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The C-Series little Brother: Canon’s new C100

Posted by Brad Spinsby on March 19, 2013

When the Canon 5D Mark II was released, a craze began in the camera crew world for the “shallow depth of field” look. Although this film look has been done for years, the 5D Mark II made it both readily available and affordable on a limited budget. Finally Canon used that same concept from the still camera and developed a video equivalent with their C-Series cameras. So, what is the difference between the Mark Series camera and a C-Series? The C-Series cameras provide professional XLR audio inputs and allow for long clip recording, which were the drawbacks to shooting high-definition video with a DSLR still camera.

The first C-Series camera was released over a year ago, but Canon has recently released a couple more cameras in the line, the newest being the C100. The C100 is the lowest model in the Canon C-Series but utilizes the same DiG!C DV III Super 35mm CMOS sensor as the Canon C-300 and 500 cameras. It will shoot full 1920×1080 in up to 24mpbs using MPEG-4/H.264 compression onto either SDHC or SDXC cards. The C-Series cameras are fully compatible with the Canon EF, EF-S, and EF Cinema lenses like the Mark Series, and will support autofocus on compatible lenses. The Canon C-100 also boasts ISO speeds from 320 all the way up to 20000 to shoot in a great range of lighting conditions.

So what are the differences between the C100 and the other C-Series cameras? Although the sensors are the same between all C-Series cameras, the main difference is that the C100 will only shoot 24Mbps at 4:2:0 color spacing in AVCHD codec. The other C-Series cameras will do at least 50mbps at 4:2:2 color spacing and shoot either XF or RAW formats. Although the C100 shoots a signal with less quality it allows you to shoot more footage on less space. The Canon C100 also comes in at a price point at about half the cost of the C300. Canon released the C100 to fulfill the need of a “shallow depth of field” Super 35mm Digital Cinema camera at a price point closer to the Canon 5D Mark II DSLR camera.

Video Podcast: Canon EOS C-Series Comparison

How do you think Canon’s C-Series compares to the Mark Series cameras? Any Chicago video crews want to chime in on this? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below or join the conversation on Facebook or Twitter.