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So I wanted share with you what I learned and more importantly the parts you will need for this electrifying endeavor (please don’t hate on my puns… my ego is too fragile for criticism).

First you’ll need some 15mm rails, but for the sake of this article, I am going to assume you already have some. Next you need a way to mount the battery to the rails and what better place to buy elemental hardware than from a Chinese seller on ebay.

I had to learn the hard way not to buy hardware like this from US Retailers or Manufacturers because they are really basic parts and often times price does not equal quality. In 2012, I way over paid for a Redrock Micro camera rig, when I could have bought something similar on ebay for less than $400, follow focus included. In this instance, the accessory you need can be had and delivered for only $29.98.

Next, you will need a mount to go between the Gold Mount battery and the plate. I read, and this was confirmed from my TV cameraman friend, that V-Mount batteries often come loose, so I bought a Wooden Camera WC Gold Mount (Dual D-Tap), pictured below. Despite my previously mentioned affection for random solutions from the far east, I decided to only go with products that are sold by top level camera stores, because I am a paranoid xenophobic person and the rest of these parts actually connect to your camera!

This product comes with screws that line up perfectly with the holes in the cheese plate. The back is open, so I know I will need to look out for lint forming inside, which I didn’t know in advance, but this may not be an issue and hey, I own it now! The mount also  has two D-Taps for powering accessories.

When it came to the Gold Mount battery I wanted to go with a brand name, because, like I said, I am paranoid about frying the camera. So after looking at the offerings from Anton Bauer and SWIT, I decided to go with a Core SWX XP-L90A 90wh Lithium-Ion ION Brick Style Gold Mount Battery, 14.4v, 6.3Ah with 4 LED Power Gauge and an additional D-Tap.

To charge it I bought a Core SWX Power TAP Charger for PB70.

Different batteries output different volts and I read on a message board the the camera could handle a range of input volts, but I can’t seem to find that post. I bought the SWX battery because it is 14.4V just like the Canon batteries, however the Canon C200 manual says the AC adapter is 16.7 V DC, so that may be the range. I would have gone with a larger capacity battery and probably should have, but I was just trying to get my feet wet.

To connect the battery to the camera, I bought a Lanparte Power Cable for C300 Mark II 65cm (24″), Black, Green (DT-LM-4-65).

In conclusion, the Canon BP-A60 Battery costs $495, but but after spending around $430 on these 5 items, I was all set. I saved $70 (we can both afford to go to dinner now, but watch the drinks… ) and I ended up with the same amount of power. However, if I want to double my capacity, all I have to do is spend another $230 on an additional Gold Mount battery or I can look at batteries with even more watt hours.

A friend of mine said he is using a Ansanor V-Mount battery (160 Watt Hour) for $169 and it comes with a charger and plate…. I might be rethinking this whole paranoid thing……

Equal with my desire to save money was my inclination to power accessories like my Atomos Shogun, which drinks power. CRAZY amounts of power. On the outing pictured above, I powered both the camera and the recorder for what seemed like around two hours and the Gold Mount battery was dead. Looking at some message boards a 90WH Gold Mount battery should power a Canon C200 alone for 4 hours.

One thing I didn’t know when I embarked on this Journey, was that I would end up switching to Aputure 120D and 300D LED lights, which can be powered with AC or V-Mount batteries, so maybe that is the mount I should have gone with… but they do require 12A 190WH or higher batteries, which are quite rare and expensive and more than you would need for the camera rig.

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1DX Mark II and C100 Footage: Fashion Loves Art 2017 from John Gress on Vimeo.

Even after buying a CLog picture style from EOSHD, I wasn’t wild about the results. The dynamic range wasn’t what I was used to from my Canon C100, but the camera still shot great footage. However the lack of shadow detail at times was concerning. I just felt like there wasn’t enough latitude to hold highlights and shadows in some situations like the piano scene in the music video below.

Chicago video production company: Marcus Matteo’s Boomerang Music Video – 1DX Mark II 4K from John Gress on Vimeo.

In addition, I felt like I was being buried in data that was clogging up final cut because it wasn’t in a format that the NLE could readily process. But the 60P was really useful when it came to making really cool slow-motion videos for my clients.

1DX Mark II and C100 Footage: ORS #CreativeMe DeAera | Rod Set from John Gress on Vimeo.

So when the C200 was announced it peaked my interest because not only could it shoot proper CLog and Clog3 in camera and autofocus like the 1D X Mark II, it had a Super 35 sensor (crop factor 1.4x), which is similar to the sensor of the 5D Mark IV, and it can capture it all in a more compressed codec (150mbps). In addition the C200 can shoot RAW as well when the project calls for it, but RAW video takes up twice as much space as the 1DX2 4K footage. However it takes your footage to all new levels and in one of the scores of videos I watched prior to buying the camera, a Canon rep said that they build their cameras intending for customers to use them for five years and two years from now storage and media will be a lot cheaper and processing power will be better too.

When I purchased the C200, I sold my 1D X Mark II and my 5D Mark III and bought two 30MP 5D Mark IV cameras with CLog, to use primarily as my still cameras.

I considered buying a Canon C300 Mark II but i didn’t like the user interface when using the autofocus and, unlike the C200, it lacks 60p 4k. However, the Canon C300 Mark II is capable of shooting higher color bit rates in camera, but the C200 can make up for it with external recorderers and 12-bit RAW, which is exclusive to this camera.

TEST: Canon C200, C100 & Atomos Shogun footage in a QFHD (3840×2160) Timeline, RAW, Prores, AVCHD, MP4, 4K, 8Bit, 10Bit from John Gress on Vimeo.

The video test above includes the following C200 footage: internal 12-bit RAW, external unsharpened 422 10-bit HD while shooting RAW, internal MP4 unsharpened 4:2:0 8bit 2k proxy files while shooting RAW, Internal MP4 4:2:0 8 Bit QFHD (Quad Full High Definition, 3840×2160), external ProRes 4:2:2 LT 8 Bit QFHD, external ProRes 4:2:2 LT 10 Bit HD.

All the footage is 23.98P, All of the C200 footage, unless otherwise noted is CLog3 and the C100 footage is CLog. The external footage was recorded with an Atomos Shogun.

Lenses Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM and Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM

I have been using my Canon C100 (which I will now use as my B Camera) since 2013, and usually I record the footage externally, with an Atomos Ninja2 or Atomos Shogun, but I haven’t noticed too much of a difference between the internal footage and the externally recorded footage, until today, when I shot some tall grass at f8 with and without the recorder and I noticed there is a lot more detail in the externally recorded footage. That scene also showed me that the best footage I will probably get from the C200, aside from 4K RAW, is externally recorded ProRes 4:2:2 LT 8 Bit QFHD (I should see if HQ or regular makes much of a difference). QFHD 422LT is 328Mbps / 148GBhr, 422 is 471Mbps / 226GBhr and 422HQ is 754Mbps / 318GBhr. Which is a lot less than the 512/GBhr you’ll be shooting with raw and the 716/GBhr of Prores you’ll need to create to edit the 4K RAW.

Now I could be completely wrong and I might find that the 10-bit HD will be better for grading than the QFHD, but what do you think?

I had some difficulty getting the camera and Atomos Shogun to work together, and thanks to some wonderful support from Atomos we figured it out together. When using the HDMI cable, I had to turn on “Rec Command” and “HDMI Time Code,” so that it would send the trigger signal to the recorder. Originally I didn’t turn this on because I thought it was going to put the time code on top of the video. Then I set the Shogun to trigger via the HDMI.

When using SDI I did the same thing I did for HDMI, but I discovered that the Shogun cannot record 2K and when you shoot raw internally and feed the recorder both 2K and FHD it records the left side of the feed only, clipping off a little of the right side. When you set the camera to output FHD while shooting raw, the same thing happens, even though you would expect it to record letterboxed FHD. When using the SDI and recording MP4 internally, the shogun records FHD correctly. When you shoot Raw internally and record the HDMI signal with the Shogun, it is letterboxed FHD and when you shoot MP4 internally the HDMI signal is either QFHD or FHD. That said, the only reason I can see to use the SDI with this recorder is to record 422 10-Bit FHD while recording MP4 internally, because SDI is the only way you can feed all 4 channels of the cameras audio to a recorder.  You can record 422 10 bit FHD and 8bit QFHD with the HDMI cable, but it only supports two channels of audio.

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As a Chicago music video director, I am always striving to hone my craft by using news tools and techniques. My latest music video for Marcus Matteo was my first 4k project and I shot it almost exclusively in 4k DCI with a Canon 1D X Mark II camera using EOSHD’s C-LOG Picture Style.

In order to take the viewer into the action, the lion’s share of the shots were captured with with a DJI Ronin-M or handheld when a dramatic visceral feel was preferred.

Almost all of the video was shot in 4K DCI 4,096 x 2,160 is larger than UHD 4k 3,840 x 2,160, but the flower drop and the slamming down of the glass were shot in 1080P 120fps. In addition the beach singing scene was shot at 60P and then slowed down to 40% to the base frame rate for the video which was 24fps. In order to pull off those shots Matteo sang along with a version of his song which was sped up 250% with an app called Music Speed Changer. I feel the results are great because it creates a striking contrast to the scenes with our fantastic actors Rae. and Tasos.

The Music video was graded with IWLTBAP luts inside of Final Cut Pro X.

The kitchen scene was lit with two Coolights 150-watt HMI‘s, which I gelled with a 1/2 Color Temperature Straw and shined through a window and blinds *creating the lines on the cabinets). Then the whole scene was filled with a reflector. I was going to use a light bounced off the ceiling, but found that the Coollights have a magenta bias and it just didn’t look right. In retrospect I could have corrected the lights with a 1/8 minus magenta, but it was just as efficient to use the reflector.

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