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When you’re primarily producing content for the web, a camera like the Canon EOS C200 gives you a massive advantage
raggell Productions’ story is a typical convergence from stills to video. A small video production company based in Manchester, Fraggell Productions offers a range of services from social media videos to their own ‘passion projects’. The video offering also includes branded content, event videography, fashion shoots and concerts. Creative director Fraser Cottrell also still shoots as a photographer, with the camera kit he uses for both being mostly Canon. His Instagram photography kit is based on the Canon EOS 6D full-frame camera with lenses including the Canon EF 24-105mm and the ubiquitous Canon EF 70-200mm. “Everything we make is web- based long form or short form,” says Fraser. “But now and again we do more extravagant and bigger-budget short films, passion projects really. We were looking for a new camera that did a bit of both.”
Their video kit, up until now, has been based on a Canon EOS C100 with the same lenses, so the quality has been good but if you want to improve your cinematic quality and maybe look to more traditional broadcasting, you have to look at something new. CANON EOS C200 Like many others, Fraggell eyed the new Canon C200 with relish. The promise of recording a Raw signal to drastically improve the quality of the output was very tempting, especially with their history of stills photography and the essential Raw workflow that they were used to. “We wanted to stay with Canon for the new camera,” says Fraser. “We have a C100 already so matching colour between the two is much easier. We’re used to the form factor of those cameras and can use them quickly and not worry about converting to a bigger camera. I know the system. “To be honest our C100 was a bit out of date, it didn’t have slow motion, it didn’t have the option for 4K; even though we don’t always use, it’s nice to have it. It got to the point that clients wanted things we couldn’t deliver unless we hired gear from outside. We then looked at the Canon C300 MkII but when the C200 came out we knew that was the one. “There were quite a few options on the C200 that we had never used before, like the Dual Pixel CMOS AF. When we use a gimbal it’s a godsend and also when we’re using stills glass, because the throw’s so short it’s much easier to have the autofocus there. Of course there is also the Raw option which is the one that we’re really interested in. If you wanted to buy a competitor camera with Raw you would have to add an optional recorder worth a few thousand pounds. Our workflow has to catch up a bit to deal with the data rates but it’s going to be hugely worth it.”
SHOOTING RAW FOR OUR SHORT FILMS IS GOING TO BE A GAME CHANGER. THE INFORMATION THAT WE CAN PULL BACK IS IMMENSE
RAWMOMENT “Shooting Raw for our short films is going to be a game changer,” he continues. “The information that we can pull back is immense. But then you look at the fashion shoots that we do for instance, our clients are going to want that quality especially if you add in the 60fps that you can achieve. Everyone loves slow motion. That stuff is also regularly pushed to billboards so we need the dynamic range. For our social media content, the standard SD stuff is enough really, we’re just missing that extra colour depth. So we’re in the great position that we have the Raw option there
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