Yesterday I shot my latest film (The Machinist) guerrilla style on a Canon C100 in Malibu, California. I initially considered shooting the film with a number of different cameras, including a RED EPIC, BMCC and GH4, but ultimately settled on my C100 and I’m very happy with the results.
Before I explain my reasons for choosing the C100 over other cameras, I’d like to share a brief background on the nature of the project to help clear things up.
I have been planning a feature film for some time and hope to have it completed by the end of this year. Some of you may have read one or two of the articles I’ve posted on this site about the project, and if so, you may also know that part of my development process involved shooting some brief content beforehand to test out some styles and creative skills. With this feature, I really want to make another short film – I’ve made two other shorts in the last year, but I feel like I need to finish at least one more. I also heard about the recent Project Greenlight competition, which required the submission of a 3-minute short film by the end of the week, and decided to use that deadline as a reason to force myself to turn the project around as quickly as possible. For these reasons and more, it became increasingly important to be able to choose a camera format that suited the needs of the project and allowed me to turn things around as quickly as possible.
Select camera
When it came time to actually choose the camera to use on this film, I considered a lot of options, but it ultimately came down to the Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED EPIC, Lumix GH4, and Canon C100. To be honest, when I first considered which camera to take this photo with, the C100 was at the bottom of the list, even though it is one of the best cameras I own. For some reason I’ve always thought of the C100 as more of an action or documentary camera, and never really used it for narrative work – even though it’s more than capable of delivering some great results.
Initially I really wanted to shoot at the BMCC because I shoot some of my favorite footage with this camera and the image quality is amazing. This is a screenshot from the movie “Model” I shot at BMCC:
In many ways, the Blackmagic Cinema Camera captures some of my favorite images from a sub-$15,000 camera, but in order to get those images, the camera really needs the right processing. Especially when you’re shooting handheld (which I was on this film), that meant I really needed to fully outfit the camera with rails, shoulder mounts, follow focus, matte boxes, extra power supplies. . This isn’t usually a problem since most movie cameras are designed to work this way, but for this particular project it just didn’t work. I need to shoot guerrilla style and keep a low profile with my camera, and the BMCC with all these extras is very eye-catching. Taking all of this into account, I immediately ruled out BMCC.
I also considered the RED EPIC but ultimately decided against it as it would pose many of the same problems as the BMCC in terms of rigging and overall size. That said, even if we were shooting in a studio environment or on license and the size of the camera wasn’t too much of an issue, I still wouldn’t have chosen the EPIC for this film based on the shooting style. Since the film was shot entirely handheld, it required a lot of pull focus, and given the budget of the project (and my preference as a DP in this situation), I didn’t want to have a pull focus on the set. Ergonomically, the EPIC is not as easy to operate as a single shooter/puller like other cameras such as Canon’s C-series cameras. Finally, shooting with EPIC was too cumbersome. The camera was bulky and required another body on set – both issues I didn’t want to deal with given the nature and small scope of the project. Not to mention, while the EPIC produced some beautiful images, I firmly believe that lighting, movement, lenses, and framing play a bigger role in the final aesthetic than camera choice, so I really don’t feel like I’m missing out.
Then there’s the GH4, my favorite new video SLR camera. The GH4 is an amazing tool and I’ve written a lot about it on this site – but ultimately it’s not suitable for this type of shooting either. It would be a better choice compared to the BMCC and RED EPIC as it would be smaller and more low-profile (even fully assembled), but there are a few other issues that prevent me from choosing it – mostly related to ease of use. Use when shooting in a run-and-gun narrative environment. Unlike the C100, the GH4 does not have a built-in ND filter, which means I need to change ND filters for each setting, as I generally don’t like using variable ND filters in narrative work. That alone is a huge drawback, but perhaps the bigger issue is that I prefer the image stabilization of the C100/L-Seties lens combo to the GH4/Lumix lens combo. Since I was handheld and wanted to avoid using large equipment, I knew lens stabilization was a must. I did some testing with the C100 and my 24-105 F/4 L series lens as well as the GH4 and Lumix 12-35 and 35-100 F2.8 stabilized lenses, and admittedly the 24-105 on the C100 gave better result. I’m not sure if this has more to do with the ergonomics of the camera body or the stability of the lens itself, but for whatever reason the Canon combo works better.
So I finally chose C100. This is the only camera that allows me to shoot secretly and still get beautiful results. Every other camera requires some kind of sacrifice when shooting – whether it’s the physical construction of the camera, or issues with handheld operation, but the C100 delivers exactly what I want.
Once I got into the shooting phase, I was a little tired of using the C100 for these types of projects, even though I absolutely love the camera. As I mentioned before, I’d never shot a narrative project on this camera, so I knew there were some risks there, but when we finally wrapped up and I was able to watch the dailies, I was really blown away by the shots. Especially the ability to get really smooth handheld shots without any gear. I generally avoid handheld shooting because without a heavy camera and perfectly balanced gear it can produce some very nasty results (i.e. micro-shake). But with the stabilizer on the lens, the C100 was able to give me the motion feel of a very heavy, film-style camera without the headache of carrying a heavy camera on my shoulder.
The image quality itself is also great. Here are some very lightly graded footage from the shoot:
The dynamic range when shooting in Canon’s cinema environment is truly incredible. On paper it might look like half a stop (or even a stop) less than the BMCC, which already has excellent DR, but in real world shooting situations I really can’t tell the difference. I was able to shoot inside a car without a sunroof and very little light hitting the actor’s face and still pick up details inside and outside the car.
Not to mention the resolution of this camera is astounding. The only reason I like shooting in 4K is so I can get the best possible 2K or HD image, and the C100 effectively does all of that for me. Since it uses a 4K sensor and downsamples to 1080p, the end result is the same as if I shot in 4K and downconverted it myself, but the camera just saves me a step.
In the end, while there are some things I would have liked to see on the C100 MK II (if there were any), such as slow motion and a higher bitrate codec, I am absolutely blown away by the quality of this camera and will certainly Consider using it for more narrative work in the future.
