VERMONTVILLE, MICHIGAN
GEAR:
Canon C70
Wedding Videography
Canon C70 for Wedding Videography
Will the Canon C70 be a good run & gun camera for wedding videographers?
October, 2020
Over the last few years, we have really grown to love shooting weddings with our Canon C200. We are a two person wedding videography team and currently we shoot with our C200 and either the EOS R or the 1DX mark ii. We have been tossing up for the last year what our next camera investment would be. We are tired of the bloated file sizes and lack of Clog on our 1DX Mark ii and the EOS R has really been letting us down the more we use it. We have grown to love the look of the Canon C series cameras over DSLR/mirrorless bodies. We were very close to purchasing an additional C200, but we really wanted to see what the Canon R5 or this rumored RF mount cinema camera would bring. After seeing what codecs the R5 offered we quickly realized that it was not the camera for us and we kept our fingers crossed for the rumored RF mount cinema camera.
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When Canon announced the C70 we were extremely excited. There were a lot of people that were saying the camera body was ugly! We actually didn't mind the look of the body and the specs on paper looked great. We have been refreshing our Canon C70 search term on YouTube everyday to see if there has been a review video with sample footage uploaded, but there really isn't that much out there at the time of writing this article. Since the C70 has the same DGO sensor as the C300 mark iii we know the images and dynamic range should be great.
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We think this will be a great camera for wedding videographers if you like the canon cinema line of cameras or if you are looking for a step up from your Canon DSLR or Mirrorless Cameras. We did not pre-order the C70 but we plan to purchase in April when our 2021 wedding season starts to pick back up. We think the Canon C70 will pair perfectly with our C200 and we are really looking forward to next wedding season.
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We have been reluctant to invest in RF glass because we have not been entirely sold on the Canon EOS R but we have had our eye on the Canon RF 24-70 IS. We think that will be a great run and gun lens. Since the C70 has the built in ND filters like the C200 we won't have to use our RF to EF ND Filter adapter anymore. We may even pick up the Canon RF to EF speed booster to achieve the full frame field of view with all of our EF glass and the extra stop of light would be a huge bonus.
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We are most excited for having an edit friendly 10 bit codec. As well as having the capability to shoot 4k up to 120 frames per second. The camera has a ton of different codecs to choose from which is exciting. We are really looking forward to see some comparisons of all the different recording modes.
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Recording Modes:
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H.264/H.265/MP4/XF-AVC/XF-AVC Proxy 4:2:2 10-Bit:
4096 x 2160p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/60 fps (160 to 260 Mb/s)
3840 x 2160p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/60 fps (160 to 260 Mb/s)
2048 x 1080p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/60 fps (50 Mb/s)
1920 x 1080p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/60 fps (50 Mb/s)
H.264/H.265/MP4/XF-AVC/XF-AVC Proxy 4:2:2 10-Bit:
4096 x 2160p up to 119.88/120 fps
3840 x 2160p up to 119.88/120 fps
H.264/H.265/MP4/XF-AVC/XF-AVC Proxy 4:2:2 8-Bit:
2048 x 1080p up to 179.82/180 fps
1920 x 1080p up to 179.82/180 fps
H.264/H.265/MP4/XF-AVC/XF-AVC Proxy 4:2:0 8-Bit:
2048 x 1080p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/59.94 fps (24 to 35 Mb/s)
1920 x 1080p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/59.94 fps (24 to 35 Mb/s)
H.264/H.265/MP4/XF-AVC/XF-AVC Proxy 4:2:2 10-Bit:
4096 x 2160p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/59.94 fps (135 to 225 Mb/s)
3840 x 2160p up to 50/59.94 fps (135 to 225 Mb/s)
2840 x 1080p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/59.94 fps (50 Mb/s)
1920 x 1080p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/59.94 fps (50 Mb/s)
1280 x 720p up to 50/59.94 fps (12 Mb/s)
H.264/H.265/MP4/XF-AVC/XF-AVC Proxy 4:2:0 10-Bit:
4096 x 2160p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/59.94 fps (100 to 170 Mb/s)
3840 x 2160p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/59.94 fps (100 to 170 Mb/s)
2048 x 1080p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/59.94 fps (35 Mb/s)
1920 x 1080p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/59.94 fps (35 Mb/s)
1280 x 720p up to 50/59.94 fps (9 Mb/s)
H.264/H.265/MP4/XF-AVC/XF-AVC Proxy 4:2:2 10-Bit:
4096 x 2160p up to 119.88/120 fps
3840 x 2160p up to 119.88/120 fps
2048 x 1080p up to 179.82/180 fps
1920 x 1080p up to 179.82/180 fps
H.264/H.265/MP4/XF-AVC/XF-AVC Proxy 4:2:0 8-Bit:
4096 x 2160p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/59.94 fps (150 Mb/s)
3840 x 2160p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/59.94 fps (150 Mb/s)
2048 x 1080p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/59.94 fps (35 Mb/s)
1920 x 1080p up to 23.98/24/25/29.97/50/59.94 fps (35 Mb/s)
1280 x 720p up to 50/59.94 fps (8 Mb/s)
H.264/H.265/MP4/XF-AVC/XF-AVC Proxy 4:2:2 8-Bit:
4096 x 2160p up to 119.88/120 fps
3840 x 2160p up to 119.88/120 fps
2048 x 1080p up to 179.82/180 fps
1920 x 1080p up to 179.82/180 fps
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One of the largest drawbacks for some videographers is the lack of internal raw capabilities. For us personally we do not shoot a ton of raw on our C200 on wedding day. We love shooting raw for commercial projects when we have complete control of the lightning. On wedding day the lightning scenarios can change quickly and if we expose incorrectly or have our ISO a tad bit too high we come home with some extremely noisy footage. So we just tend to stick to the 8bit .mp4 codec on our C200 to be safe. Although it is only an 8bit codec, it really is a great codec. It is incredibly easy to edit (even for extremely long ceremonies and speeches) and it grades really nicely and has impressive dynamic range when in Clog. So the C70 not having internal raw is not a huge draw back for us. If raw is a priority for you, we would encourage you to look at the C200, C300 or even a Red Komodo.
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We are looking forward to some dynamic range comparisons. Canon is claiming to have 16+ stops of dynamic range. Since it has the same DGO sensor as the C300 mark iii it should have impressive dynamic range capabilities. The dual SD card slots is great for us. We are glad we do not have to buy into another card format. Although there may be benefits to CF Express cards, we already have a ton of SD cards. Now we just have to invest in some v90 cards. We have a couple thousand dollars invested in Cfast 2.0 cards from when we were using our 1DX mark ii as our A camera years ago and most of them now collect dust. To our knowledge there are no compromises to a mini XLR port other than having to buy a new cable. We think it was actually a smart move by canon to help save on space.
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We see quite a few people are bothered by the C70 not having an SDI out, only an HDMI out. At least it is a full size HDMI and not a mini HDMI port. For us personally, we wouldn't plan on using an external monitor on wedding day anyway. Time code is another great addition as well as all of your pro features you would expect from a cinema camera like wave form monitors, vector scopes and false color.
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Relay recording or double slot recording is a great feature for wedding videographers. Having an immediate back up is a life saver incase of card failure. We would have really loved to see an EVF on the C70. This is probably one of the biggest features we will miss most. We really love using the EVF on the C200 on those bright sunny days, but we will have to live without it! You can't talk about a Canon Camera without mentioning the great colors out of camera and incredible autofocus and we believe the Canon C70 will be no exception.
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