GEAR
CANON EOS C80 AND C400
“For a great straight-out-of-camera solution, WDR gamma gives a pleasing look with vibrant colours”
Gamma school For a great straight-out-of- camera solution, WDR gamma gives a pleasing and natural look with punchy, vibrant colours that stay just on the right side of being too bold. Again, there are plenty of customisation options. The dynamic range is not quite as high as C-Log2 or 3, but it’s a convenient choice that works well with little tweaking. When it comes to post, we did have some issues with the MXF files from the C400, but not the C80, when used in Final Cut Pro X. We updated the Canon MXF and Raw plug-ins but the Mac Studio M1 computer still wouldn’t read them and the Edit Ready desktop plug-in didn’t work either. Checking online showed other users had the same problem, but identical files from the C80 were fine! Perhaps it’s a glitch in the Apple matrix. DaVinci Resolve worked perfectly on all files, even though it wasn’t version 19. Image quality is superb right across the range of settings, with all of Canon’s celebrated natural colour. If you want to go for maximum quality then Raw is ideal, but All- Intra in 4:2:2 10-bit 4K using Log gives impressive dynamic range – with great colours that proved easy to tweak in post. Where the C80 only has two flavours of Raw, the C400 has an HQ version and you can tell the difference – but that’s when pixel-peeping. Even using 4K/60p in 4:2:2 10-bit Long GOP, image quality is fantastic and the files are robust thanks to the large, modern sensor. Rolling shutter is well controlled,
but can be seen obviously in fast whip pans. To eliminate it entirely, the only solution is to use a global shutter full-frame camera, which is currently the domain of high-end Red and Sony cameras that cost significantly more. Cool AF The C70 was the first Canon Cinema EOS camera to use the EOS iTR AF X Intelligent Tracking and Recognition autofocus system, which employs deep-learning technology for head tracking in conjunction with face detection. But the AF only covers 80% of the screen – this isn’t the version II Dual Pixel AF technology found in the EOS R5, which covered the whole screen. Now, the C80 and C400 have the latest Dual Pixel CMOS AF II with EOS iTR AF X that covers the whole screen – and it’s very impressive. The touchscreen has a touch-to- focus feature which allows you to do amazing focus pulls with ease, and touch-to-track, which locks onto a subject and follows them around the screen. This is stated to work for humans and animals, but the latter only covers cats and dogs. The AF system is customisable in terms of speed and response, so you can dial it in to your needs. When light fades, it struggles a bit on low- contrast subjects, but it is still one of the best out there. Also included in the model is Focus Guide for manual focusing. This gives a clear indication of which way to turn the focus ring, as well as when the subject is sharp. RF lenses have fly-by-wire manual focusing,
so they can never feel quite as good as genuine cinema lenses, although the settings can be tweaked in camera to change the direction and speed of focusing. This is thanks to the advanced electronics featured in these newer RF optics. Many RF lenses have image stabilisation, which is necessary on the C80 and C400 since there is no built-in five-axis image stabilisation on their sensors. Instead, they use Combination IS – both the Optical IS in RF lenses and digital IS in the camera body – giving a slight crop. This works perfectly fine but isn’t as good as on-sensor IBIS systems.
TAKE CONTROL Most of the buttons on the C80 (top) are found on the rear or top panel, while the C400 (bottom) is a traditional left-side cinema set-up
SCREEN SHOT Both the C80 (left) and the C400 (right) use a similar menu layout but the bigger camera has a wider variety of options
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