Canon XC10 now in stock
23 August 2015
The new Canon XC10 4K camera is an interesting one. A lot of people have been moaning about the lack of fast lens and XLR connections. Okay, it would be nice to have a lovely f/2.8 lens the whole way through and XLR connections would have been very useful but it also would have pushed the weight and size of the camera (and I expect the cost) up a fair bit. The weight is actually a surprise - it's much lighter than you think.
Is the shape of camcorders to come? Possibly, yes. It's really a bit confusing adding it to the cinema range as really it's more of an event camera, surely? For that purpose, it makes a great deal of sense. I suppose Canon's reason for doing so was to emphasise the quality of the image recording. There's no doubting Canon's new XF-AVC codec recording 4:2:2 8 bit video at bit rates of up to 305Mb/s. It also includes Canon flat C Log gamma giving 12 stops of dynamic range. The 1 inch sensor strikes a balance between allowing a reasonably short depth of field but still being small enough that focusing is less of a problem. It also seems to handle low light pretty well (which is a useful thing considering the lens is not that fast once you start to zoom in). That l0x zoom lens (24-240mm 35 equiv) has image stabilisation as well. It's nice to see a touch screen on the back (and you've got a joystick and assignable buttons).
So what we've got here is something that's reasonable to handle, has a lens dedicated to the sensor and great image quality. It can also take 12mp stills and has a proper shutter mechanism. Just a shame you can't get RAW files (please bring out a firmware update for this Canon).
I can see quite a lot of interest in this camera from shooters on a budget - for a select market, it makes a lot of sense.
We now have them in stock and available for hire.