Extensive Canon C200 Review by Cloakroom Media

One of the big announcements at this year’s CineGear Expo in Los Angeles was the newest Canon Cinema EOS camera – the Canon C200. In a somewhat of a swerve, Canon decided to include internal 4K Raw recording onto a single CFast 2.0 card in a brand new format called Cinema Raw Light in the new C200. This addition is quite exciting given where the C200 sits in the lineup – between the C100 Mark II and the C300 Mark II. The Canon EOS C200 is the first Canon EOS Cinema camera to feature such an advanced recording format, which makes it a vey enticing proposition for those looking for a new 4K camcorder.

On the other hand, Canon gimped the other recording format by including only an 8bit 4:2:0 option in MP4 for non-raw recording. XF-AVC in 8bit 4:2:2 and 305 Mbps is supposedly coming as a firmware update in early 2018, which is a damn fine codec as implemented in the Canon XC15 (assuming that it will be the same codec of course). Canon have confirmed that the XF-AVC implementation in the C200 will be indeed 8bit 4:2:2 so forget about the C200 ever being a “10bit camera”, and it makes sense for them to port the existing codec onto the S35 C200.

Canon EOS C200 Media Production Show 2017

Canon EOS C200 at the Media Production Show 2017 in London

Melbourne based Cloakroom Media recently posted their extensive review of the Canon C200, which I think is one of the best reviews not only for the C200 out there (there aren’t that many, since they had early access to the camera), but for any camera in general that I have seen in a long time. They have also posted a series of tests and some excellent C200 footage on their Vimeo page – which I highly recommend you follow here.

CANON C200 REVIEW by Cloakroom Media from Cloakroom Media on Vimeo.

Canon EOS C200 Summary / Features

  • 4K DCI Cinema RAW Light
    • 4K/60p – 10 bit onto CFast 2.0
    • 4K/30p – 12 bit onto CFast 2.0
  • Internal Compressed Codec options:
    • 4K/60p Long GOP 8bit 4:2:0 at 150 Mbps in MP4
    • 4K/24/25/30p Long GOP 8bit 4:2:0 at 100 Mbps
    • 2K/HD at 35 Mbps 8bit 4:2:0 in MP4
    • Full HD 120fps Continuous with no sensor crop
    • Records onto SD cards
    • Can do 2K/Full HD Proxies on SD card and Raw on Cfast 2.0
  • Up to 15-stops dynamic range (Cinema RAW Light)
  • Wide DR, Canon LOG & Canon LOG 3
  • Dual Pixel CMOS AF with touch control and extensive shooting functions
  • Built-in NDs – 2/4/6/8/10 stops (like on C300 II)
  • ACES 1.0 Support
  • BT.2100 (PQ) HDR support
  • HDR ST-2084 LUT (in EVF)
  • Uses BP-A30 and BP-A60 batteries (same as C300 MK II)
  • 8bit 4:2:2 XF-AVC 4K internal codec coming Q1 2018 as free firmware
  • NO Way to Output 4K Raw (has to be recorded internally)
  • HDMI Output:
    • 1920 x 1080p – 10bit 4:2:2
    • 3840 x 2160 – 8bit 4:2:2
  • SDI Output:
    • 2048 x 1080 / 1920 x 1080 – 10bit 4:2:2 – Raw Light
    • 1920 x 1080 – 10bit 4:2:2 
  • Price:
    • C200B (No EVF, body only) – $5,999 (B&H, Adorama)
    • Canon C200 – $7,499 (B&H, Adorama)

Canon may have very well struck gold by doing what no-one else besides Blackmagic Design and RED are doing (notice both companies are not Japanese), and that is giving users an easy to work with compressed Raw format. That’s kind of a big deal, not just for the opportunities it presents, but also because it comes from Canon, who have been notoriously conservative in the (recent) past.

You can read my thoughts on the Canon C200 in more detail in this blog post here. What are your thoughts on the C200? Let me know in the comments below.

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