Canon during its Hollywood event unveiled the Cinema EOS C300, its first DSLR-grade pro video camera. The shooter uses a 35mm-equivalent full-frame sensor and focuses on image quality first. Canon claims to have better overall color reproduction, primarily for skin tones.
Its body and lens are both focused around video. A large eyepiece and full manual controls on the side emphasize its movie orientation. Its hotshoe also accommodates anything from grips to dedicated preview displays and microphones. Canon’s lens mount system will get models with focal ranges and other traits best suited to typical movie shooting.
Among the examples in the Cinema series are three primes, the 24mm T1.5 L F, 50mm T1.3 L F, and 85mm T1.3 L F. Zooms come in closer 5-60mm T2.6 L S and L SP variants as well as longer-ranged 30-300mm T2.95-3.7 L S and L SP editions.
The camera records natively in 1080P and has two CF card slots to keep shooting for long periods. It uses wither regular Canon EOS lenses or PL lens. Plus it can overlay a time code and output over HD-SDI for editing stations.
The camera is playing the HD movie-level market with a price of $16,000 when it arrives in January.
