Last week, Canon slashed the prices of the C100 and C500 again, making both cameras more affordable than ever. This is great news for anyone in the market for a new Canon cinema camera, and likely signals a shift in the company’s overall strategy.
I’ve been a fan of Canon’s cinema cameras for some time, although it took me some time to get to grips with the lineup. Initially, I wasn’t impressed with the price of any of the C-series cameras, especially considering their limited feature set… But if you’ve seen my video review of the C100, You know, shooting with the camera, I really started to understand that specs on paper don’t tell the whole story. While I knew it was unlikely to be my camera for narrative film shooting over the Blackmagic Cinema Camera or the RED Epic/Dragon, it did achieve something that neither of those cameras did, and it ended up becoming my workhorse. Even so, I ended up using it for a small narrative film I shot last summer.
When the C100 MK II was released, I was once again disappointed with its specs. As I mentioned in this article, I decided not to upgrade the camera because the current C100 still serves my needs well and the added features of the MK II simply don’t justify an upgrade. Still, if I didn’t already own the original C100, I would definitely consider the MK II as it’s the more feature-rich camera.
Whether you’re a fan of Canon’s cinema cameras or not, there’s no denying that they’ve made their mark on the industry and won’t go down without a fight. The C100 has become a great budget all-rounder, especially suitable for documents, events and low-budget storytelling. The C300 became the first choice for many lifestyle/reality TV shows and was even used in some feature films including the 2013 Palme d’Or winner Blue is the Warmest Color. at last. The C500 has proven to be an incredibly capable cinema camera. He has been employed by major Hollywood productions including “Euphoria”.
Canon problem
The problem with Canon’s cinema lineup has really never been their feature set or image quality, but their price point. Take the original C100, for example. If it had originally launched at $3,000 instead of $7,000, I think a lot of the complaints surrounding it would have gone away. The fact that a camera 4 to 5 times the price of the GH3 (which can record beautiful 1080/60p footage) can’t offer 60p is disconcerting to say the least. But I firmly believe that 90% of the complaints surrounding the C100 would be mitigated if the camera wasn’t so expensive. The same concept applies to the C300 and C500, which cost around $16,000 and $30,000 respectively when first released.
But now, everything is changing rapidly for Canon—at least as far as pricing is concerned. Check out the current prices for B&H’s theater lineup:
There’s no denying that these prices are more competitive than before, with each camera costing almost half what it was when it was first released. While they’re by no means the cheapest option on the market, their prices are closer to what most users initially think they cost.
What does this mean for Canon?
Canon must have been feeling pressure from its short-lived user base to lower the price of these cameras for some time, but unfortunately for them, it hasn’t been that easy. They can’t simply cut the price of the camera in half right away because that would cause all kinds of problems. Owners of recent cinema cameras who bought them will be furious about the steep price cuts, while potential future owners of C-series cameras may begin to feel that Canon’s lineup is unstable. Not to mention, this could have a direct impact on sales of their digital monocular products, which is a tough pill to swallow.
So ultimately it seems (to me at least) that Canon has been wanting to lower the prices of these cameras for a while, but had no choice but to cut prices in stages rather than in huge chunks. Regardless, the situation still begs the question— Faced with all this, where will Canon go?
There are two ways you can look at this.
On the one hand, NAB is just around the corner and Canon may just be trying to sell as many older model cameras as possible before launching new models (again at higher price points). But on the other hand, that may not be the case at all. In fact, Canon may be shifting its pricing model to one that is more competitive than other manufacturers in an effort to win back some lost customers. Personally, I’m inclined to think it’s probably the latter.
After Sony and Panasonic completely stole the show with video products in 2014, Canon is definitely feeling the heat now. In the past, you couldn’t find a stand-alone scene that wasn’t shot with a 5D/7D or some iteration of a C-series camera, but now it’s quite the opposite. Shooters have been hard on Canon (myself included), and for good reason…but when you consider how daunting a task it is for a company as big as Canon to make such a huge shift in technology and pricing structure Mission, maybe there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Could it be that Canon is heading in the right direction but we just haven’t seen the results yet? Who knows, but regardless, this year should be a big sign.
After the original 5D became the go-to camera for independent filmmaking, Canon was content to rest on its laurels for a while. Even a few years after the release of the MK II, when the craze was dying down, many shooters/filmmakers still invested in so many Canon lenses that they didn’t want to jump ship to another brand because it would mean selling their lens kit, Or deal with bulky adapters. Now, however, many major cinema camera manufacturers (including RED, Blackmagic, and others) offer native EF mounts on their cameras, making the jump from Canon easier than ever. Canon is obviously aware of all this, but the question is how they will handle things going forward.
I think 2015 will be a make or break year for Canon as far as the video market is concerned. Of course, there will always be some shooters who still capture great images with the old 5D MKII, while other current Canon users just don’t want to make the jump. But there have been some sea changes in cost-effective high-end cinema cameras in the last year, and Canon needs to respond. It’s not too late…if they can start offering cinema cameras with 4K capabilities, compressed raw data, and a better price point, they can retake the market. But if they don’t act soon, it will be too late.
