Camera review by eoshd

The Canon 1D C 

Pros

• Lovely end results in 4K, silky smooth and amazing detail
• World leading low light performance at high ISOs
• A flagship stills camera and same robust build quality as the 1D X
• Sharp in 1080p with Super 35mm crop (but the C100 has that for a lot less money)
• Ready to shoot out of the box (though painful to use bare bones)
• Internal 4K recording to common media and no need for external solution aka C500 (though media is expensive)

Cons

• Absurdly high price and huge potential for depreciation
• 4K only real selling point over half priced 1D X, but benefit of 4K questionable for audience and clients in 2013. By the time it becomes an industry standard the 1D C may well be obsolete!
• Zero handling concessions to video, not even a video record button on a $12,000 movie camera!!
• Live view activation required every time you turn on the camera
• No dedicated movie mode
• 4K mode has an odd crop factor, nowhere near the full frame look to lenses
• Very poor rolling shutter performance especially in 4K mode
• Mushy 1080/60p image quality looks like upscaled 720p
• Poor battery run time and low capacity considering physical size
• Cannot quickly shoot stills whilst in 4K recording mode
• Live view stills / movie mode hidden deep in the menu, no dedicated lever like on the 5D Mark III
• Video quality in full frame 1080p mode barely better than a $3000 5D Mark III, vertically smeared
• Expensive media (1000x 150MB/s 128GB CF minimum standard) and many cards required
• 4K requires card speeds above 100MB/s – only a little more optimisation would have enabled use of cheaper 600x 95MB/s cards
• No form factor excuse for not using small customised SSD mags like Odyssey 7Q / Red
• 8bit disappointing to see at $12,000, banding an issue under ISO 400 especially in Canon LOG mode
• Canon log buried deep in the menus
• No direct access to picture profiles like on consumer DSLR
• ISO menu obscures entire exposure / composition
• Poor feel to m.Fn button near shutter release (default for activating movie recording)
• Buttons, even the on / off switch impossible to see in the dark
• Illumination of top and rear info panels turns off whilst recording
• Menu system designed for stills shooters (lots of pages of AF!)
• Focus assist not designed for video shooting, no peaking
• Awkward positioning of magnified focus assist, more apt for playback mode than shooting
• Magnified focus assist too slow to move around the frame
• Awkward to use on a tripod for bare bones DSLR stealth shooting – no articulated monitor, stealth factor disappears when you add monitor
• Requires firmware update for 25p (and only came about after months of requests)
• Not nearly enough changes to the 1D X to justify doubling of the price
• No high frame rates (HFR) in 4K, not even 30fps
• Poor 4K editing performance in Adobe Premiere CS6 due to inefficient MJPEG codec and possibly compatibility issues