Canon C300 mk III as a documentary camera test shoot footage

I had the chance to play around with a pre-production Canon C300 mk iii for a couple of days in the first days of June (thank you Canon Sweden) and wanted to try it out in a real world outdoors documentary set up similar to what I would typically work in. So I set out to the Salmon Fishing Premiere at Kengis Bruk, in the Tornea River in the very north of Sweden where I met up with some serious fly fishers. The idea being to shoot a concept of proof for a documentary about Salmon Fishing and the near insane chase for a fish that does not feed.
It rained for most of the time, with the sun shining through only occasionally, so conditions were very much like they can be on a shoot like this.
In short, my takeaway from this, other than the footage looking absolutely amazing, is that the camera is a charm to work with. It is everything I have always wanted with the C300 mkII and more. Coming from the high and bulky C300 mkII with its separate XLR and sound control unit the compact ergonomics is the first thing that really strikes me. Ever since the C200 came out I have used the C300 mk II with the separate LM-V2 monitor mounted on a small arm and the MA-400 XLR-unit mounted tight on the right side of the camera for a more compact and low profile setup than with original monitor/XLR-unit that comes with the camera, which I never got to like. When the C500 mkII came out I knew I would want to change cameras as soon as possible and that I would be willing to do so only for the new form factor itself, regardless of all the other improvements.
Luckily enough I had not pulled the trigger on the C500 mkII when Canon announced the C300 mk III.
I have now had the chance to test out both cameras on real shoots and although FF is appealing, for my needs the choice is pretty simple to the benefit of the C300 mk III. The DGO (Dual Gain Output) and the faster frame rates with contained 4K, 35mm crop and dual pixel AF at the press of a button is the deal breaker. It makes life so easy. To change between slo-mo and 25p was a hassle with the C300 mk II and took several steps inside the meny to go back and forth.
For the documentary type of work I predominantly do, I don't need 6K and would not be able to shoot raw most of the, so would not benefit from it anyways. And however nice the look of full frame is, it also comes with disadvantages, and when I'm after the look I use primes at f1,4 and come close enough to my needs. I also believe that the highlight roll off and the lower noise in the blacks are better with the C300 mk III and for me that's more important than FF. Another factor for the type of work I do is power consumption. I found that the C500 mkII ate through batteries at about twice the speed as my C300 mkII. The C300 mkIII did not. The C300 mkIII is also a lot cheaper obviously than the C500 mkII.
I would be very surprised if this camera will not be a very popular choice for a wide variety of users and it will definitely steal sales from the C500 mkII, however great that camera is. I know I'm getting one.
The footage was shot in C-log 3 and corrected only with a LUT inside Premiere (no real grading at all). Note that DGO does not work at above 60FPS, so those shots will not benefit from DGO but still look wonderful in my opinion.
It was shot hand held with the internal stabilisation active with the CN-E 18-80, EF 70-200/2,8L II, EF 85/1,4L (in order of appearance) lenses.
The interviews were made with the C300 mkII and the EF50mm/1,2L. The drone shots were done with the DJI Inspire 1 Pro X5-camera.
Hope you enjoyed!

[@ptw_cine]

Good job bro, I enjoy this test shot a lot, thanks for sharing that info about C300 m3!

[@JohanGranstrand]

Glad to hear that, thanks!

[@Loqu4]

Hmm what codec did you shoot this in? Seems abit soft. and did you have to apply alot of noise reduction in those backlit shots?

[@JohanGranstrand]

I shot it all in XFAVC as I wanted to try it out in my normal work flow where there’s typically no room for raw. It’s soft because it’s not graded I think, not because of the codec, I’ve only corrected the log-3 with a standard ARRI LUT. So no noise reduction applied. Straight out of the camera. I could’ve shot the back lit shots with log-2 for sure but with the mark II I would always use the log-3 in low light conditions to reduce the noise in the blacks and use log 2 only in very well lit high contrast scenes. The mark III obviously handles noise a lot better so the log-2 is probably useful even in lower light conditions also for when you need that extra dynamic range.

[@Loqu4]

Johan Granstrand ahh I see! Yea for my projects I’ll probably use XAVC most of the time as well. But since RAW compressed it’s data rates for higher FPS, I think I’ll just record RAW for anything above 50fps and use proxies in edit. Also Canon suggest using Clog2 for the best DGO performance.
Can’t wait to test mine even more

[@JohanGranstrand]

I like to think about the different logs as different film stocks. For high contrasty scenes when you really want to capture all the Clog2 is probably the best and for bland weather, rain, overcast days and during night, the Clog3 is probably better in preserving the black in the blacks with less noise. At least that was the case with the mark II. But I'm sure you're right that the DGO comes to its full right in the Clog2.

[@dpc21]

4K version?

[@JohanGranstrand]

Hi. I guess I could provide a Vimeo-link to a 4K version, sure. I’ll arrange that and post the link here.

[@JohanGranstrand]

Hi Paul, Now here's a full 4K, 4096x2160, version on your request. Some frames perhaps looked better with the previous crop-ins but I understand that it can be interesting to look at the 4K version. I exported it at 100Mbs don't really know how much vimeo then compresses it, but probably down to somewhere around 40Mbs or less, so any artefacts or such should be due to the conversion and low bitrate. Do compare with the DJI Inspire footage (the drone shots) that comes from 100Mb/s originals instead of the 410Mb/s from the C300.
vimeo.com/433543218/f11eb43635

[@dpc21]

@@JohanGranstrand Thanks!!!