Out Shooting With the Canon C100

Vet Emily Billings, Simon Tofield and me (Chris Gavin) with the C100 camera. Photo by Emma Burch.

Last week I was out for the day shooting for Simon's Cat Ltd. The plan was to follow Simon's Cat creator Simon Tofield on a visit to the Cats Protection Headquarters in Sussex. The visit has been documented already on the official Simon's Cat website.

I travelled with Simon and producer Emma Burch by train to Haywards Heath, and we spent a good day being shown around the site and meeting the very dedicated staff there.

My role was to shoot documentary material there which will appear shortly as an online video. I knew we would need to be pretty nimble at the location and we would be shooting some interviews too, so I took along a rented Canon C100 camera and not too much other gear. I needed a very portable system for one-man shooting and capturing usable audio too.

This was my first time out with the C100 and I really enjoyed using it, especially compared to using DSLRs like my Canon 600D. We hired the C100, the 24-105/2.8L Canon zoom lens and a Senheiser lav radio mic kit from Cameraworks.

I ended up shooting everything with my Manfrotto 561BHDV-1 monopod. I find this one (with its tiny fold-out feet) gives pretty good stability while being quick to deploy and move around for this kind of rapid shot-getting. The Canon 24-105 zoom lens turned out to be a real time-saver too, so I never did use the tripod or three other lenses I brought with me 'just in case'.

The camera turned out to be a real star. It was possible to get good pictures under difficult indoors and subdued lighting conditions: having proper tools to monitor focus and audio whilst recording was such a joy too. I'll certainly be using one of these again soon.