This is the Canon C70,
and based on the comments I've read over the last two
months, in order for everyone to be happy,
this thing needs to be the perfect upgrade to the C200, an uncompromising budget
version of the C300 Mark III and a viable alternative
to Sony's recent releases, but with an RF mount.
So is it all those things? Yep. Let's get undone! [offbeat music] ♪ Gerald Undone ♪ ♪ He's crazy ♪ What's happening, everybody?
I'm Gerald Undone, and my ISO is over 9000. As usual, let's start
things off with some disclosure. Canon lent me this camera
for about a week to make this review.
I do not get to keep it, I was not compensated
in any way, and Canon does not get to preview
this video before it's posted. I also borrowed some
lenses from Camera Canada, so shout-out to them for always
coming through in a pinch. Big fan of that store!
All right, now before we jump right into me yelling numbers
at you, I highly encourage you to watch
my C300 Mark III review. This camera is nearly identical
to that camera in so many ways
that I wouldn't want to waste over half of my viewers' time by
remaking that exact video again. So instead,
we're going to build off of it. By the way, I mention
over half of my viewers' time, because on average,
only 55% of you are subscribed. What are
the other 45% of you doing? Press that
subscribe button already! But jumping back
to the C300 Mark III, I would say that one of
the most impressive things about the C70 is just how much
of the C300 Mark III is in here. You're getting the same sensor,
the same image performance, same battery type,
a fully featured audio system, built-in NDs,
a fully articulating screen, 13 customizable
function buttons, and even a BNC timecode port. Every inch of this thing
is smartly used and stuffed with functionality, and it's
very intuitive to operate. It's chunky, but not unwieldy,
and comes in at 1.4 kilos, or 3 pounds, with a battery
and SD cards installed. Physically, it feels
like you're holding the biggest DSLR of all time. But the grip is substantial,
deep, and well-textured, and it actually utilizes
some of the controls that you'd expect to see
on Canon DSLRs. Like the position
of the top control dial, and the rear set dial. It also features
a small function dial, which can be mapped to several
operations, and a joystick. I did have a couple minor
fit and finish issues with my version of the camera,
but I'm thinking these are probably just related
to my specific demo. My joystick was a bit
sticky at first and it wasn't as responsive
when pressing it to the right, and the thumb wheel
on the back feels a bit loose. The joystick has gotten better
over time, and for the most part,
I have no complaints about the operation
of the camera. I do wish it allowed me to map
the big wheel on the back. I would like to be able
to set this to ISO, but I can only do that
with this tiny wheel. But I choose not to,
because I'm constantly accidentally hitting
this with my palm. Right now, you can't map any
settings to the big thumb wheel, and I think this is
a missed opportunity. I am very impressed, however,
by how many function buttons they retained,
and the placement of them, which is something I found a
bit annoying about the Sony FX6. I also much prefer
this touch screen operation compared to the FX6.
You can easily move your focus point
by just touching, and there are also touch options
for changing exposure and white balance without
leaving your shooting display. The only thing I can really
take points off for is the fact that the full menu is not
touch-navigable, and in order to activate tracking,
you have to first press a button and then touch the screen,
just like we saw on the C300 Mark III,
which was my favourite autofocus implementation
until the a7S III came along, because the a7S III streamlined
this by making tracking a simple “touch once” operation,
and improving the stickiness of that tracking over
what Canon currently offers. But before we get
too deep into autofocus, I'll summarize by saying
I prefer using the C70 over the FX6, and it's a close
second just behind my a7S III. All right, now let's talk about
what's missing on this camera from the C300 Mark III.
First off, there's no EVF, and the screen has
a few less positions and angles it can take on.
You can supplement this with third party accessories, but out of the box,
it's slightly less versatile for viewing angles
compared to the C300. I didn't find this to be
too big of a problem though, and the screen can be
made reasonably bright, and is a decent size
and resolution. No major complaints. It also doesn't have
an SDI port, but it does have a fully-featured HDMI output
with no known quirks. Everything just seems to work. You have full control
over your on-screen display, and you can individually
add or remove display items, and obviously output
a clean feed as well. There's no limitations
when it comes to autofocus when using HDMI,
and no screen blackouts in any setting I tried. The only thing that's missing
from the HDMI output is the ability to apply a LUT
from the camera over HDMI. You can only apply the LUT
to the built-in LCD, which means you'll
have to install your own LUT onto your external device. Luckily, Canon does provide
the same LUT they use in the camera
for free on their website. Just go to
the C300 Mark III support page and download the lookup tables. Also, whether you record
internally or externally, there is no raw recording
on this camera. That's something you'll need
to go to the C300 Mark III
or beyond to get. But to be honest,
I don't particularly like Canon's raw implementation,
and always find myself shooting 10-bit XF-AVC anyway,
and it's the recommendation I gave in those previous
reviews, even though those cameras did have raw.
So I personally don't feel like I'm missing anything here. And if you're a C200 user
looking to upgrade, or maybe you skipped the C200
because of the lack of 10-bit, rest assured, the C70
has 10-bit internal recording in both ALL-Intra and
LongGOP modes on this camera. And it even has an HEVC option,
which offers the same quality, but at slightly smaller
file sizes, and using an MP4 container
instead of the MXF. So I find the codec options
on this camera much more useful
than on the C200. However, there is
one more shortcoming compared to the C300 Mark III:
you can't record ALL-Intra above 30 frames per second.
This is a limitation that comes from this camera
using only SD Cards. The 50p or 60p ALL-Intra modes
require 810 mbps, which is higher
than what a V90 SD card can guarantee for continuous,
reliable video writing. But you can record up to
60 frames per second in LongGOP, and up to 120 frames per second
when using the S&F mode. And you can actually get away
with just V60 cards for most of the recording
modes on this camera. The only mode it asks
for a V90 card is the 120p S&F, but I was actually able
to record the 120 on a V60 card as well without dropping frames,
but it's not advised, and the camera warns
against it when switching modes. The last potential shortcoming on the C70 would be
the XLR inputs. Thankfully, unlike the FX6,
on this camera they're located right inside the body, instead
of being on the top handle. The C70 comes with
a top handle, by the way, if you want to mount
a shotgun mic. However, in order to fit
those ports on the body, they had to use mini XLR. I'm used to this
from my Blackmagic cameras, but if you're coming
from the larger cameras, you'll need to use
an adapter cable. But regarding audio and
the aforementioned 120p mode, the C70 does have one trick
the C300 Mark III doesn't. You can record a separate
audio track in real time on the second card slot
while recording slowed-down
120p footage on slot 1. So in post, you'll have
that audio if you want to do speed ramping
or need a sound bed. This is a clever way to
remove the audio limitations of the S&F mode. [slo-mo] Very smart. However, that does mean that you can't do redundant
recording while in S&F mode. But when you're in normal
recording, you can use the second SD card slot
as either a backup, or put it in relay mode
to swap to the next card when the first one is full. And you can open the card door
and swap out the one that isn't
being written to as well without stopping your recording.
So that's great! There are still some
other considerations to make, though,
regarding the S&F mode. First, I wish the fast
motion was more flexible. The lowest you can go is 12 fps, which is only gonna give
you a 2x speed multiplier, versus the 24x, or 1 fps,
on the Sony cameras. However, compared
to the FX6, the C70 has more autofocus
versatility in the S&F modes. The FX6 disabled autofocus
for many frame rates, including DCI 24p and 48p. The C70 also has limitations
in this regard. For example, there's no
autofocus in less common speeds like 72, 75, or 96 fps, or the slow speeds,
like 12 fps. But there is autofocus
in 30p, 48, 50, 60, 100, and 120,
as well as DCI 24. However, just like
with the C300 Mark III, the autofocus performance
takes a major hit when you use S&F mode, and the face
tracking is also disabled. You can compensate for this a
bit with the autofocus settings, which offer
plenty of customization, but it just never quite
gets back to the confidence and speed it has when shooting
in normal recording modes. This whole section is
one area where the C70 felt like a downgrade when
compared to the Sony a7S III. On the a7S III, not only can
you record 120p normally without needing in-camera
slow motion, but enabling it has no consequences
on autofocus performance, face or eye detection,
or image quality. There is a slight crop though,
which the C70 doesn't have when shooting 120p,
but overall, the a7S III wins in the high frame rate
and autofocus categories. Because unfortunately,
the C70, just like the C300 Mark III,
disables its Dual Gain Output when shooting higher
than 60 fps. Again, if you don't know
what I'm talking about, please watch
my C300 Mark III review. But the short version
is that your image becomes more noisy and you lose
about a stop of dynamic range when you switch
from 60p to 120p. That being said, the image is
still very usable, and that 120p dynamic range is still
a respectable 12 stops, it's just noticeably worse
than when shooting at lower frame rates.
Part of that also has to do with
the lowering bit rates. At 60 fps,
you're getting 160Mbps in LongGOP, and the image
looks pretty great. But by 96 fps,
you're down to 130Mbps. And then at 120p,
you're at 108Mbps and there is
a noticeable loss in detail. This is not enough for it to be
a deal breaker, in my opinion, and in many scenarios,
it isn't even that noticeable, but you should be aware of it,
because if all you care about is 4K120, the a7S III
is probably the better option. But in normal recording mode,
this camera is fantastic all the way up to 4K60, and
the dynamic range is stellar. I once again busted out the Xyla
21-- thanks again to DSC Labs for providing that terrific
chart-- and I measured 13 stops of dynamic range with
a signal-to-noise ratio of 2, the very same score
I got on the a7S III. But this is more impressive
if you consider two things: one, this is a super35 sensor
on the C70, and two, the C70 got that score
without noise reduction enabled, where on the a7S III, noise
reduction can't be turned off. On the FX6, when I turned
off noise reduction, the score dropped
to a little below 13 stops, so thus we can safely
determine that the C70 is slightly better
in dynamic range than the FX6 or a7S III when shooting
at ISO 800 at 60p or below. And that's quite impressive. So if you're somebody who shoots
generally at 60p or lower, and below ISO 12,800,
I think you'll be very happy with the image out of the C70. If you like to shoot
at ISOs 12,800 and above, the two options from Sony will drastically
outperform this camera. It's not that the noise
performance is bad on the C70. In fact, it's quite good,
and it even rivals full-frame sensors
like the a7 III. It just can't really compete
with the cameras designed specifically for low light,
like the a7S III or the FX6. I'd say up to ISO 6400
is excellent on the C70, and even ISO 12,800
is very usable, but beyond that,
it really starts to fall apart. But the workflow
for the C70 is terrific. Shoot CLog2 for maximum dynamic
range and expose neutrally-- which you can use
the excellent meter and the built-in LUT
to help with that, because there's no need
to overexpose on a Dual Gain Output sensor. And then in post, just drop
on the CLog2 to 709 LUT and you're in business.
Each stop of ISO increases the exposure normally with
a logical increase in noise, and there's no fancy
principles for exposing. It's very simple and intuitive. The white balance tool
is excellent. It's not as customizable
as the a7S III. You don't get
a controllable target box. This operates more like FX6
and previous Canon Cine cameras, where it
just evaluates the scene. But unlike the FX6,
this camera does a nearly perfect job every time
at nailing the white balance, and you do it with just
the press of a single button. All of this adds up to
a very easy experience when it comes to creating
technically precise images. Beyond that,
it's all up to taste. The Canon LUT will give
you mostly accurate colour, but it's still Canon colour,
which means that it leans a bit more pink
than the competition. Love it or hate it.
It is what it is. But these are robust 10-bit
images, and you can make the colour whatever you want without the risk
of too much degradation. It has the same rolling
shutter performance as the C300 Mark III,
which is to say, passable. It's not excellent,
and the a7S III definitely outperforms it,
but it passes the threshold of usable, and is better than
most other mirrorless cameras. The rolling shutter drastically
improves when you're above 60p, though, because when the
Dual Gain Output turns off. So the dynamic range goes down,
but the read speed goes up, giving you excellent rolling shutter performance
at that point. One thing I prefer on the C70
over the FX6 is the DCI 4K mode, On the FX6, the DCI crops in
to a 1:1 readout, but on the C70,
it does the more logical thing of expanding to DCI 4K. This is actually because the
FX6 is oversampling in Ultra HD and using a larger portion
of the sensor, and then stops doing
that when you switch to DCI 4K. But on the C70,
it's doing the opposite. It's reading out closer
to 1:1 in Ultra HD and then expands for DCI 4K. The
difference is pretty minimal, but I find the C70 makes more
sense to my eyes when switching. And regarding cropping,
the C70 has an improvement over the C300 Mark III. Remember in my C300 review,
when I said that the sensor
was actually slightly bigger than your standard 1.5x
APS-C super35 sensor? I mentioned that so you would be
careful about using EF-S lenses, because you might
see some vignetting. Well, the C70 has
a built-in EF-S mode in the menu that compensates
for this and recreates the APS-C crop to remove
vignetting on EF-S glass. So, that's pretty cool. Also regarding crop factor,
the biggest difference probably between the C70 and the
C300 Mark III is the lens mount. The C70 is using the RF mount
instead of the C300's EF. This means that not only can
the C70 use RF lenses, but more importantly,
it also allows for Canon's RF to EF
speed booster. Now, I don't have that adapter
to test, but having used speed boosters a lot in the
past, I know what to expect. And since Canon is quite
competent at making glass, I assume it should be
of good quality. And with that,
you'll actually be able to beat the C300 Mark III in both field
of view and light gathering with the speed booster,
bringing you much closer to a full-frame equivalent when
mounting EF lenses on the C70. So that's fantastic,
and a huge value add. Another value upgrade
and something else that I found quite impressive about the C70
is the battery life. It comes with a battery
only half the size of the one from
the C300 Mark III. This one uses
the 45 Watt-hour BP-A30, versus the 90 Watt-hour BP-A60
of the C300 Mark III. But I was only getting around
two hours of battery life on the C300 Mark III,
and I'm getting over three hours here
on the C70, and around 2 hours
and 20 minutes when using S&F 120p mode. And considering the A30
batteries are $200 cheaper than the A60s, I was
really happy with this result. I also tested the effects of a
sudden loss of power by yanking the battery out mid-record,
and after performing the file recovery option in the menu,
the camera retained all but the last two
seconds of the recording. So that's excellent as well. And just like the FX6,
the C70's battery charger can also be used to
deliver mains power to the camera via its DC IN port,
which even has some thoughtful cable routing beside it,
near the exhaust vent. And yes, this camera has
exhaust vents, because it's actively cooled with a fan,
which means no overheating, and the fan speed
can be controlled in the menu. However, the fan can't
be turned off completely unlike some of
the bigger cameras. It can only ever be set to low,
whether recording or in standby. At first I was concerned about
this, because the fan is quite audible
at even one meter away, but I was surprised to find out that even though
I could hear it, it wasn't that intrusive
in the recordings, and my noise floor
didn't really change whether the camera
was on or off. It only went up by about 1dB. So I don't think
it will be a problem, but due to the consistent nature
of the sound, if it is bothering you,
it should be easy to remove in post
because the speed is constant, so it should be easy for noise
reduction software to target. But again,
I wouldn't worry about it. And in fact, I'm gonna go
ahead and boot the camera up so we can talk
about the boot-up time, and I'll let you hear it, too.
So I just flick it on now... And... booted.
That's-- that was pretty fast. What was that, like,
three seconds? Probably less. And this is what it sounds like: So it's right up by the mic. [low, soft whirring] And here it is,
maybe, less than-- just under a meter away. [nearly inaudible whirring] The audio system
on this camera is fantastic. In fact, let me plug my mic into
it and record this next section of the video on the camera
itself so you can hear it. It has two mini XLR inputs,
one 3.5mm mic input, and a built-in mic as well. It has a 3.5mm headphone out,
and manual input controls on the back of the camera
behind the flip screen. Each input can be set
to line level or mic level, and the XLRs support
48V phantom power. There's a quick button
for audio status on the back, and you have complete
flexibility in how you want to mix
and monitor your channels. There's built-in attenuators,
a limiter, a low cut filter,
and a 1kHz setup tone. Honestly, for a camera
of this size, I don't think I've ever seen
a more robust audio interface. Absolutely fantastic. All right, switching back
to my Zoom F6 audio, I want to mention
a few more features that I was asked about
on Twitter and Instagram. It has 6 stops of regular ND,
and up to 10 stops of extended stacked ND.
It has shutter angle. It has anamorphic support, HDR
profiles, and HDR gain control. It has waveforms, a vectorscope,
zebras, false color, a wide array of markers,
and focus peaking. Although I prefer Canon's
excellent manual focus guide, which has found its way
onto this camera as well. It has Time Code In/Out via BNC, and it has menu options
for RF lenses to control the rotation
of the electronic focus ring for a linear response. It has a tally lamp,
and an SD card access light, as well as a button
for easily switching card slots. Lastly, let's talk
about stabilization. It has Digital IS,
just like the C300 Mark III and C500 Mark II,
which works quite well, and I prefer this method
over the FX6's gyro data that requires
cranking your shutter and using Catalyst Browse. And when the C70 is paired
with a stabilized lens, I find I can get pretty steady
handheld shots at even 105mm. But even though
this thing is quite chunky, you can still mount it
on a one-handed gimbal. It has multiple mounting
points on the bottom, and the weight is distributed
in a way that I find it quite easy
to balance on my DJI RS2. OK, let's wrap up. Many of the questions I received
were about comparisons. You want to
know which is better: this, or the FX6,
or the a7S III. But I think it's more
complicated than that. That question only really
applies if you're starting from scratch, or willing
to change systems entirely. And as usual, it depends what
you're using the camera for. For example,
if you want a camera with a viewfinder
that can also take pictures, of those three,
the a7S III is the only choice. When it comes to dynamic range
and image quality, you can't really
go wrong with any of them. But if you
need extreme low light, you need
to get one of the Sonys. And like
I said in my FX6 review, I would choose the a7S III
over the FX6 every time, unless I needed
DCI 4K in true 24p. But if you don't need
extreme low light and you still need DCI,
I would get the Canon C70. It's less expensive
than the FX6, easier to use, and has smarter ergonomic
and design choices. But if you don't have
any specific restrictions and just want the all-around
best video camera you can get for the money, I still
think that's the a7S III. It's $2,000 cheaper than
the C70, offers more flexibility with better low light,
photo capabilities. It's more compact,
has true 4K120 with fewer compromises,
full frame, IBIS, etc. It's the better camera
for the money. And for what I do,
if I had to buy one of those options today,
and I had no lenses or requirements,
I'd buy the a7S III. But when it comes
to cinema cameras with those extra
cinema camera features, the C70 is my new favourite. You're getting 95%
of the C300 Mark III, but at half the cost, with an RF mount
and speed boosting capabilities. It's an incredible
value proposition. But in my opinion,
this isn't a question of the a7S III
vs. the Canon C70. This is more a question
of does Canon have an answer to the a7S III, so that people who
have Canon lenses or who've been waiting for a C200 replacement
but can't justify the C300 Mark III,
have an option that's competitive with what
the a7S III is offering, without needing
to change systems. And thankfully, yes, that's
exactly what the C70 delivers. This is an absolute win for
any Canon shooter looking to get a powerful,
dedicated video camera, and it's easily the best cinema
camera available under $10,000. But that's gonna be it for me.
I hope you found this video entertaining,
or at least helpful. And if you did, make sure
you leave it the old thumbs up and consider subscribing
if you haven't already. But if you did not find this
video helpful or entertaining, try setting
the playback speed to 75%. Alright... I'm done.
