Canon C70 vs. Canon C300 MKIII

The new Canon C70 has the same sensor as my C300MKIII, but does it produce the same image? Here’s what my tests revealed:

A few weeks ago I rented the C70 for several shoots and I was excited to use the newest Canon cinema camera because I’m seriously considering purchasing it along with a Ronin RS2 to be my B-CAM / Gimbal Cam alongside my C300MKIII.

I loved operating it on the gimbal, especially with the Canon EF-EOS R 0.71x adapter to give it that wide, full frame feel. However, when I used the camera on a 2-cam shoot in a studio I felt like the two cameras weren’t matching as well as I expected.

I wanted to see if my what my eyes were telling me was correct, so I did a series of tests in my studio over the following week.

Luckily my friend Caleb Wojcik loaned me two of his Canon C70s, one with the standard EF to RF adapter and one with the .71x adapter (aka Canon’s speed booster) so I could also see if the .71x adapter was effecting the image at all since it adds an additional piece of glass into the mix.

In my first round of testing I put Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 lenses on both cameras, placed them side by side, and shot the same scene on every setting I could think of, but as you’ll see in the video I made a mistake that effected the test results.

Ultimately, I fixed my error and filmed 3 separate rounds of testing to ensure that the results were accurate and consistent.

As you’ll see in the video, the results surprised me, but since I was able to pinpoint what the cameras were doing via the RGB waveform and vectorscope, I’m confident that I now know what I need to do to each camera in order to get them to match.

If you’re considering using the C70 or the C300MKIII, I highly recommend watching.

I hope you find this video helpful, and if you have any questions, make sure to leave them in the comments on YouTube!

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