FILMMAKING

Filming 8K and oversampled 4K video

Find out how the 8K shooting capabilities in the Canon EOS R5 C and EOS R5 expand your creative options.
A man in a hooded brown top filming with a EOS R5 C camera on a rocky shoreline.

Travel filmmaker Kevin Clerc was the first pro to put the filmmaking capabilities of the Canon EOS R5 C to the test on a shoot in beautiful Madeira. In addition to supporting a range of professional recording formats, the full-frame Cinema EOS camera delivers incredible 8K long-duration recording.

Fusing full-frame 8K internal RAW video recording with high frame-rate 4K capture and HQ mode oversampling, the Canon EOS R5 set a new standard for mirrorless camera filmmaking.

Building on the success of the EOS R5, the EOS R5 C takes the high-resolution hybrid concept to the next level. Based on the same basic body design as the EOS R5, the EOS R5 C adds professional Cinema EOS features that include 12-bit Cinema RAW Light, a dedicated timecode in/out terminal, and 8K 30p recording (up to 8K 60p with external power supply), as well as a built-in fan to facilitate long-duration recording.

Three filmmakers – Kevin Clerc, Martin Bissig and Ivan D'Antonio – were the first to try out the video capabilities of the EOS R5 C and the EOS R5. Here they reveal how these cameras' breakthrough 8K and oversampled 4K features met their very different filming requirements.

A bearded man stands in a workshop holding a small wooden ukelele, with others of different sizes hanging on the wall behind him.

Kevin is a French travel filmmaker whose distinctive narrative style, with rich visuals and evocative audio, has won him clients including Discovery Channel Asia, Beautiful Destinations and Terres d'Aventure. He made full use of the EOS R5 C on a cinematic shoot in Madeira, where he found that the camera's compact size and refined images helped him to produce a unique record of the island.

Mountain biking photography specialist Martin, whose clients include Red Bull, Specialized, Oakley and Adidas, supplements his dramatic stills work with video when requested. Here he explains why the EOS R5 was the perfect partner when shooting Swiss slopestyle star Lucas Huppert and a host of other athletes in action.

For award-winning filmmaker Ivan, who shoots music promos, short films and commercials, being able to easily integrate a camera into a professional video workflow is key. Here he shares how he put the EOS R5 through its paces on a landscape shoot in the mountainous Abruzzo region of Italy, as well as in the more intimate setting of a yoga class.

A technician wearing white gloves cleans the sensor of a Canon camera.

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Ivan D'Antonio filming on a mountain with a Canon EOS R5 camera on a tripod.

Using an 8K master in a 4K workflow

Ivan was inspired to shoot his landscape-focused film "like it was a set of paintings," with few camera movements using a tripod or handheld, stabilised shots. "The incredible level of detail achieved with 8K gave the landscape a look I have never seen before," he says. "When I was editing the film it felt like I was still there. Everywhere I looked on the monitor I could see the same level of detail I saw when I was on location."

8K input doesn't necessarily mean 8K output. The 8K video capabilities of the Canon EOS R5 C and EOS R5 bring benefits to a 4K workflow, including the option of cropping a 4K image from the 8K frame at the editing stage. Not only does this allow a variety of tighter shots to be made from a single camera position, it also makes it possible to use software to zoom, pan and stabilise after filming.

"I used all these options," Ivan explains. "When you film you are often in a rush, so the ability to shoot one take and then make camera movements in post is priceless. The weather was very bad in the mountains, so I had to shoot quickly during the brief periods of good light. There wasn't enough time to change lenses, but I cut some close-ups from the 8K master during the edit."

A Canon EOS R5 camera on a tripod. A filter is attached to the lens.

Ivan had to shoot quickly in the mountains during breaks in the weather, but the Canon EOS R5 's image stabilisation when filming saved the day. "When there was a lot of wind, I could stabilise the shots with no problem. I had to use 4x4 ND filters with the camera mounted on a rig, but I could shoot from lots of different angles without worrying about excessive shakiness." © Ivan D'Antonio

A woman in a yoga pose pictured in the Canon EOS R5's LCD screen.

Ivan describes the combination of 8K video and full-frame sensor as "game changing". "When I was shooting the yoga video, the full-frame sensor made it easier to create a shallow depth of field and maintain a beautiful quality of bokeh behind the yoga teacher," he says. "With a cropped sensor, it would have been harder to achieve a master shot with a blurred background in such a confined space." © Ivan D'Antonio

"When I was shooting the yoga film, I knew I would be able to add more cuts to the edit without having to record the same asana [yoga position] multiple times. Yoga is a slow and controlled practice, but I was able to enhance the rhythm of the film simply by reframing the original 8K master shot of the whole body.”

With a final output of 4K for his video, Ivan could make a 2x zoom in post-production to crop into interesting parts of the larger frame or slowly zoom in during static poses. “I also tried editing the 8K footage in a 2K timeline,” he says. “I could make 4x zooms – it looked as though I had shot the video with an expensive parfocal cinema zoom lens.”

Filmmaker Kevin Clerc lifts a Canon EOS R5 C to his eye to film in a misty forest setting.

Kevin outputs his beautiful travel films in 4K, but he shot the majority of sequences for his Madeira project with the EOS R5 C in 8K DCI. Like Ivan, he took advantage of the higher resolution to punch in during the edit.

"Another advantage of recording in 8K is that you get a higher quality 4K output," he adds. "I was shooting a triathlete on a beach in 8K 60p, and I did some speed ramping in post to slow down the footage just as some birds in the background aligned with the top of her head. The birds are very small in the frame, but because of the 8K capture resolution they are clearly defined in 4K."

Martin Bissig films a skateboarder using a Canon EOS R5 on a handheld rig.

Recording oversampled and high frame-rate 4K

In addition to offering a full-resolution 8K master that can be incorporated into a 4K workflow, the Canon EOS R5 features a 4K HQ mode. This oversamples the video from 8K to give 4K footage with enhanced clarity and reduced noise compared to native 4K content. The EOS R5 C automatically oversamples 4K and Full HD footage when recording below 60p.

It's also possible to shoot 4K at a high frame-rate of up to 120fps using the full width of the full-frame sensor in the EOS R5 C and the EOS R5, something which Martin took advantage of when shooting athletes performing daring tricks.

“8K is probably overkill for the type of video work I normally do alongside my photography, but the ability to shoot at 100fps with 4K resolution opens up new opportunities,” he says. “Watching the guys running through their tricks, it was hard to make sense of it all because there’s so much going on in such a short time. But recording at 4K 100fps enables you to clearly see all the movements involved.”

Kevin exploited the EOS R5 C's 4K high frame-rate recording for many sequences in his travel film. "It was really effective when shooting the sea," he says. "I did some speed ramping of the waves, and trees in a forest during a small storm, slowing the movement down and then speeding it up again, and the results are so clean and sharp."

A man sitting on steps, seen through the display screen of a Canon EOS R5 C.

When the EOS R5 C is in video mode, the interface changes to one familiar to Cinema EOS users, complete with wave form monitor, focus peaking and false colour.

Keeping track of high-speed subjects can place great demands on an autofocus system, but the EOS R5's AF system adds support for all AF methods when customising Movie Servo AF performance, and offers improved face tracking with Eye Detection AF.

"The Eye Detection AF in the EOS R5 now also detects a subject's head," Martin enthuses. "I was shooting athletes who were wearing helmets and goggles, so you couldn't really see their faces. But the camera knew it was the head and focused there, which is incredible. I used it to track the skateboarder in the film as he was skating towards me, and the camera followed his face all the way through the frame."

With its hybrid approach, the EOS R5 C combines autofocus benefits of both Canon's EOS R System and the Cinema EOS range. When set to photo mode, the camera uses the same advanced Dual Pixel CMOS AF II that's found in the EOS R5. Switch the camera to video mode, and you get the same accurate and reliable EOS iTR AF X technology that was first introduced in the Canon EOS C70. In addition to head/face tracking and Eye Detection AF, it comes with Cinema EOS autofocus options, such as Face Only recognition, and detailed speed/response settings.

A man's hand holding a Canon EOS R5 C with a 15-35mm lens.

Meet the Canon EOS R5 C

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A mountain biker mid-stunt, silhouetted against the sky.

Filming in 4K at 120fps allowed Martin to capture the bike stunts in detail, and the EOS R5's AF ensured that the fast-moving subject was sharp in every frame. © Martin Bissig

Alone person stands on a rocky outcrop gazing at the mist-shrouded mountains in the distance.

Combining the Canon EOS R5 with an IS equipped RF lens makes it possible to capture shake-free images, even when shooting handheld while hiking up a mountain. Taken on a Canon EOS R5 with a Canon RF 24-70mm F2.8L IS USM lens at 52mm, 1/100 sec, f/6.3 and ISO100. © Martin Bissig

Image stabilisation

The EOS R5 features Canon's in-body image stabilisation (IBIS) system, an industry-leading technology for stills capture and also beneficial for handheld video. The EOS R5 C features the same advanced 5-axis Electronic IS as the Canon EOS C70, which achieves fantastically smooth and stable video performance when the user is walking or panning. Both technologies are highly effective and co-ordinate seamlessly with the optical stabilisation in Canon IS lenses.

As Martin mostly shoots handheld, it was a feature that he welcomed. "At one point," he says, "I was hiking up a mountain before sunrise with my wife to get some footage. Even though there was not much light to speak of, and I was breathing heavily and using the camera without a tripod, the viewfinder image was perfectly stable."

Martin Bissig views a skateboarder on the Canon EOS R5's rear screen.

Despite using power-hungry features such as image stabilisation, Martin was impressed with the Canon EOS R5's battery life. "With two batteries I could last a full day of shooting video, taking pictures and checking images on the rear screen," he says. © Martin Bissig

A Canon EOS R5 camera with its LCD screen flipped out.

Ivan made full use of his camera's AF capabilities. "The thing I find really useful for video is the ability to change the AF responsiveness and speed. If you set them properly it really looks like you had a human focus puller with you." © Ivan D'Antonio

“I use all the Canon RF lenses that are equipped with stabilisation, and the IS performs so well,” says Martin. “Even shooting with the Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM lens at 200mm, fully handheld, there was no camera shake."

Kevin's shoot in Madeira included filming on a small fishing boat in open water. "Getting good, stable footage on a boat is pretty hard," says Kevin. "Just standing up was hard!" But the EOS R5 C's Electronic IS, combined with its EOS iTR AF X autofocus technology, proved up to the task, delivering the smooth and stable footage he needed.

The electronic viewfinder (EVF) found on both the EOS R5 C and EOS R5 was another highlight for Martin. "It has about 60% more resolution than the EVF on the Canon EOS R, which gives it much more of an analogue feel – I couldn't see much difference when comparing it with the optical viewfinder of a DSLR. Plus, the 120fps refresh rate is much higher, which is a big plus for fast action."

The EOS R5 C and EOS R5, like the EOS C70, are designed to take advantage of all the benefits that Canon's innovative RF mount and RF lenses bring for videography, in addition to class-leading IS and smooth, silent AF technologies. The breakthrough communication speed and data bandwidth between camera and lens enables superlative electronic focus breathing suppression, and aperture adjustment in finer 1/8 stop increments means changes in brightness are much smoother than before. With the entire system designed with videography as much as still photography in mind from the start, the 8K video capabilities of the EOS R5 C and EOS R5 give all kinds of filmmakers exciting new creative options.

Marcus Hawkins

Kevin Clerc's kitbag

The key kit pro filmmakers use to shoot their videos

A man lifts a Canon EOS R5 C with a Canon RF 24-70mm F2.8L IS USM lens from a kitbag.

Cameras

Canon EOS R5 C

Shoot stunning 8K video or capture incredible 45MP stills, all from this beautifully compact hybrid camera, which combines the best of Cinema EOS with the advantages of Canon's EOS R System. It's ready for anything – are you?

Canon EOS R5

A professional full-frame mirrorless flagship camera offering photographers and filmmakers high resolution stills and 8K video.

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