Canon EOS C700 FF
Canon's next generation Full Frame CMOS sensor records 5.9K with oversampling for exceptionally high quality 4K footage.
Canon's new PL-mount Sumire Prime lenses have been crafted to bring a softer, warmer, cinematic feel to today's high-end cinema cameras. One cinematographer who was eager to try the new full-frame cinema prime lens range is British filmmaker Tania Freimuth, who always uses PL-mount cameras for her short films and documentaries.
To test out the Sumire Primes in a real-world scenario, she was tasked with shooting a cinematic short film in one the most challenging of environments – a dimly-lit restaurant at night.
The romance of the silver screen has always proved attractive for Tania. After many years of shooting everything in order to pay the bills – from news and documentaries to corporate films – she recently let some colleagues persuade her to follow her true passion and move into shooting fiction. "I fell back in love with filmmaking and the cinema," she says. And she's been successful at it, with a recent nomination for a short film at the BAFTA-recognised Underwire festival.
With a small crew and no time for reshoots, Tania had to get it right first time. She chose to shoot most of the short with what she knows best, an 85mm prime lens – in this case, the new Canon CN-E85mm T1.3 FP X lens mounted on a full-frame Canon EOS C700 FF body.
"I'm more of a long lens person," Tania says. "Lenses affect not only the people you're looking at but the places you're in too. And I found that the Canon CN-E85mm T1.3 FP X is a good, solid go-to lens for what I'm shooting."
Tania also used the CN-E35mm T1.5 FP X lens for some of the wider shots, and tried the CN-E14mm T3.1 FP X super-wide for one expansive scene-setter. "In drama I mostly use a mid-length telephoto," she says, "but I do use wide-angle lenses because you don't always want to be hefting the camera around to achieve a wide shot."
These benefits include minimal focus breathing when doing large focus pulls, colour accuracy across the range, great control of flare, and smooth bokeh. On top of this, a consistent size and focus throw will make lens changes faster.
"It's fundamentally to do with how the light reacts when it comes down the lens. You don't want the light to be a sharp line; you want it to wrap around a subject," says Tania. "How the lens sees that is an important element in your choice of lenses."
Shooting on the Canon EOS C700 FF with the Sumire Prime lenses wide open most of the time, Tania says there wasn't really a lot of light around, but the sensor is so good that she still had to use ND filters, "much to my focus puller's annoyance!" she says.
"The biggest pull was the chap who walks from the grocer's shop to the foreground, to let the lady into the wine shop. That's quite a long pull, because he was a good 15 feet from her. My focus puller snapped it forward to her, and then threw it back to catch him as he comes to her. And that was actually shot with the Canon CN-E85mm T1.3 FP X wide open. It's a fast pull, but I didn't see any frame shift. All the outside shots were done handheld, too."
Nailing the focus is also crucial when the camera is shooting close-ups, such as a tight shot of a rose on a plate in Tania's film. With the camera on a tripod for all the interior scenes, the close-focusing ability of the CN-E85mm T1.3 FP X lens was ideal to avoid having to switch to a dedicated macro lens.
With soft lights being used in the restaurant scene and no bright, hard light sources, there was no natural flare at all. So Tania used a trick to introduce some dreamy flares: dangling some fairy lights in front of the lens. "For flare you need some harsh light pinging around," she says. "And sometimes you need a bit of foreground in things. I just needed to introduce something, so I used the lights and I was quite pleased with the results."
Tania also admits she often uses filters and nets to give her films a distinct look, but the Sumire Prime lenses' unique characteristics meant she didn't have to resort to any other tricks to make her film look like she wanted it: a stunning cinematic look with a real big-screen movie feel, beautiful skin tones and lots of dynamic range.
For Tania, this looks like the start of a long and happy relationship – with the Sumire Prime lenses. "I would definitely choose to work with the Canon Sumire Primes again," she says. "I think they'd be really suited to the types of films I shoot."
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The key kit pros use to film their footage
Canon's next generation Full Frame CMOS sensor records 5.9K with oversampling for exceptionally high quality 4K footage.
One of the Sumire Prime cine lens range, with exceptionally beautiful bokeh and impressive low light performance. "A good, solid go-to lens for what I'm shooting," says Tania.
One of the Sumire Prime cine lens range, offering fast aperture and precise manual control with a crafted focus bokeh aimed at careful creative expression.
A super-wide lens in the Sumire Prime cine lens range, offering a specially designed cinematic look, subtly modifying textural renderings for pleasing bokeh with superb expressiveness.
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