Filmmaker Brett Danton has been impressed by the robustness of the EOS R5 C for aerial videography. "We've flown with it in cold weather, where it might be 2°C or 3°C on the ground, but people forget that once it gets up to a reasonable height and it's going fast, it's really cold. So you need cameras that are well built."
Once prohibitively difficult or expensive to film, striking landscapes can now be captured by a drone whizzing through narrow crevices or soaring above jagged rocks. Drone photography is visually stunning and offers a unique perspective on our beautiful planet.
The arrival of affordable drones and compact Canon Cinema EOS cameras has made aerial videography and photography more accessible than ever before. The modular design of the Canon EOS C500 Mark II, EOS C300 Mark III and EOS C70 allows them to be stripped down to drone-friendly dimensions, while the compact Canon EOS R5 C has opened up new opportunities to create immersive aerial sequences.
"Drones don't completely replace helicopters," points out filmmaker Brett Danton. "Flying a drone with a longer lens is a tricky thing. I've flown an EOS C500 Mark II and CN-E30-300mm T2.95-3.7 L S zoom on a helicopter using a mount. You could never do that on a drone.
"But a drone really comes into its own when capturing cinematic, scene-setting landscapes," he continues. "That's very expensive to do with a helicopter. We used a drone for a location shoot in Namibia, where crews of more than 12 people are banned because of their environmental impact. We were running with a tiny crew – with just one person operating the drone – so were permitted to access places that film crews haven't been to for a long time and move between locations fast."
Here, Brett takes us behind the scenes filming with the EOS R5 C and, alongside drone pilot David Gu, reveals the best kit for creative aerial videography.