Exposure Latitude C200 vs Ursa Mini 4.6K
Those who choose Canon RAW Light will be rewarded with an exposure latitude comparable to what can now be expected with RAW-capable Cine cameras in the Sub 10,000 Euro range thanks to cameras such as the Ursa Mini 4.6K.
Since the Ursa Mini 4.6 K has set the bar in this area and is also natively operated with 800 ISO, we compared the Canon C200 in 12 bit 4K Raw Light with the Ursa Mini 4.6 K (4:1 Raw) at 24 fps, in order to be able to make a few statements about the exposure latitude.
We ran both cameras in base-ISO 800 and had the same Zeiss 35mm f1.4 optics (with open aperture) on the cameras. We exposed our test box starting at f8 to neutral in the area of the doll´s face (via gray card) and then over- and underexposed 4 / 6 f-stops respectively. Turning the footage back to neutral in the post also shows the behavior of the codec in extreme situations, which is something you normally can´t see in simple dynamic range exposure charts.
Comparing the highlight handling of the Ursa Mini 4.6K and the Canon EOS C200 using RAW 4:1 you see approximately the same picture. From 4 f-stops of overexposure onwards we get almost exactly the same clipping range for both cameras. (We didn´t adjust the colors here any further.)
However, with under-exposure, the picture is slightly different. At -6 f-stops, the 4:1 RAW material of the Ursa Mini 4.6K has the edge over the Canon EOS C200´s 12-bit Raw Cinema Light in terms of noise. The C200 material is much more noisy than the Ursa Mini 4.6K in this extreme area, and fixed pattern noise is also more evident on the Canon EOS C200.
Those who have to work in extreme lighting conditions, i.e. need to underexpose heavily and still want usable material, would be better served with the Ursa Mini 4.6K, especially since we "only" used the 4:1 RAW here - with 3:1 and 1:1 RAW even higher-quality raw formats are available with the Ursa 4.6K. When it comes to high-level handling, both cameras are pretty much the same.
All in all, the Canon EOS C200 and the Ursa Mini 4.6K both offer a pleasingly high level of exposure latitude.
