Canon C300 and RED Scarlet

For the past several months, filmmakers have been eagerly awaiting this day for the announcements from Canon and RED about their new "game-changing" cameras.

Canon's C300 seems to have hit the mark as far as rolling the best features of the large sensor DSLR's into a truly workable film production package. The footage looks great, of course, and the features are what everyone has been asking for. The only problem I see is the price point. I really was hoping they would realize who their largest market is on these things (not generally the same market as those who would and could buy a RED Epic) and offer this solution at a price no one could pass up. The MSRP that I heard was around $20,000. Not an unfair price at all, but still way higher than most of their current 7D/5DmkII owners can afford to upgrade to. That said, it looks like perhaps there could be another lower-cost version coming soon, though no guarantees on that. I am curious to see also what the price point will be on their new cinema prime lenses. Those certainly look enticing.

As for RED, the Scarlet (also a large-sensor 4k camera) looks great and is an amazing product for the price--probably a better deal than the Canon. The biggest downside to products from RED, however, is the post workflow and the number of expensive accessories needed to do it all properly. It would have been nice to see a test film using the Scarlet, like we did with LaForet's C300 film, but I guess we will have to wait a little for that. Learn all the details about both of these cameras at www.prolost.com. All in all, a good day for filmmakers. Always love having great options when it comes time to shoot a project!