From cinema lenses to pro camcorders and more, Canon offers an array of products designed to meet the most demanding film and broadcast settings.
One of the more profound changes taking place in IMAG ministries all across the country is the move away from the traditional broadcast news look and towards an aesthetic that’s more cinematic in nature. With their higher dynamic range and larger sensors capable of producing a shallower depth of field, digital cinema cameras can create IMAG imagery far more nuanced than was possible even three or four years ago.
As the demand for this type of bigger-than-life look has continued to grow, so too has the demand for lenses capable of resolving images from larger, cinema-style sensors without sacrificing the range and control possible with the kind of lenses designed for live events and news gathering.
A passion for excellence in ministry
For Rusty Anderson, the live video lead at Passion City Church in metro Atlanta, finding the perfect cinema glass comes down to a ministry’s unique vision and strategy. “First and foremost, we want to keep Jesus as the main thing, and everything we do is to help make Him famous,” Anderson says.
Rusty Anderson, Live Video Lead, Passion City Church, Atlanta, GA
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“In our ministry culture, design is everything. We aspire to maintain control over every aspect of our worship service, just trying to keep things clean and clear. And on the live video side we embrace that, as well. There's no detail too fine or too small for us, and that comes down to even the individual camera shots we design.”
Anderson continues, “We’ll do whatever it takes to tell the story better. My background has been 50% in live production and 50% in the filmmaking world, and I've always wanted to marry the two. We do a lot of music videos at Passion City, and when you see a project that's shot with larger-format cameras and lenses it makes a real difference.”
Fortunately for Passion City Church and other forward-leaning broadcast and video ministries, the tools to achieve that look have never been more accessible. “For a long time, the technology wasn't there,” explains Anderson. “You could do some things well, but you couldn't really get the remote control or longer ranges you’d need.”
“When Canon announced the features and price point of the 25-250mm, I knew it was exactly what we were looking for."
Yet he adds, “Over the last year or two the technology has really come into place. And when we built our new Cumberland location, we knew it was time to go cinematic. Once we started incorporating that new visual style, the quality jumped through the roof—everyone could really tell the difference.”
Silver lining timing
As the team at Passion City began developing and deploying new broadcast video systems for its campuses in late 2019, that desire to find the right blend of performance and cinematic resolution led them to the Canon CINE-SERVO 25-250mm T2.95 Cinema Zoom Lens.
“We knew what we wanted in our new location, and we knew what we needed from our longer lenses,” Anderson recalls. “When Canon announced the features and price point of the 25-250mm, I knew it was exactly what we were looking for. Our team took one look at it and we jumped on the pre-order right away.”
For tech directors new to this world, cinema lenses offer a number of unique characteristics that make them essential for capturing this unique style of imagery. Many of these advantages boil down to performance and consistency.
For instance, the Canon CINE-SERVO 25-250mm T2.95 Cinema Zoom Lens is parfocal, ensuring that an in-focus image will stay sharp when quickly rack zooming in or out on an image. It also features a near constant aperture of T2.95-3.95 across the lens’ entire zoom range. When paired with larger super-35 or sensors, this faster glass is capable of capturing images with sharp subjects and creamy, out-of-focus backgrounds.
The lens’ impressive zoom range of 25-250mm can be extended even further with a built in 1.5x extender, pushing the far range of the lens all the way out to 375mm. The Canon 25-250mm Cinema Lens also features advanced servo control of the zoom, focus and iris parameters. That servo control unit can be powered directly from certain cameras, and at 6.7 pounds the lens can actually serve double duty for church film teams during the week.
Cinema glass In action
Since incorporating the Canon 25-250mm T2.95 Cinema Lens into their systems, the Passion City team’s expectations have been met, and even exceeded. “The focal range is just right in that sweet spot,” says Anderson. “It’s super-fast across the entire range and it had that built in 1.5x extender. Because it's a super-35 lens it really lets us to get the shots we want, and the servos allow us to shade and control everything right from the broadcast room.”
The lens’ impressive zoom range of 25-250mm can be extended even further with a built in 1.5x extender, pushing the far range of the lens all the way out to 375mm.
Better yet, the cinema lens’ ability to capture far shallower depth of field in various lighting conditions directly addresses a number of specific challenges facing many broadcast ministry teams.
“A lot of it comes down to the fact that we use LEDs as our main backdrop,” states Anderson. “LED walls are a powerful way to communicate information or to create beautiful moments in worship, but they make it really hard to create clean separation between the foreground subject and the background. Using these new cinema cameras and lenses allows us push those LED walls out of focus a little bit. The lenses also [allow] us to run the worship space darker, setting more of a mood that works for people worshiping in the room, while still capturing something great for broadcast.”
Staying In focus
“It's always been our desire on the production team to create art, and create that art for the most noble and worthwhile reason possible,” says Anderson. And he says that means that his church’s team tried to produce the best content out there.
“When you go to Europe, all of the big sites and destinations where commissioned by the church,” Anderson notes. “They were created to spread the Gospel, and I feel like right now the best art isn't really associated with the church.”
He adds, “Our goal is to harness new technology to create that art in a live environment, using movement, framing, and lighting that's more cinematic and really inspires. That kind of beauty and art can inspire an awe that ultimately points people to God. I'm excited to see the church access and utilize these new tools more and more to really accomplish that.”
Visit www.usa.canon.com to learn more about the new Canon CINE-SERVO 25-250mm T2.95 Cinema Zoom Lens.
