Blackmagic Pyxis: Should you buy the C400 instead?

For a few thousand dollars more, is the Canon C400 the better buy? Today we do a deep dive into the C400 vs Pyxis.Which one is better? Which should you buy? Whats a better value?

CHAPTERS

00:00 INTRO
01:25 PRICE
03:36 INVESTMENT
05:16 IMAGE
06:46 LOW LIGHT
07:13 STABILIZATION
07:30 FORMATS / CODECS
08:43 SENSOR SIZE
09:15 BODY DESIGN
11:07 BATTERIES
11:52 I/O
12:48 SOUND
13:35 CARD SLOTS
14:08 SIZE AND WEIGHT
15:05 DYNAMIC RANGE
16:58 SIDE GRIP
17:45 VERTICAL SHOOTING
18:18 BRAND NAME
19:46 BUILD QUALITY
20:18 WHICH ONE SHOULD YOU BUY?

[DirectorsGarage]

Something I run into frequently-- I'm on the move in the field, and sweat is a real thing. When the camera is mostly touch screen-- and you drip sweat onto said touchscreen-- or your fingers are wet-- changing settings becomes an adventure, and not a welcomed one. Having a joystick option for your misty moments is a must have. I struggle with my URSA Mini Pro 4.6k in hot environments. BlackMagic makes cameras you want-- Canon makes cameras you use.

[JonasStuart]

And yes, totally agree, what a great time to be in this industry!

[sasqwatchmm]

Either Sony will come up with something really competitive or I go either BM route or will go back to Canon. Absence of RAW format on Sony cameras is ridiculous

[Gloryvisuals]

Love your channel so much. Knowledgeable, unbiased, quality content.

Sony fanboy here. The #1 reason I am adding the PYXIS to our kit is open gate, and we are adding it as another tool for specific uses instead of switching to it. The FX6 is similar in that it can be used for sooo much. But open gate is the reason that tipped us over the edge, and PYXIS still retains that advantage over most competitors.

[ScottieVee]

Spot on. Pyxis is cool. Nice image. But... the C400 is a Monster.

[GabrielScindian]

I knew bros would be the first to do this VS!!! Awesome. I ordered the c400 but since the Pyxis came out. I have been hearing nothing but good things

[MrJayclas]

The Pyxis image in the over exposures test looks better in every way.

[pasegers]

from 3000 to 6000 for the Pyxis ? i rigged mine full out for just over 1000 euros, and it comes with the best color grading software worth 330 euros ... about Raw, i prefer Braw over all the codecs of the canon 😊
but after all, they are different camera's and not for the same use to me 😉

[disco.jellyfish]

This is EXACTLY the comparison I was looking for.
I have some additions because I have already done a lot of research on both devices already. Here is what I have left to mention:

Especially for the anamorphic use case. The PYXIS indeed can scan 3:2 in 6K @36p, while the C400 cannot do 3:2 but it does 6K at 60p in 17:9 in raw without cropping. There is however one major flaw to the 3:2 scan of the PYXIS which is a rather slow rolling shutter. Paired with anamorphic lenses and especially long focal lengths, this can be tough to work with when moving the camera (especially when panning it). Luckily DaVinci Resolve has a tool to fix/reduce rolling shutter artifacts, but it does require you to slightly crop in unfortunately. So this is definitely not perfect. The C400s rolling shutter is roughly twice as fast in comparison. So if you dont edit this footage yourself, this is a big deal, when you often do jobs that require long focal lengths and also working auto focus like when tracking animals from far away for your cheetah documentary or tracking a football player on a field - you will be panning a lot at long focal lengths there. But you might also already be cropping into Super 35 there too so that your 500mm lens actually gets you close enough.

The C400 is also interesting for broadcast purposes because not only does it have a lot of decent Broadcast style native lenses (that do require you to use a crop mode), but it can also record for you in 1080i50 or 1080i59.94 (whichever one you need), which definitely makes your TV customers happy. Usually it doesnt really matter - you can just convert 50p to 50i easily but some TV people still edit on AVID and AVID definitely behaves very weird when your input footages settings dont exactly match your output fottages settings. And whenever telling your customer knows that your Camera wont only record 6K RAW in 60p but also 1080i50, they are going to be very happy, no matter how much this doesnt actually matter. TV studios tend to be very big an have a lot of differently well skilled people working there and telling a almost 70 year old editor that your footage is in 4K 50p and LOG, will cause him to loose his mind. Just give them 1080i50 and both sides can be very happy.

[najeefilms]

Kills me how people debate all this but I don't see any good work on YouTube. I got into film in 2015 with the Canon rebel t5i. This industry is a joke. Everyone talking about specs and shyt but no one creating good work.

[mtscott]

I like your channel dude, keep it up.

[CaseyPreston]

Your comments about the way Canon handles ISO is something that I don't think most people realize. Canon's cameras were designed to let you ride the ISO without changing the image. So, you can change your aperture from a 2.8 to a 4.0 and just jack up the ISO from 800 to 1600 and the only change you will see is an increase the depth of field. I've found this very useful in multicamera interviews where I realize I need a bit more depth of field on one of the cameras after we start shooting. I guess most other cameras don't do this. You can protect your shadows in a sense by dropping the iso below the base iso which shifts the stop distribution lower, but that also means you will clip your highlights before you reach your maximum IRE so it can cause problems if people aren't paying attention.

[JRidgely]

I have two pocket pros. I’m considering Pyxis because I want a box still full frame camera. For the price I can get a Blackmagic Pyxis and a set a Surui Cinema lenses.

[kadenkelsch]

How do you make a video review of two cameras with no B-roll to show your results? As one of my favorite cinematographer quotes go "Always show, never tell"

[avdpost]

Really want Canon to add their GYRO data to their codec. Pyxis really wins in that one regard.

[MtZionMediaPro]

Great overview of both cameras! I will say, $4K will get you a nice basic rig on the Pyxis.

If you want a fancy rig it'll be $6K.

[adamboozer]

thanks for the metric crap ton of info on this one ! :)

[raredreamfootage]

Have you tried recording 4K out of the 12G SDI from the PYXIS? I wonder if it is downsampled from 6K?

The URSA 12K's 4K output from the 12G SDI when the internal recording is set to 12K looks superb as the 4K is downsampled from 12.

[michalurbanczyk]

Awesome, thanks for the test! I'm curious what Rec709 luts did you use for base grade for each camera. Cheers!

[BTDreal]

I'm planing to switch to canon c400 and I can't see any info, do c400 has autofocus on 4k 120fps?