CANONEOS C500MARK II TEST
SPECIFICATIONS Price: £16,999/$15,999 body only Sensor size: 20.8-megapixel full-frame CMOS, Dual Digic DV7 Formats: Cinema RawLight 4:2:2 12-bit 2.1Gbps, MP4 XF-AVC 4:2:2 10-bit 810Mbps; 5952x3149 5.9K, 4096x2160 C4K, 3840x2160 4K, 2048x1080 2K, 1920x1080 FHD Frame rates: 59.94/50/29.97/ 25/24/23.98p Fast frame rates: 60fps Cinema RawLight and XF-AVC full frame, 120fps in 2K Controls: Peaking, colour bars, waveform, zebras, focus assist Autofocus: Dual Pixel CMOS AF; one shot, continuous, face priority Lensmount: EF (user changeable to PL) Shutter speeds: 1sec-1/2000sec Filters: Up to 10 stopND built in Screen: 109mm/4.3in LCD touchscreen, 2.76million dots Viewfinder: Add-on LM-V2 (supplied) Audio: 2x XLR inputs Output: HDMI, 12G-SDI, Mini-BUSB Storage: 2x CFexpress, SD/ SDHC slot ISO range: 160-25,600, expandable 100-102,400 Dynamic range: 15+ stops C-Log2
files that you can record without an external unit, all in the body of a multi-use cinema camera, then it’s been a pipe dream. Until now. The Canon Cinema EOS C500Mark II has all those things andmore. Here are just some of the features we love – features that make the camera one of the most ground-breaking launches for many years, and why it might make sense for you to invest in what is turning out to be a milestone movie-makingmachine. 1 It borrows the best of Canon’s cinema cameras The new C500Mark II is a hybrid of the very latest Canon tech borrowed from the firm’s cinema camera range at both the more affordable and super-exotic ends of the market. And it blends it all into a camera that’s not a jack of all trades, but a master of most – especially for independent production companies. At its heart is the same 5.9K full- frame sensor as the C700FF flagship camera. But where its £31,490/ $33,000 big brother is reallymade for multi-crewuse with a traditional long-and-thin layout, likemost production cameras, the C500Mark II is designed for single-operator use. At roughly half the price. There are differences, of course. The big-boy C700FF can record in
full-blown 16-bit Raw, while the C500Mark II can’t. But to get the Raw out of the C700FF youmust add on the bulky and pricey Codex Digital Recorder at £7729/$6995 plus some matching drives at around five grand a pop, and of course you’ll need many terrabytes of hard drive space to store them, and a NASA-spec computer to edit them. The C500Mark II uses the 12-bit Canon Raw Light recording format, like the EOS C200 (a Super35 camera, of course). The C500Mark II records all this Raw data to a pair of CFexpress cards. These use the same form factor as Sony XQD cards but those don’t actually work in the camera, so chances are you’ll be splurging on some new cards. And a card reader or two, as XQD card readers don’t work, either. (You can use CFexpress cards inmany devices that use XQD cards – just not the other way round.) With a matching pair of 512GB cards from Sandisk coming in at £1476/$1200, this could be a significant extra expense.
ABOVE Fitting one of the extensiion packs gives a huge choice of connections and ports
Dimensions (WxHxD): 167.6x152.4x147.3mm/ 6.6x6x5.8in Weight: 1.77kg/3.9lb
“Here’s why itmightmake sense for you to invest inwhat is turning out to be amilestone movie-makingmachine”
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SPRING 2020 PRO MOVIEMAKER
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