Welcome to Texas Media Systems.
My name's Phil Goetz, I'm joined by Paul McNiff from Canon.
And the cameras we're looking at today are the XF series and also the XA10.
So Paul, which side of the table do we want to start on here?
Well, I guess we can do them in chronological order, so to speak, how they were first released,
which we'll be starting with.
The way I like to refer to them is Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear.
Even though Baby Bear is a bit of a different animal, so it's more like Baby Bearcat, I'm
not sure.
What's starting at the top is the flagship of the series, the XF-305.
And it's really important to note, whenever we're talking about anything from the XF series,
is that there's going to be two in each line.
So we have the 300 series, which is the larger one, and the 305 is different from the other
model in that series, which is the XF-300, in only one way.
And that is that the 305 has HDSDI, Genlock, and timecode BNC connectors.
And every other way, the 300 is exactly the same.
So same form factor, same buttons and...
Absolutely everything is identical.
You just pay a little bit of extra money and you get that broadcast connectivity for use
in a studio environment and so on.
You get the uncompressed 422 color space output at 1.48 gigabits with embedded audio and time
code from the HDSDI.
You have the ability to sync more than one camera using the Genlock, which is very good
for things like 3D production, obviously in any kind of multi-camera sort of situation
where you need to have uniform latency.
You can do that using the Genlock and then the timecode can then be shared.
Kind of like what we're doing here, you can either do it as a hard wire share, take it
from a feed someplace, send it out someplace, or what we've got here, we've got actually
a XF-305 and an XF-105, the little one, which we'll get to in a couple of minutes.
We have the two of them set to free run timecode and they've been jam synced using those
BNC connectors.
So just to jump down to the 100-105, there's a distinction to be made real quick that is
very similar.
So the two cameras are the XF-100, XF-105, and the differences are going to be the same
with the 105 having...
The 105 has the HDSDI Genlock and timecode.
That's absolutely correct.
It's a little bit different on the Genlock and timecode because instead of having individual
spickets for that, this is going to have one that's switchable.
Okay.
But yes, the XF-100 has no HDSDI Genlock and timecode connectors and the 105 does, but
they are in every other way completely the same.
The biggest distinction between the two of them, they record to the same media, which
is compact flash cards, so it's readily available, moderately priced in terms of the tapeless
flash based media that we do have on this level of camera.
The 100 series, however, only has one sensor and the 300 series has three sensors in your
traditional three-chip setup, and they are one-third-inch sensors on each camera, and
they are CMOS sensors on both of them.
So and that's a full 1080, full 1080-chip...
Absolutely, full native raster for the sensors on each.
It's the same sensor in this camera as in this camera, except this one has three.
Okay.
And it's a new...
Tell me about the sensor.
I heard a term thrown around that the pixels are 61% larger because the sensor's 2.7, 2.07
megapixel, 2.07, so it's exactly 1920 by 1080, which allows the pixels to be larger, which
is, of course, increased low-light performance.
Absolutely.
There's a number of things that will increase the low-light performance on this.
Without going into too much detail, the long and the short of it is that we've had a lot
to do at Canon with developing CMOS technology over the years.
This is the first time we've put out a specifically video camera, video style camera, starting
with the 305 that had made use of CMOS sensors, and being just that it's a newer generation
of sensor, and pretty much what we're seeing with CMOS across the board throughout the
entire industry is it's always becoming more and more sensitive to low-light.
We're just starting to really begin to scratch the surface, I think, of this sensitivity
that we can get out of a CMOS.
This being a new generation CMOS, it's exceptional in terms of a one-third-inch sensor in low-light.
It's not going to compare to what has now become the standard for low-light performance
is now the DSLRs and large sensor cameras.
It's not going to do that.
If light were a sponge, a bigger sponge is going to get more light.
But for a one-third sensor, it is fantastically sensitive.
One thing that we have talked about before, throughout all these cameras and even going
on down to the X-A10, the X-A10 shares that same chip as the X-F100, and it's my understanding
that some of the smaller Canon cameras were configured for doing both cinema and stills.
But when they came to the X-A10 and this new chip, what Canon had kind of decided was,
okay, you've got your still camera in the bag, and this is going to be optimized for
video.
So, yes, you can shoot stills on this camera, but it's more optimized for video than anything
in that form factor that's come before.
Are you referring to pretty much the ABCHD line that we have?
I'm referring to the chip.
Because this is the first Pro ABCHD.
Oh, you're referring to the chip.
Well, the chip has definitely got a lot of design features that are specific to video.
The cameras are specific to video.
Certainly you can take nice still images out of any of these cameras, but I mean they're
1920 by 1080 stills.
So really, I mean, whether you've got a power shot or you've got an SLR, there's just so
many other ways to really take a better still.
So, yeah, they can take stills.
I don't think they were ever designing any of these cameras with anything other than
being video specific or ideal for video at any time.
I think one of the most important distinctions, though, when you get into talking about the
X-A10 versus any of the X-F series, the X-A10 is our first professional ABCHD camera.
It has, like you said, the same sensor, but recording an ABCHD makes it very different
than the two of these.
Because these record in our X-F codec, which is 50 megabit per second, 422 color space
and peg 2 in an MXF wrapper.
This is ABCHD.
So it's the same ABCHD directory structure that you have to go to and do any of your
different kind of login transfer or transcode or native, depending on what you're editing
in.
These are completely different because they have a much higher bit rate.
Obviously they have twice as much color as a 421.
You're going to get out of an ABCHD piece.
So that's the biggest distinction.
So that color is going to help you.
So of course, with the price increase, the 422 codec, 50 megabit per second on these,
is basically going to give you, say, more latitude in terms of color correction in terms
of digging stuff out of the blacks or maybe bringing stuff out of a blown out.
So these may be more forgiving.
They would be more forgiving.
You have more information to deal with in the first place.
422 is twice as much color as 420.
So right there, when you start to get into any kind of color grading information, the
more information you have in the first place, the more information that you can deal with.
It's obviously going to be much better for green screen and compositing.
And also, there's only one version of the X-A10.
There is no HDSDI Genlock in timecode.
They all have HDMI, and yes, you can use HDMI for that kind of an environment, but it's
never going to be as sturdy, as robust as what you're going to get out of, say, an HDSDI
connection.
But even if you're going to do it in posts, the 422 color space just enhances that so
much.
Excellent, excellent.
And then there's a couple of features on cameras that we've been seeing in the professional
line that kind of come from a consumer world, but professionals have kind of embraced them
and moved forward with it.
And that's, of course, going to be image stabilization and face detection.
Face detection is a very interesting run, actually.
Or tracking focus, maybe.
Well you can do that also.
You can actually have these cameras track a specific face.
So you can put on the face detection, which does sound like it's not a terribly professionally
applied feature.
However, if you look at the intro to the Emmys that was done this year, there were a lot
of scenes going on where they were pretty much just dialing backwards and had people
jumping in and out and they were holding focus on people's faces, that was all done by using
the face detection.
Actually, the DP said that he couldn't have done it without having that feature.
One of the interesting things, and this is a little creepy, it can actually follow a
specific face.
So you can tell it which face you want it to hold onto, and if that face leaves the
frame, it'll then just jump to the other faces.
It's capable of detecting about 35 faces all at once anyway.
But when that person comes back, who's the one that would be highlighted in white, it
will know that that's the same face.
And the others are highlighted kind of in yellow.
So when it's interesting.
Great, actually.
But yes.
Okay.
And it's interesting when you say that going into a professional situation that a DP would
say, that's the only thing that he or she wants to use.
That's...
Not the only, it was more that it was just a tool that they had never considered using
and they went, wow, I couldn't have done that if I didn't have it.
It wouldn't have come out the same.
You know, I mean, certainly any skilled DP can rack quickly, but the electronics are
a little bit faster.
And when it knows, I'm just looking for faces, and it'll snap right on.
And you have a lot of light, so you're at a fairly high f-stop, and therefore you're
going to have more depth of field.
Excellent.
Excellent.
So in terms of price points on all these cameras, it's kind of moved around over time, but
basically we're looking at around 2000 for the X-A10, and then the X-F100 is about 3000.
The X-F105 jumps up to about 4000.
And then the price points on the X-F300 and 305 are hovering around 6500 and 7500.
So one other thing on the X-F300 has been approved for use by the British Broadcasting
Corporation.
Yeah, BBC approved it.
They gave the...
Not 100% familiar with exactly all their terminology and things, but they have sort of a general
approval.
So that's good enough.
We can use that.
And it was very quick to be approved just for that, but it has been actually approved
across the board for BBC.
A lot of stations will do this.
Discovery does this.
Most of the higher-end broadcasters evaluate any kind of camera and say, yes, that's good
for this level, so they might have one or two or three tiers of qualification levels.
So for certain programming, that might be group one and two.
This has been approved across the board for the BBC.
Excellent.
Excellent.
So 15% of the content can be done on this.
The rest has to be...
Now you can do anything.
Excellent.
Excellent.
That's good to know.
So of course, Canon is also well-known for their 5Ds and 7Ds and the digital SLR cameras
that have had excellent reception worldwide for professional filmmaking applications.
These tools are going to be a little bit different.
So with the digital SLR comes, of course, crew, focus polar, lots of different lens choices.
So when people say that they're looking for something that's flexible, is fast, the term
run-and-gun comes up, and I think that these cameras are coming pretty close to almost
being a perfect camera for those run-and-gun applications, particularly because of the
way low light's coming out, because of the ability to do low light for events where
you're not doing narrative-based stuff, you're not with dollies, tracking shots, everything.
So you need to get a shot quick.
And I think the strength of these cameras, one is going to be on the 305 with three independent
rings for iris, focus, and aperture.
And then on the 100 and 105, that turns into basically a switchable ring that switches
in between zoom, focus, and iris, which is excellent.
And then on the XA10, there is a dial on that camera as well for adjusting, but on these
cameras you have a lot of physical real estate for manipulating settings.
So everything's not buried in a menu.
So if it comes to a situation where you're training perhaps a second shooter or a new
shooter, flip it on auto, start showing them some buttons.
You could flip it on auto.
If you look at the 105, actually, it's even got this lock.
So you can set everything as you want and then lock it.
And then if you have an inexperienced camera handler, they have the ability to go out and
shoot with it, and they can't mess up any certain pieces of it.
As far as the run and gun, yeah, there's a lot of run and gun capability.
You have all these automatic features that you could do on this.
However, if you take, say, for example, the 300 series, we have these three rings.
The focus ring can be set to either a servo slash automatic or a full manual, where when
you have it in full manual, we actually, the ring will stop.
So hard stops.
You have hard stops.
Only when it's in that particular setting, but then you also have a window with distance
markers right here.
Excellent.
So you can set a completely 100% focus.
And if you have to do it in that kind of cinematic measure and mark sort of environment, yeah,
you can do that.
Ergonomically, what you were talking about about the buttons, yeah, you've got access
to absolutely everything out here.
Of course, there are a lot of features and a lot of very, very powerful tools that are
run through the menu.
If you want to access those more quickly, all of the buttons on the outside of this camera
are all assignable.
Excellent.
They all have little buttons or little numbers on them.
Now there's obviously ones that come and they already have a certain function, but those
are even reassignable.
It also has built-in ND filters, which is very nice.
There's three of them.
They're glass.
Excellent.
And just on the topic of ergonomics, rather, we have this very, very nice, really high-resolution,
absolutely gorgeous LCD screen, which I can push forward a little bit more and you get
an extra 35 degrees there.
Turns both ways for you.
Yep.
Has a mirror function.
Has a mirror function to flip it over.
Or if you need to show it to somebody who's on the other side, you can flip it out that
way.
But because of the distance that it is, and this was designed on purpose, and you'll
notice there's a little bit of a tapered back here, a lot of people don't realize that.
If you're a little bit more of a comfortable as a shoulder shooter, you've got a shoulder
mount ability.
Granted, you don't have the EU-
Very close.
Very close to being shoulder mount.
Absolutely.
It's not really shoulder mounted.
There was a shoulder mount that just came out from ICANN, which is getting very good
feedback.
I haven't used it, though.
But...
If I had known you would have said that, Paul, I would have brought it, because we have one
that was dropped off yesterday.
No kidding.
So...
Well, we can always get a shot of it later.
Just drop it.
Absolutely.
The beauty of both.
Absolutely.
We can do that.
So, I guess to sum up, is there anything else you want to say, or what's most exciting
about getting to kind of represent and work with this line of products?
It's a really, really strong line of products.
If you go to the top, just to look at the very basic things that you have, you've got
three excellent CMOS in it.
You've got an 18-time zoom.
Get you into the mid-500s in a 35-millimeter sort of a state.
My favorite, actually, feature from all of this is the waveform monitor and vector scope
that you get on the screen.
I always use my waveform monitor to help me with my exposure.
I can set it to pretty much any setting that you would get for a waveform monitor.
Right, that it's small, so it doesn't have the bits and the IREs listed on it, but it
does have thick markers for the specific points that you really need.
High resolution as well.
Yeah, this monitor is fantastically high resolution.
And I see we also have some peaking, so for some focus assist.
Peaking and zebras.
Yeah, that would be a focus assist.
You can set it to four colors.
The peaking, it can be white, blue, red, or yellow.
People like that red with then dropping the viewfinder, the LCD, into black and white
is one of the...
I've never done that, actually.
One of the tricks.
I like to have the zebras set, because you can get two zebras in separate directions.
I like to have one set to 100 and one set to 70, so I know exactly where I'm clipping
my highlights.
I know exactly where my skin tones are, and then I can use the waveform monitor to see
if there's any kind of specular highlights that are going to pop out and distort my
shot that I may not be noticing when I look in the frame.
Excellent.
Excellent tools for assisting in any of your productions.
On that note, I appreciate everybody taking a look and watching this video at Texas Media
Systems.
We have access to bringing Paul sensible questions, so if you don't get Paul on the phone, or
if you have any questions, kind of for me, I can build up my knowledge and then take
some specific questions on to Paul, so we do have that access here at Texas Media Systems.
Phil has my card, so feel free to contact Phil.
Thanks for your time, Paul.
No problem.
Thanks for your time, Paul, thanks for your time, and I'll see you in the next video.
Thanks for your time, and I'll see you in the next video.
