Canon EOS C500 – first short film: ALEX

by Sebastian WöberNovember 26^th, 2012

Nino Leitner (DOP) and his team had a chance to play with the Canon EOS C500, Canon’s flagship 4K cinema camera. This short film, titled “ALEX” is the result of a very tightly shot no budget camera test.

Is “Alex” a reference to the Arri Alexa? I haven’t asked, but even though the character in the short comes out as a winner, Nino’s review mentions the C500 as a serious contender to the rest of the RAW family.

Nino has a lot to say about his experience with the camera. On his blog he reviews it in great detail with a very positive conclusion:

I think the C500 will take its place in the production world quickly […] using the same 4K sensor but it delivers what many were hoping for the C300 would deliver – 4K raw uncompressed footage, 120 frames per second in 4K “half raw” and 2K, and a whole lot of other varieties, with the image quality and look we have come to love from the C300.

But Nino Leitner also mentions some problems he ran into when shooting in 4K on the C500, fan noise being the most significant one:

Yep, that’s a problem. The Automatic mode of the C500 fan does not seem to care whether the camera is currently recording or not. It simply spins up when the camera gets too hot, and that seems to happen easily and quickly even at room temperature.

This sounds like a firmware fix, but is something that poses a big threat for sound on any production right now.

For a good long read on all of Nino’s experience read his full article here: LINK

And on the left you can find Canon’s original C500 introduction short film called “Man & Beast”. This has been running in 4K theatres at Canon cinemaeos events.