The C100/BMCC Debate Redux

Over the last year I've had an on again, off again infatuation with the Canon C100.  I've written several blog posts comparing the C100 to the BMCC and have twice declared the C100 as the better camera.  I've often considered selling my BMCC to get a C100 or getting a C100 in addition to the BMCC.  The C100 has numerous ergonomic and and functional advantages over the BMCC as discussed in previous posts and, on paper at least, the C100, due to it's larger sensor, should have some advantages with respect to the final image.

When push comes to shove, however, a camera is a means to an end.  While the BMCC may be much more difficult to use, it produces a better end product than the C100, and that is really what matters.  No one watching the finished product cares how you got there.

I've struggled to find instances in which the C100's image looks "cinematic."  In truth, there are very few videos I've seen, even when using an external ProRes recorder, in which the C100 produces a cinematic image.  The BMCC and even the Pocket Cinema Camera, on the other hand, almost always look cinematic, even when the operator probably isn't even intending it.  What makes the BMCC's image look so damn cinematic is indescribable.  Is it the dynamic range and highlight roll-off?  Is the C100 too sharp?  Is it the way the BMCC renders motion?  Is it some unquantifiable, complex combination of factors unique to the BMCC sensor?  Even the C100's shallower DOF doesn't help it in the end.

BMCC footage really does look like Alexa footage.  C100 footage looks like video...very, very high end video, but still video.  I wish I could describe what makes some footage look cinematic and some like video, but I just can't...I just know it when I see it.  The best I can do is to say that the results from the BMCC look like something you'd see at the movies and the C100's results look like something you'd see on a TV reality show.

If the BMCC only had ND filters and better sound it would put much of why I love the C100 to rest.  In the end, I still think the C100 is an amazing camera, but for it's price and the fact it is billed as a Cinema EOS camera, it needs to produce a final product that can hold up to the Blackmagic Cinema camera.  It cannot, nor can it's bigger, much more expensive brother the C300.