Freelance cameraman Nick Cate's experience with Canon J11x4.5 and J21x7.8 lenses

As a freelance cameraman/producer based in Dubai, I work throughout the Middle East, but have spent 6 years on and off travelling to shoot in China and North America. I primarily cover sports, but  also provide complete corporate programs to my corporate clients in Europe, as well as supplying regular material for current affairs programming. I am retained by Reuters and SNTV in the UK, as well as more specialized programmers such as the World Sport Group in Singapore.

Most of my work requires me to shoot and edit on site. In order to provide my clients with as much variety in my work, I generally travel to locations with two lenses, a wide Canon J11ax and a long Canon J21ax.

The Canon J11ax has to be me my all time top ten lens, GloCom/Canon cut me a great deal to buy this superbly dynamic piece of optics. I have worked this particular lens very hard. It has ‘sandblasted’ by over 18 international desert rallies throughout Arabia, been ‘submerged’ in Kunming China by the ’99 flood waters of the Yangste, and ‘dusted’ in the US by motorbikes, bikes and helicopter racing through Monument Valley. Incredibly it was only this year that it went back to GloCom/Canon for its first cleaning and service; gratis at that! 

I tend to view my work in a military fashion. I need ‘artillery’ and ‘infantry’. My J11ax and J21ax are my weapons of choice. To this day I believe that many fellow freelance cameramen underestimate  the importance of a balanced arsenal and opt for much cheaper, and, in my opinion mediocre lenses. I believe this is probably the biggest mistake many of the freelance operators make.

As an independent ENG owner/operator, my main concern is for equipment that will keep going in adverse conditions, very little of my work is in studio or controlled conditions. I work in high humidity, dusty, and windy environments; far from perfect. My clients however do not want to know about the conditions, they are interested only in the resulting pictures. I have been caught out  by ‘catastrophes’ such unseasonable summer deluges during July in Lebanon, raging ‘Shamal’ dust storms in Qatar and Kuwait, but not once have my Canon lenses stopped working.  

The combination of the J11ax ‘wideness’ and the J21ax telephoto give me the two ends of the lens spectrum that I require. The J11ax gives me a wide, dynamic feel that it superb for the automobile shoots I do, especially the  ‘mechanics under a car in 40 degrees changing rear differential’ or equally important, following the mesmerizing VJ Sonia on Orbit’s ‘Music Now’ during  ‘Beach Part Arabia’. It such a dynamic lenses; that with a steady shoulder, is really difficult to go wrong. I have the WRSD version, which gives me the ability to switch over between 4:3 to 16:9. This is very important, as my client base is equally split between the two formats and, I feel that being able to offer this ‘switchabilty’ is important. The J21ax gives me the ‘heat shimmer Middle East/desolate region’ that is very cliched but nevertheless important. Apart from this another important aspect it is also useful in the rare studio shoots that I do. It doesn’t distort objects, and has a ‘critical’ focus zone, which is useful for these type of jobs.

I work in a part of the world where ‘service’ is a word that is something that occurs only when something has gone wrong, GloCom/Canon is working proactively. It is perhaps the most important reason why I, as a very small part in the Middle East TV/video puzzle stays with Canon, they are far ahead of their competitors in providing professional back up and advise. I appreciate that that they are headed up by a team headed by a manager with a ‘technical’ background in the broadcast industry who takes the time to visit such small fry as myself. While I will never buy enough lenses to make a dent on Canons annual profits, their continuing attention to my business helps ensure that I provide my clients with variety of reliable material.