There is a new price bracket for cheap professional-enough cameras, I picked two cameras out to put them side by side. I like the C300, and I like the RED Scarlet; but each have their own place, pros and cons. They end up balancing out to about the same price-ish to be shoot-ready.
While the C300 and Scarlet both have the option of Canon EF or PL mounts, the Scarlets’ is interchangeable and easily switchable (if you buy/own the other mount), for the C300 you have to pick one and stick with it.
Both of these cameras are geared towards shooting for post-production. More so for the the Scarlet, which shoots in RAW with a maximum data rate of 440 mbps.
The Canon log imagery is pretty awesome, up there with the Alexa, but it is not lossless/RAW. It is compressed through MPEG-2, and you get 12 stops of dynamic range. The data rate is 50 mbps. Here is an informative article about Canon Log Gamma.
http://learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2011/understand_log_gamma.shtml
RED has a good resource for it’s REDCODE and products too.
http://www.red.com/learn/workflow
The standard resolution is 4K for the Scarlet, and 1080p for the C300. The C300 has an amazing sensor, with a pixel resolution of 3840 x 2160, using four pixels to create each pixel of video, so full RGB output without debayering.
The standard compact flash cards work on the C300, but with the Scarlet, you will need to purchase their very fast (and pricey) proprietary media.
Both cameras shoot higher frame rates, but each does so in a different way. The C300 captures the same image at a lower resolution, 60fps at 720p. The Scarlet crops the sensor and the image, but has a higher output, 60fps at 2K and 120fps at 1K.
-=- ¡VIDEOS! -=-
Scarlet 120K video sample
http://vimeo.com/24794595
A low-light test for the 7D, F3, and C300
http://vimeo.com/33813534
F3-C300 images
http://wiegaertnerfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/comparison-slog-clog.jpg
Alexa-RED-SI-Panasonic-Canon(7D) tests
http://www.cinematography.net/Gothenburg/Goth-Alexa-RED.html
C300 latitude tests
http://www.cinematography.net/C300-Frames.htm
Sensor size comparison
http://prolost.com/storage/post-images/crops_01_list.png
Video Review of the Scarlet by Cinema 5D.
overview http://vimeo.com/34284117
interface http://vimeo.com/34285867
test http://vimeo.com/34110791
A hilarious and informative camera test for the C300
http://vimeo.com/32067654
Mobius: A short film shot on the C300
http://vimeo.com/30215350
A short doc shot on the C300 (in one day)
http://vimeo.com/34851252
A short film shot on the RED Scarlet-X
http://vimeo.com/34474816
-=- ¡VIDEOS! -=-
The Scarlet has versatile modular system that RED is developing all of their products on now. RED has a rugged and unique product design and it seems like the are more passionate about developing their products, on hardware and software ends. The RED community is very passionate as well.
Canon has many more years of experience as a camera manufacturer, but that limits them on product development, they are less transparent and less likely to take risks. There is more of a distance between the consumer and the company. Canon has a passionate community, but at least for the DSLR world, they focus more on workarounds. It will be interesting to see what the focus will be now that they have the C300. The DSLR community will continue to squeeze what they can out of the lower power/price cameras.
Both cameras shoot photos, C300 at 8.29 megapixels and Scarlet 12 fps burst at 5K resolution. I expect RED to have some exciting developments in this department in the future.
You can beef up or strip down each camera a great deal, in the end they are both great cameras. It comes down to personal preference. I would be happy using either. The little differences pushed me to prefer the Scarlet, especially with a more structured set-like environment background.
The RED Scarlet is a industrial workhorse, more customizable, but more complex to run and ingest.
For run-and-gun shooting and quick workflows (documentary filmmaking), the Canon C300 is choice.
Now that all the technical stuff is out of the way, pick one and get behind it.
