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Experienced filmmakers all have their favourite cameras, based on shooting hundreds of hours of footage in different conditions around the world. It would take a very special camera indeed to get many of them to rethink their kit choice.
For Alex Wykes, director at Verri Media, the Canon EOS C300 Mark II cinema camera has long been a mainstay of his filmmaking. But while shooting a behind-the-scenes documentary following wildlife photographer and Canon Ambassador Marina Cano testing the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III in the Kalahari Desert, Alex had the opportunity to add the same DSLR to his kitbag.
Across five days shooting in hot, dusty and demanding conditions in the Tswalu game reserve in South Africa's Northern Cape province, the filmmaker was able to put the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III through its paces alongside his favoured cinema camera – and he found it offered him a unique creative solution, enabling him to make the film he wanted, without compromises.
"Over the past 20 years we've shot in jungles, mountains, snow, heat, cold and wet," says Alex. "We've travelled a lot and worked in hostile, difficult situations. So it's certainly not my first time getting down and dirty in the desert for those low shots."
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Alex knew his favoured Canon EOS C300 Mark II would be the ideal partner on a demanding shoot – especially when capturing close-ups of Marina at work. "We did all the tight shots, where I needed to be a bit more on-the-hoof and shoot handheld, with the Canon EOS C300 Mark II and a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM lens," he explains.
The four-channel audio on the Canon EOS C300 Mark II allowed Alex to work spontaneously, recording sync sound without a sound recordist using a radio lavalier mic on Marina and a shotgun mic on camera. "The camera's in-built mic preamps make capturing on-board sound really straightforward," he says. "There are some candid moments when Marina talks to the camera; I wanted to capture that immediacy and intimacy, so you feel you are there with her."
And Alex trusted the Dual Pixel CMOS AF to ensure Marina was in sharp focus, although he did switch to manual focus at times, in the knowledge that the Focus Guide technology would give a visual indicator of whether his subject was pin-sharp. "It's an amazing set-up for run-and-gun documentary shooting where you don't get a second take," he says.
But filming wildlife doesn't just call for action shots. You also need close-ups of the animals – in this case, fast-moving meerkats and packs of wild painted dogs – and ideally both photographer and subject in the same shot. "We wanted to link Marina's finished photos with what she's actually seeing, so we need to see what she's shooting," says Alex. "Marina is the star of the film, so we wanted to get the animals between her and the camera, so that we can film her and what she's shooting, and see her in the frame with the animal."
This is where the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III came into its own, allowing Alex to capture shots of a quality that would have been impossible on any other camera. "I sometimes use a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV on a gimbal to shoot 4K, but I don't use a DSLR on a regular basis. Ideally, I like to overcrank and shoot 4K at 60p on the gimbal. Now I'd definitely use the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III."
One of the features that persuaded Alex to integrate a DSLR into his professional shoot was the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III's frame rates, including the fact that its full-frame sensor shoots in 4K at 60p in Canon Log for a very wide dynamic range.
"Because we like to deliver our films in 4K, we love to shoot 4K at 60p, but we cut into 25p timelines, so we can slow down the 60p footage for slow motion," he says. "I'd use the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III permanently rigged to a gimbal shooting 4K 60p, alongside the Canon EOS C300 Mark II shooting 4K 25p – we often mix the two shooting styles."
For filming wildlife – from wild dogs hunting to birds soaring across the skies – the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III's intelligent autofocus was a standout feature, both handheld and on a tripod. When shooting using the viewfinder, the camera offers 191 individually selectable AF points, 155 of which are cross-type for extra sensitivity. In Live View mode, the camera uses Canon's renowned Dual Pixel CMOS AF system. This has 90% horizontal and 100% vertical coverage and an astonishing 3,869 manually selectable AF positions. In both modes, the EOS-1D X Mark III's dedicated AF sensor and revolutionary deep-learning AF algorithm deliver breathtaking autofocus performance.
Marina Cano photographed curious creatures and elusive endangered species in the Kalahari Desert, in the first wildlife shoot with the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III.
"Being able to track moving animals is a big deal," says Alex. "The Canon EOS-1D X Mark III is amazing at tracking and knowing what to focus on – it's the best I've used. And the touchscreen makes a huge difference to how quickly you can work.
"Animals are unpredictable, so you need something very clever, and the autofocus on the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III could do it." The subject tracking AF was invaluable for shooting Marina as well as her animal subjects, too: "Nowadays I always shoot interviews using the face tracking AF – it means I can be a bit braver and shoot with wider f-stops," Alex adds.
When shooting in 4K, precise focus is critical, especially when shooting with longer and faster lenses at wider apertures at dawn and dusk – the best times for tracking wildlife.
Alex had a whole arsenal of Canon EF lenses, including a range of zooms – a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM, a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM and a Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III USM – in addition to a Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM prime lens and a Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS III USM super telephoto lens. But the lens he used most was the Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Extender 1.4x, thanks to its ability to capture action at a wide range of focal lengths.
One of the challenges filmmakers face when shooting with different cameras is maintaining a consistent look when the footage is put together. Using the same Canon lenses on both cameras helps, but Alex also found that the codecs in the Canon EOS C300 Mark II and Canon EOS-1D X Mark III were incredibly easy to match up in post production.
That's because the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III is the first Canon DSLR or mirrorless camera to shoot full-frame 4K Canon Log footage as 10-bit 4:2:2 HEVC/H.265 files in the MP4 format, which is what Alex used for the majority of the shoot. It also shoots 12-bit 5.5K RAW footage, recording internally to CFexpress memory cards, which gives incredibly detailed, oversampled 4K video for maximum control in post.
"We did shoot some 12-bit RAW footage, but as we shot 4K 10-bit 4:2:2 with the Canon EOS C300 Mark II, we also shot 4K 10-bit 4:2:2 on the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III," says Alex.
"We shoot with Canon Log 3 on the cinema camera, while the DSLR only has Canon Log, but the Log codecs give you so much control, it was easy to match the colours in post. It was a bigger challenge to match footage shot at different times of day. In the Kalahari, if you look one way, the sand is yellow; but if you turn 90 degrees, it looks a different colour. But I was confident that as long as we were shooting Log with pre-set white balance, we could match the cameras. The Canon EOS-1D X Mark III has a really good codec with generous exposure latitude, which was easy to grade."
When shooting in 4K, precise focus is critical, especially when shooting with longer and faster lenses at wider apertures at dawn and dusk – the best times for tracking wildlife.
The final film oozes quality, with atmospheric shots of the desert as well as amazing close-ups of the fast-moving animals in action – a challenge for any filmmaker to capture. Thanks to the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III's state-of-the-art technology, Alex was able to shoot in new ways, and he's confident that this is a DSLR professional filmmakers should take seriously.
"I'm sold on the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III," he says. "I still love my cinema cameras, but it makes an absolutely fantastic B-camera. It's going to be perfect for capturing cinematic B-roll and cutaway footage to help illustrate the stories we are filming with the Canon EOS C300 Mark II."
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Life is full of unrepeatable moments. Capture more of them with the EOS-1D X Mark III and tell your visual story to the world. "The Canon EOS-1D X Mark III is amazing at tracking and knowing what to focus on – it's the best I've used," says Alex. "And the touchscreen makes a huge difference to how quickly you can work."
A highly creative production tool that captures 4K/Full HD video with up to 15-stops of dynamic range. "It's an amazing set-up for run-and-gun documentary shooting where you don't get a second take," Alex says.
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