Photohire has traditionally supplied gear to the stills sector, but this season the film industry’s spent more time than usual at their rental offices, with even high-end service companies like Moonlighting and The Farm renting Canon’s hybrid HD stills cameras, the 5D Mark II and 7D.

Photohire’s Pieter Badenhorst says, “There’s disruptive technology, which people don’t expect, which disrupts the whole way the market’s going, and that’s what this is. This is the most excited I’ve been in a while; it’s something new that’s challenging me. It’s something that no one expected to take off but it’s become a phenomenon.”

Photohire have had the cameras, which shoot both HD and stills, since the end of November 2009. “For the last six months, every single day, someone from the film industry comes in and wants us to explain how they work.”

The biggest talking point is obviously the price, as they sell from around R20 000 rather than R300 000. Visual Impact’s Calvyn du Toit calls their rental and purchase costs “drastically lower than HD broadcast or film camcorders.”

Photographer David Prior says, “I have a 5D as my backup/fun camera. It is an astounding piece of technology. If you compare it to the pro cameras, it makes you question why you should spend another R275 000 on a Hasselblad. I've been working alongside a lot of film crews lately and they inevitably use a 5D for a few of the scenes. When I open my bag, they look past my Hasselblad kit worth R500 000 and ‘oo’ and ‘aa’ over my Canon.”

The other major advantage is the large sensor 35mm, which gives you a film look with a shallow depth of field. DOP Greg Copeland says, “It is so great to have that extra shallow focus ability on such a cheap camera.”

The other advantage is the size, which means your saving isn’t just on the camera. “They’re small, so you don’t need major rigging trucks anymore. You can use smaller lighting and a smaller crew,” says Pieter. Calvyn agrees, saying the smaller camera makes “it easy to shoot guerilla style.”

They’ve also won a number of fans for their ability to handle the dark. David says, “The 5D is especially impressive in low light.”

Pieter agrees, “The Canon 5D can work in almost total darkness, especially compared to the RED, which can’t work in as low a light.”

The cameras are not without their challenges though, particularly with pulling focus. “The lenses are built for stills, so they’re not really designed for focus pulling,” Pieter says.

Even the stills photographers complain. David says, “Canon's focus capabilities seem to have regressed. What happened to the system they used on the old film EOS5? If I’m not mistaken, that was a far better system than they have now.”

Pieter says there are a number of different workarounds. “A lot of people are now putting Nikon lenses on Canon bodies, as the focus pulling experience is better on Nikon. Their lenses are stiffer, have a longer barrel and still have an aperture ring on the lenses, not on the bodies like Canon. I also prefer the Nikon optics.”

He says there has been an explosion of companies manufacturing mounts that allow you to use different lenses on different cameras. “You can now put a Nikon lens onto a Canon body, although you still can’t put a Canon lens onto Nikon. Zeiss has also come up with Primes which fit on Canons and Nikons. They’re precise – you’ve got 30cm to pull focus on the Zeiss Prime compared to 10cm on the Canon.”

Production designer Johnny Breedt recently used the Canon 5D and 7D to shoot his directing debut, a short film called The Far, Far Tree, with DOP George Loxton. He says the sound was a key area of disappointment.

“Sorry to say but the cameras’ built in mic is crap. Even though the camera is fitted with an external mic jack, I would recommend using an alternative sound recorder. If you were going through a small mixer and then into the camera, it could be better, but then you have a sound man attached to your camera. I was fortunate enough to have Nico Louw recording sound on his own equipment and I would say this is the only real option, as the camera mic does not have good range at all, especially when shooting exteriors. It also picks up camera sounds easily and on days when the wind blows, you can’t hear a thing.”

The cameras also aren’t the most forgiving in post production. Greg says, “I personally find the whole consumer HD format very lossy for colour depth, making the grading ability very poor. So if you get it right in camera then great, otherwise tough.”

Calvyn agrees. “They go through a compressor and conversion process, so these are highly compressed formats. The post workflow is difficult if you don't know what you are doing and aren’t sorted with the latest updates/patches.”

However, Barend van der Watt counters, “Using MPEG Streamclip to convert to pro resolution for editing is very easy.” They also don’t handle movement well. Photographer and director Bryan Traylor adds, “The one thing I hear about is ghosting or stepping of images when panning or when a subject moves through frame quickly. But I have not experienced that for myself… yet.”

Johnny had some experience of this after abandoning his steadicam rig. “Hand-held shots on this format are almost impossible. Panning is also tricky, especially on wider lenses. Strobing sometimes occurs and also distortion of the subject. In some instances you can get away with it but generally the results are better when the camera is static. Obviously a good fluid head mount makes all the difference when opting for any movement in the shot. Don't try and pan on a regular tripod. We also had a lot of success using a slide and glide to give some interesting movement in our shots.” Photohire rent the fusion cameras out with full kits, which include the Red Rock Micro rig (“the best set up that you can get,” according to Pieter), shoulder mount, video tripod, polariser, three batteries, three 16 gig cards, cables and a nine-inch HD monitor. “The only other thing you need is lighting,” Pieter says. “The accessories make the cameras more user-friendly, and more standard, like the film guys are used to.”

Calvyn warns that “accessories can be expensive depending on what you go for,” pointing out that you can pay between R150-200 000. He says Zacuto’s accessories are very good but expensive, but also recommends Vocus for a cheaper alternative.

The HD monitor is important, according to Pieter. “A lot of the VTO guys in the industry are still SD and haven’t spent the money to go across. But if you want to guarantee focus, you need a proper HD monitor to check the focus.”

Johnny agrees, “Focus is one of the biggest problems. The cameras only work on manual focus settings in video mode and we just didn't have the equipment to view on larger monitors. Although we had a couple of smaller LCD monitors, they tend to use up the camera battery quicker. I am sure that the guys who are shooting commercials have proper monitors and generators to power them, but we were out in the sticks with no money.”

He also says that battery life was also “a constant headache. The batteries are definitely an area where they need to improve. Spare batteries were simply not available anywhere and although our 5D had an additional supply of power from penlight batteries in a housing under the camera, these too proved to have an extremely short life. We were constantly recharging during the course of our shooting day and sometimes had to wait for fully charged batteries.”

Calvyn says the Canon cameras can generally shoot for 12 minutes before the camera cuts out. Because of this, he only recommends them for small productions in controlled environments, and warns against using them for live shows or uncontrolled environments.

Another challenge I keep hearing about is the need for more experienced DITs. “We often get calls from set, because they don’t know how to do this or that.  You still need to do gear checks and you still need a proper workflow,” says Pieter.

Photohire are not the only suppliers offering the cameras in Cape Town: Sunshine has the 5D and a ProAim rig, while Visual Impact has ordered a 7D and already has a 5D, as well as rigs and the South African agency for Zacuto.

Strangely, although the 5D is the more expensive model, the 7D is better is some respects. Calvyn explains, “The 5D has a full frame chip, whereas the 7D only shoots 720 and isn’t a full frame chip, But the 7D has a variable frame rate, whereas the 5D only shot 30fps until a recent firmware upgrade.”

The firmware upgrade has also fixed the 5D problem of audio and video not being synced.

Johnny says the 5D handled the conditions much better. “The 7D gets hot very quickly and then automatically shuts down, especially when shooting in hot weather conditions. I find that covering the camera with a cloth when setting up shots does help keep it cool to an extent. It also helps if you turn the camera off instead of using it in standby mode when not shooting; this will prolong the battery life as well as keep the camera from overheating.” 

But he says the ordinary person won’t be able to tell the difference between the two cameras’ footage. “Once we had both cameras on the same settings and in sync with each other, we were equally happy with the end result. It was impossible to distinguish between the two. I think that most pros will probably say use the 5D as it is slightly ahead on the technical side, but then if your budget doesn't allow this, I would say go with the 7D with equally good results.”

As always, Nikon’s not letting Canon off without some competition. “They have the Nikon D300S and the D3S, but they’re 1080 by 720, so they’re HD but not full HD. But everything on TV is 720fps anyway,” says Pieter.

Calvyn says that the Nikon cameras not only have better lenses, but the D3S performs even better in low light, although he says Canon offers a better frame rate and resolution.  “The 5D shoots 25p and 30p, whereas Nikon only shoots 24p.”

The Canon cameras have changed the competitive landscape. “One theory is that RED’s actually stalled their whole process because of the Canons,” says Pieter. “It was going to be the RED, then the Scarlet (originally touted as a ‘professional pocket camera’ – ed), then the Epic, but they’ve had to rethink the Scarlet, at least in part because of these cameras.”

Despite all the hype, many believe you still get what you pay for with the fusion cameras. “For their price, they’re amazing tools and have made filmmaking more affordable for all,” says DoP Carlos Carvalho. “But if you have a budget and want to shoot a movie in the digital format, you use a real camera like the Arri D21.”

Calvyn agrees, “No stills camera can replace a full frame video camcorder like the Arri D21, RED, Sony F35, or Phantom. There are reasons why some of those cameras are R35 000 per day.”

But for directors on a budget, these cameras will continue to be in demand. As Johnny says. ”Ideally I think they need to work on the battery life; devise a bigger, external LCD monitor  that doesn't sap the camera's power; and offer more handheld options with the camera. But would I shoot another film using this technology? Absolutely, although I will try and get better monitors and extra batteries to make life a little easier next time.” 
Kevin Kriedemann