XAVC real world test - Canon C200

So it’s clear to see that the Canon C200 is an absolute powerhouse when it comes to shooting its data hungry Canon Raw Light format. But what about it’s XAVC format?

Let be honest, the Canon Raw Light recording mode is something that will be used much less frequently than the more lightweight recording options the camera has - well, I speak for myself and my typical client requirements anyhow.

So how does this highly compressed lossy format stand up when shooting in the real world and when pushed in the grade? Well, it turns out pretty damn well.

In this short film I wanted to push the grade to see how the footage will stand up. I graded in a way that gave it a sense of mood and atmosphere, yet still felt warm - despite it actually being freezing cold that day!

If you’re looking at the specs alone, XAVC on the C200 isn’t going to ‘Wow’ anybody. It’s 4:2:0, 8 bit at 140mb/s in 60fps UHD. Which, on the surface would make you think that a lot of data and colour information will be binned by the codec. However, through some kind of Canon magic - they manage to produce an incredible image with CLOG 3 which is an amazing base to work from when grading. Colours our punchy with plenty of saturation. Dynamic range at 13 stops is good - I mean it’s not the 15 stops of Canon Raw - but I’ll take 13 stops with files this size.

For most projects and most client requirements, XAVC on the C200 offers an excellent cost effective solution to capturing really high fidelity images with a beautiful cinematic feel.

The Forest in December -Canon C200

In and amongst the craziness that is Christmas and New Year, We found a bit of time to head out to a forest 10 minutes drive from our house. We’d not yet explored the walk near Hurn Airport in Bournemouth and after all the mince pies and booze we felt we needed to get out and have a little bit of an explore.

It was also the perfect opportunity to do a few more tests with the Canon C200. The weather was beautiful and we managed to catch the one evening where it wasn’t pouring it down with rain.

In order to test the camera in this environment I just wanted to film as we walked as much as possible and just shoot what we saw. For these types of shoots, recording in XAVC 4.2.0 8bit is perfect. It’s lightweight, small file sizes mean over-shooting is never really a problem. I was also really keen to test Canon log3 gamma to see how it held up in scenes where a ton of dynamic range was required.

From this little test my conclusions were that the C200 handles tricky lighting conditions very well, rolling off clipped highlights nicely and keeping things very controlled in backlit scenes. Clog 3 offers plenty (13 stops) of DR to be able to bring challenging shots like sunsets back to something pleasing and shadows can be recovered without much noise if required. Colours are honest and rich, greens seem to be very vivid and I actually found myself taking back the saturation a bit in the grade to avoid things looking unrealistic. The colour science offers a fantastic starting point however for stylising the shots exactly how you’d like. Canon has done an incredible job getting this much colour information into an image that is captured in 4.2.0 8bit!