C100 vs XF300

[Al Bergstein]

Rob, I’ve owned both, and sold both recently. For stage shows I really liked the XF300. This video was shot last year with an XF300 on both left and right sides and a C100 in the center.
https://vimeo.com/205844898

The C100 was my go to camera for the last couple of years, with the XF300 as backup or used when I wanted parfocal in a well lit theater show.

The C100 has much better low light ability. And it has much better dynamic range. The XF300 in good light is a better image, IMHO. In lower light the C100 is much better.

For sports and theater in good lighting I would have chosen the xf300 over the C100. In most documentary or cinematic scenes I would always chose the C100.

Most of my Vimeo videos are one or the other or both.

Al

[Rob Gutermuth]

Thanks Al,

Just curious what you upgraded to? – Do you think the reason the XF300 had a better image than the C100 was due to the lenses used? or the codec? or the sensor? – Interesting debate I think – being that the XF300 is a 3 chip camera, using the MXF codec in 4:2:2 (which is tough to beat still for the price I think: 3 smaller chips vs a single larger chip…

But you are 100% right – I never liked this camera’s images past +6 – +12 is usable, but not great – I think the Sensor of the C100 being larger, allows for a much greater dynamic range. I have heard though that above about 3200 iso it starts to get noisy, but my guess is that is about +18 on the 300 and at that, it’s almost unusable to me.

I love the 300’s – but I would love to see them 2x as good in low light… that’s really my only complaint now with them.

Rob Gutermuth
Media Creations

[Al Bergstein]

rob, for a variety of reasons I’ve moved to the GH5. part of it was that I am no longer doing as many stage shows as I was doing a year ago, I’ve sort of gotten out of that to some degree. I can rent an xf300 when I need one . as far as the C100 goes I needed to go to 4K. Canon has been doing a horrible job of putting together high-quality gear at reasonable price lately. I like the c200, but I just can’t justify for the work that I’m doing at this point . for a great deal less money I can purchase multiple GH5 bodies, an Inferno, and a number of lenses. For the work that I do these days those work just fine and are much more portable . for similar reason I sold my 5D Mark III, and decided against going to the 5D Mark IV. The feature set in the GH 5blows away the mark iv. I wish it didn’t I wouldn’t of had to buy a bunch of new lenses! as a long time Canon user for decades I find it disappointing that I have to abandon them in order to get the features that I need in a reasonable price. I would love to have a C 200 or a C300 but the price should be 1/3rd less. As an example of feature sets that have been deprecated by Canon , the fabulous polar wave form monitors found on the sf300 was removed in the c100. that one feature made it much easier to get extremely good color balance by centering a gray card reading.

I have not been disappointed in the GH5 shooting stage shows, but I must say that in 1080 P the XF 300 still has a superb quality, maybe even better color range for stage shows . it feels more organic in the subtle color areas of flesh tones and shadow ranges. The GH5 is clumbsier to shoot with, and it needs an external monitor as the built in one is horrible for pulling fine focus from afar. if I was continuing to shoot stage shows in 1080 P I would not of sold the xf300.

Al