Canon EOS C300

Canon Announces New EOS Cinema System

For all of you professional film makers out there (what, none of you?), Canon has announced the genesis of a the new EOS Cinema System. At the center of the new system is the EOS C300 camera, which makes use of the EOS SLR lens mount and a 35mm sized sensor, but is otherwise a video-camera, roughly the size of a medium format SLR body, and costing about the same ($20,000).

Though standard Canon EOS EF lenses will fit on the C300, Canon has also developed a set of five new cinematic lenses to compliment the body, plus two more for PL mount. The new lenses require manual-focusing and are designed to work with standard cinematography focusing rails, matte boxes, and other accessories, and in holding with the industry standard, their apertures are indicated with “T-stops” rather than “f-stops”. Included in the new batch are two zoom lenses, a 14.5-60mm T2.6L (in EF or PL mount) and the a 30-300mm T2.95-3.7 (in EF or PL mount),  and four primes, a 24mm T1. EF, a 50mm T1.3, and an 85mm T1.3. For improved bokeh quality, lenses are made with 11 aperture blades. They are also purported to be extremely sharp, with chromatic aberration completely eliminated. Before you get any wild thoughts about using them on your SLR, though, take notice of their prices: about $46,000 each for the zooms, and $6800 for the primes.

Canon 14.5-60mm EOS Cinema Lens
Canon 14.5 – 60mm EOS Cinema Lens, EF Mount

In addition, Canon announced a “concept camera”, currently dubbed the 4K. Unlike the C300, the 4K closely resembles a standard, full-frame SLR, but it will have a strong emphasis on recording high resolution (4K is approximately 4000 pixels wide, about double 1080p HD video), high bit-rate, high-quality, motion-compressed JPG video. There are no realistic details about it available, like other features, a name, or a time-frame for development, but it does have a cool looking “C” in a red box on it.

Canon 4K Concept Camera

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labradorguy

Now I know why you liked my new pic the other day. It seems like there are a lot of Blade Runner fans hanging out here. :)

I read somewhere that the 7D can shoot video. I’m going to check into that one of these days. If I find anything out, I’ll let you all know….