Canon EOS C100 Mark II with Dual Pixel CMOS AF & EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM Zoom Lens Kit

The camera, lenses and one spare battery all fitted into my backpack. With the Canon kit and my tripod in it’s bag I jumped on my push bike and off I went. This is one of the key points right here as to why I like the camera. I could take everything I needed for this shoot and comfortably ride a push bike or take public transport. Sure you could do this with Sony a7S, Panasonic GH4, BMPCC or even a Canon 5D mkIII, but none of these cameras have built in ND or proper audio inputs as standard. The C100 is a one stop shop. It comes with everything you need to shoot with without having to add anything – although in fairness you do need a microphone even though the camera does have a built in one, but more on that later.

A good test for me on how easy a camera is to use is to pick it up, turn it on, set it up and use it without looking at any instructions. Apart from a few small things that I encountered the camera was pretty straight forward to operate and set up. For an operator picking up the camera for the first time I think they could be up and shooting quite quickly.

The main thing that I thought was strange when setting up the camera was how to choose what frame rate or codec to shoot in. The C100 Mark II gives you the option of recording in either AVCHD or MPEG4. While this sounds quite straight forward the sett

FUNCTIONALITY

On the positive side the rest of the camera was very easy to use and changing basic functions like aperture, ISO, ND,shutter speed and white balance is a breeze. I did not use any external devices such as aftermarket EVFs, monitors or camera rigs as I wanted to see how easy the camera was to operate and use straight out of the box. The C100 Mark II has a flip out LED screen as well as a inbuilt EVF. As it was a bright sunny day I primarily used the EVF and not the flip out screen. One problem I found when doing this is that the waveform cannot be seen on the EVF and I had to have the flip out screen open to use this feature. The quality of the EVF and LCD screen are good but not great. I didn’t have any real problems using the EVF apart from the odd time when I wanted to shoot specific angles. The EVF has very little angle adjustment range and becomes useless when trying to shoot with the camera on a tripod at any height above eye level. The LCD screen has plenty of range and movement but like all LCD screens you struggle to see it in bright sunlight (Ed- alhough I guess you could add a Zacuto Z-finder).

BUILD QUALITY

The C100 Mark II feels solid in the hand and the flip out LCD screen and EVF are strong and don’t feel like they would break easily. The removable top handle that features all the audio inputs and controls attaches to the main body of the camera via a cold shoe. While this if fairly secure, on the camera I tested it did tend to wobble around a little bit – something the original C100 was also guilty of.