chris layhe
Well-known member
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- Apr 29, 2010
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- Location
- Santa Cruz / San Francisco Bay Area
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- www.clai.tv
This is my personal owner/operator Canon EOS C500 PL camcorder system. It has been carefully used and very well cared for, with low hours, and never rented out. You may have seen this on the forum before - I had the delight of getting hit by one of those keep you messing around for weeks and then change their mind before even seeing it type con artists...
The C500 PL is the model that Canon sold for over $30,000, made specifically for the film production and high end digital cinema video market, as their direct competitor to RED and Arri.
It does not use the lightweight Canon mount, instead it uses a solid PL mount, built to easily cope with larger, higher quality prime and zoom lenses (it's also the only part of the camera that has a little of the finish rubbed off). And, of course, you can always change out the PL mount for a Canon one at a service center - the kit is readily available. These are matched to a cinematographer friendly specification that includes so-easy slo-mo shooting at up to 60fps, with built in ND filters to make life a snap when you want to control those filmic shallow depth of field shots, and instant access to the key camera settings on the rear lit screen.
It records fabulous looking images and audio in-camera through the 8.85 megapixel Super-35mm CMOS sensor to two C-Fast media cards in true 1920x1080 HD as 8-bit MPEG-2 MXF video files, with 16-bit linear PCM 2 channel audio. In all of this the Canon C500 PL is pretty much a C300 MkI with a PL mount, a greater choice and quality of outputs, a cleaner, crisper image and a little better audio.
But - as I'm sure you know if you are reading this - it's a wolf in sheep's clothing, because the key to the C500's design and reason for being is in those outputs. The camera is all about recording in-camera in HD and also sending a higher resolution, higher bit depth, higher quality true 4k i4096x2160 mage out to be recorded on another device. Canon worked with Convergent Design so that the camera could output 10-bit 4k Uncompressed CanonRAW and 4k Uncompressed ProRes 4:4:4:4 files, along with 12-bit Uncompressed RGB files - all with audio, and up to 120fps slo mo, to an external recorder/monitor mounted on-camera... the Odyssey 7Q+.
The difference between 12-bit and 8-bit is huge, with vastly more colors to avoid banding and provide clean vibrant true colors. Like the other Canon C series, the MXF files it records in-camera are then compressed to an MPEG-2 MXF format, at 50Mbits/Second - a very nice image, but nothing like the quality of CanonRAW or ProRes 4:4:4:4 with no compression or artifacts. This is what puts it out there beyond any of the cameras in the Canon range - including the newer C300 MkII's internal 4k.
If you want to see what it can produce when matched with some nice PL mount lenses and an external recorder, then check out the Canon original "Man and Beast" short film on YouTube so beautifully shot by Jeff Cronenweth. My own main reason for choosing to shoot with the C500 PL and Odyssey is that it matches the images from our Arri Alexa cameras better than any other camera I can find - as many film DPs know, preferring to use the C500 PL and Odyssey as their main camera, with the Arri Alexa as the second angle camera (see Shane Hurlbut's opinions of it and why he chose the C500 over the Alexa as his primary camera on YouTube). It also does a damn fine job of matching the RED with a little tweaking.
This sale does not include an Odyssey 7Q+, but I do have one that is available that I can include. If you are interested in this combination please contact me by email at Chris@CLAi.tv and I'll add it in and change the price. The camera is ready to go in a box already, and is in the San Francisco area.
[NB. The lens shown in the pictures is not included in this sale. The wonderfully useful Zacuto C500 Z-Finder shown is also not included - the same goes for other items that you might want to add - like media for the camera]
The C500 PL is the model that Canon sold for over $30,000, made specifically for the film production and high end digital cinema video market, as their direct competitor to RED and Arri.
It does not use the lightweight Canon mount, instead it uses a solid PL mount, built to easily cope with larger, higher quality prime and zoom lenses (it's also the only part of the camera that has a little of the finish rubbed off). And, of course, you can always change out the PL mount for a Canon one at a service center - the kit is readily available. These are matched to a cinematographer friendly specification that includes so-easy slo-mo shooting at up to 60fps, with built in ND filters to make life a snap when you want to control those filmic shallow depth of field shots, and instant access to the key camera settings on the rear lit screen.
It records fabulous looking images and audio in-camera through the 8.85 megapixel Super-35mm CMOS sensor to two C-Fast media cards in true 1920x1080 HD as 8-bit MPEG-2 MXF video files, with 16-bit linear PCM 2 channel audio. In all of this the Canon C500 PL is pretty much a C300 MkI with a PL mount, a greater choice and quality of outputs, a cleaner, crisper image and a little better audio.
But - as I'm sure you know if you are reading this - it's a wolf in sheep's clothing, because the key to the C500's design and reason for being is in those outputs. The camera is all about recording in-camera in HD and also sending a higher resolution, higher bit depth, higher quality true 4k i4096x2160 mage out to be recorded on another device. Canon worked with Convergent Design so that the camera could output 10-bit 4k Uncompressed CanonRAW and 4k Uncompressed ProRes 4:4:4:4 files, along with 12-bit Uncompressed RGB files - all with audio, and up to 120fps slo mo, to an external recorder/monitor mounted on-camera... the Odyssey 7Q+.
The difference between 12-bit and 8-bit is huge, with vastly more colors to avoid banding and provide clean vibrant true colors. Like the other Canon C series, the MXF files it records in-camera are then compressed to an MPEG-2 MXF format, at 50Mbits/Second - a very nice image, but nothing like the quality of CanonRAW or ProRes 4:4:4:4 with no compression or artifacts. This is what puts it out there beyond any of the cameras in the Canon range - including the newer C300 MkII's internal 4k.
If you want to see what it can produce when matched with some nice PL mount lenses and an external recorder, then check out the Canon original "Man and Beast" short film on YouTube so beautifully shot by Jeff Cronenweth. My own main reason for choosing to shoot with the C500 PL and Odyssey is that it matches the images from our Arri Alexa cameras better than any other camera I can find - as many film DPs know, preferring to use the C500 PL and Odyssey as their main camera, with the Arri Alexa as the second angle camera (see Shane Hurlbut's opinions of it and why he chose the C500 over the Alexa as his primary camera on YouTube). It also does a damn fine job of matching the RED with a little tweaking.
This sale does not include an Odyssey 7Q+, but I do have one that is available that I can include. If you are interested in this combination please contact me by email at Chris@CLAi.tv and I'll add it in and change the price. The camera is ready to go in a box already, and is in the San Francisco area.
[NB. The lens shown in the pictures is not included in this sale. The wonderfully useful Zacuto C500 Z-Finder shown is also not included - the same goes for other items that you might want to add - like media for the camera]
