual-Band Wi-Fi for Remote LiveView Display and Camera Control
[via Bergsteigen via Furtenbach Adventures]

Canon EOS C300 Mark II meets EBU HD and UHD classification

EOS C300 Mark II
EOS C300 Mark II

Canon press release:

Canon EOS C300 Mark II meets EBU HD and UHD classification

United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, 18th February 2016 – Canon today announces that the EOS C300 Mark II digital cinema camera has been independently tested in accordance with European Broadcast Union (EBU) recommendations for both HD and UHD content acquisition¹. The report recognises image capture of up to 15 stops of dynamic range using Canon Log2 and qualifies the EOS C300 Mark II for R.118 Tier 1 in HD and Tier 2 in UHD².

The new gamma Canon Log2 has been designed specifically for the C300 MKII’s new 8.85MP Super 35mm CMOS sensor. Having access to this high dynamic range gives users the creative freedom to produce more compelling visuals. Combined with the EOS C300 Mark II’s built-in noise reduction functionality, filmmakers have the ability to shoot almost anywhere, capturing low-noise footage in many challenging shooting scenarios.

The EBU exists to serve 73 broadcasters across 56 countries in understanding which technology is best suited to certain tasks. The UK’s Digital Production Partnership (DPP) broadcasters use these recommendations to ensure their content meets a minimum threshold. This is especially important when a compressed image needs to survive editing, grading, encoding and transmission before it reaches audiences in its final pictures.

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Canon EOS C300 Mark II impression by LensRentals

c300_2x

The folks over at LensRentals posted a first impression about the Canon EOS C300 Mark II. When talking about performance, they write:

Surprisingly, the thing that impressed me most in my time with the Canon C300 Mark II had nothing to do with resolution, bit rate, or dynamic range. Digital video technology has improved so much in just the last few years that those specs, while enormously important, aren’t enough on their own to make me choose one camera over the other. There are simply so many great digital cinema cameras on the market right now that it takes a wholly original feature to make a camera stand out. In the case of the Canon C300 Mark II, that feature is autofocus. Read the review at LensRentals.

What makes the auto-focus so powerful is Dual Pixel CMOS Auto-Focus technology, featured also on the EOS 7D Mark II and Canon EOS 70D. Below you see two test videos shot with the C300 Mark II. You may also be interested in a C300 Mark II white paper Canon recently published.

Canon C300 Mark II (B&H Photo | Adorama) specs at a glance:

  • New Canon 8.85 Megapixel CMOS Sensor
  • Dual Canon DIGIC DV5 Image Processors
  • Canon XF-AVC H.264 Codec
  • Internal 4K/2K/Full HD Recording
  • Twin 3G-SDI Outputs for up to 30p 4K
  • Full Manual Control
  • 1.77 Megapixel Color OLED EVF With Adjustable 60o Tilt Angle
  • Uses All Canon CN-E Cinema Prime and Zoom Lenses
  • Uses All Canon EF and EF-S Photo Lenses (Including Specialty Tilt-Shift and Other Models)
  • Built-In Mono Microphone
  • Removable LCD Monitor and Control Panel with XLR Inputs
  • Removable Hand Grip
  • Improved Low-Angle Camera Handle Extension
  • Built-in Dual-Band Wi-Fi for Remote LiveView Display and Camera Control

 

New lens mount options for EOS C300 Mark II (and links to C300 Mk2 white papers)

Canon Cinema EOS C300 Mark III

Canon Professional Network posted a short article about the recently announced option to change the mount type of the Canon EOS C300 Mark II (B&H Photo | Adorama) from the native EF mount to EF with Cinema Lock or to a PL mount. Even better: you can switch back.

For the more technical oriented, the Canon Digital Learning Center published three downloadable white papers written by Larry Thorpe (Senior Fellow, Imaging Technologies & Communications Group, Professional Engineering & Solutions Division, Canon USA). The white papers are titled ‘Image Performance Enhancements in the EOS C300 Mark II’, ‘Extended Recording Capabilities in the EOS C300 Mark II’ and ‘Ergonomic and Operational Enhancements to the EOS C300 Mark II’.

CPS advisory:

Owners and purchasers of the Canon EOS C300 Mark II will soon be able to benefit from a new lens mount service option which offers the capability to change the 4K Digital Cinema Camera’s original EF mount to EF with Cinema Lock or to a PL mount and back again. 

After purchasing the C300 Mark II, service mount options will soon be available from Canon Regional Competence Centres (RCC) in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden or the UK. These services are expected to be available in October 2015; further details of how you can purchase the lens mount options will be communicated shortly.

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