Pro video blog…Produced by Philip Johnston DoP/Editor

Today was my Canon C300’s first day earning her keep, filming in a bottling factory. She was a joy to use and if the old daylight got a bit hot all I had to do was flip in 2 stops of ND.

After the filming I was de-rigging the camera when I had a problem taking the monitor off the cold shoe, after a bit of brain scratching I discovered that Canon had built in a nice safety feature into the monitor itself.

Basically as you screw the monitor down onto the cold shoe it deploys a pin to make sure the monitor cannot accidentally fall off the hand grip which is a great feature as long as you are aware of it. To unscrew the monitor you need to turn it CLOCKWISE.

I realise its not rocket science but this wee gem of information may prevent one of you trying to force your monitor off the handle thinking as I did that it had become stuck. Fortunately I had time to decipher the problem as it was at the end of the shoot but a timely warning never to force anything out of its holder.

author

Having been working in the video business since 1988 I have amassed a great amount of knowledge of both the kit and production values over the last 30 years.

4 thoughts on “Canon C300 cold shoe “PIN” a word of warning !

  1. I notice you’re using the viewfinder. How do you find it? Is it good enough to follow focus accurately on predictable and/or unpredictable moving subjects?
    I’ve heard the viewfinder is good but not Zacuto EVF good. What are your thoughts?

  2. Its for internal use by the client I am afraid, the camera performed well apart from the monitor getting “stuck” before I sussed out the locking pin.

  3. I have the Zacuto EVF and interestingly it only supports 576p via the HDMI output on the C300, my Sony 740 OLED detects the C300 at 720p via HDMI so the Zacuto is under performing.
    To answer your question the viewfinder is fine for follow focus and the 4″ monitor is a good back up, I have not used the Zacuto with the C300.

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