Island idyll: encapsulating the magic of Madeira with the Canon EOS R5 C

Kevin Clerc is renowned for his exquisitely executed travel films, which have a distinctive narrative style underpinned by rich visuals and evocative audio. Originally from Haute-Savoie in the Alps of Eastern France, Kevin has been passionate about geography and travel since childhood. He discovered the power of video after a year spent exploring Asia, South America and Africa.

The filmmaker has now built a career travelling the globe capturing the wonders that the world has to offer for brands including Discovery Channel Asia and Beautiful Destinations. A trip to document the people and culture of Madeira provided the perfect opportunity for Kevin to explore the creative potential of the hybrid Canon EOS R5 C.

At the flick of a switch, the EOS R5 C shifts from a professional 45MP stills setup to a professional 8K video setup, complete with the dedicated interface, features and controls that all pro filmmakers need. Its impressive list of specifications includes the ability to record cinematic 8K 30p footage, 4K 120p slow motion and even 8K 60p when using an external power supply. It offers multiple professional recording formats, including three new 12-bit Cinema RAW Light options, as well as popular XF-AVC and MP4 formats. The camera also supports simultaneous recording options, allowing users to record high quality RAW and proxies at the same time for easy editing on the go.

It's no wonder, then, that the compact and feature-packed EOS R5 C has piqued the interest of travel filmmakers such as Kevin.

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Kevin’s film focused on various aspects of Madeiran culture, tied together by a poetic narration delivered by a local luthier, a craftsperson who makes stringed musical instruments.

One of the design features that distinguishes the Canon EOS R5 C from the similarly specified EOS R5 is the built-in fan that helps to regulate the camera’s internal temperature during long and intense shoots. The benefits of the new thermal exhaust system were particularly noticeable while Kevin was recording the voiceover.

"I recorded the luthier, Henrique, repeating the narration, just to be sure that I captured the tone of voice I wanted. I asked him to talk slowly for one take, a bit faster for another, louder for the next, and so on. We did it between 20 and 30 times without stopping – maybe an hour of continuous recording in 8K at 25fps – and the camera performed perfectly."

The EOS R5 C features Canon's innovative RF mount, which gave Kevin access to a wide choice of professional RF lenses, but he was also able to use Canon's CN-E24mm T1.5 L F and CN-E50mm T1.3 L F Cine Prime lenses via the Canon Mount Adapter EF-EOS R.

"The manual focusing is so smooth on these lenses, and the image you get is just incredible," he says. "I don't really like to use focus peaking because the colour can sometimes end up covering so much of the image. But the EOS R5 C's manual focus indicator, which takes up such a small part of the screen, was very helpful."

There were several situations during the shoot when the EOS R5 C's EOS iTR AF X autofocus technology proved invaluable, including a dawn fishing trip.

"We left the port at around 6am, as we wanted to be out at sea in time to capture the first light of the day," Kevin recalls. "I started off using the Canon CN-E24mm T1.5 L F lens to shoot some B-roll of the fishermen working, but it was very hard to keep them in focus manually as there were so many waves and I was moving a lot. I changed to the Canon RF 35mm F1.8 Macro IS STM and switched to autofocus and it was so much easier to maintain focus, even while moving."

The EOS R5 C’s compact and lightweight design was a big benefit when shooting in the waves, and it also gave Kevin greater flexibility when filming Filipa running. "It meant that not only was I able to follow her with the camera on a gimbal, but I could rig the camera and the Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM lens onto an FPV drone to get very close 8K footage of her running fast. The ability to get such high-quality footage from such a small body on an FPV drone was really impressive."

As a true hybrid camera, the full-frame EOS R5 C further expanded Kevin’s creative options. "I'm not really a photographer but being able to switch from recording 8K RAW video to capturing 45MP stills makes you feel as if you have both a dedicated video camera and a dedicated photo camera in your hand.

"I hiked to the top of a mountain to shoot a time-lapse sequence. The 45MP sensor means you can crop, zoom and pan the shot in post-production, which is really good for time-lapse work. I used the in-body Interval Timer to record the sequence, but as the clouds were moving so fast, I also recorded some 8K footage at 60fps [using an external power source] and applied some speed ramping in post."

Further creative recording options offered by the EOS R5 C include a vertical shooting mode – which Kevin used to capture TikTok-friendly clips – and the ability to generate stereoscopic 180° VR using the Canon RF 5.2mm F2.8L Dual Fisheye lens.

"We simply put the lens on the body, started recording and then did the VR work in post-production," explains Kevin. "Having a high-resolution, full-frame sensor means you don't need two different cameras on this kind of shoot."

The EOS R5 C’s high-resolution full-frame CMOS sensor and sophisticated video recording options also gave Kevin greater flexibility when it came to grading and editing his film. "I'm always looking for a flat picture profile, so I shot RAW as often as I could," he says. "When I wasn’t shooting RAW, it was 4:2:2 10-bit in Canon Log 3."

There are numerous ways to configure recording to the EOS R5 C's dual card slots. "I recorded all of the footage onto CFexpress and the proxies onto SD," Kevin says. "This meant I already had all the proxies ready when I got home, saving time in the edit.

"I always export in 4K, but with 8K footage from the EOS R5 C you can get an oversampled 4K output that will always look better than footage recorded natively in 4K. Or you can crop into the 8K footage to remove something in the frame that you didn’t want or that you didn’t see while you were shooting.

"For me, though, the audio is 50% of the edit," explains Kevin. "So, before I started shooting, I had a structure in place, with the music and the voiceover I'd written. It’s basically a poem – essentially the island talking about herself. That's the message that I hope the viewer gets at the end of the video."