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Jeff Cable interview talks about real-world EOS R3 use and Canon’s secrecy around new gear releases

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We’ve posted a lot about the Canon EOS R3 over the last few months, even before its official release announcement. We’ve heard a lot about it from Jeff Cable, too, although for some of that, he couldn’t admit that it actually was the Canon EOS R3 he was using at the time. Jeff’s spoken a little about using the EOS R3 since the announcement, too.

Now, though, in an interview with Steve Brazill from Behind The Shot, Jeff really opens up and reflects on what it was like to use the EOS R3 during a high-pressure event like the Olympics, Canon’s secrecy around new gear announcements and how the EXIF data was “leaked” from his images.

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Canon boasts 55% share of cameras used at the Tokyo Olympics

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The Olympics in Tokyo this year was something of a surreal one. For a start, it was supposed to take place last year, but it just felt quite different to Olympics of the past, particularly when it came to attending as a photographer. Many report having to face certain protocols that haven’t existed in the past due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has made things challenging.

For Canon, though, a Gold Partner of the Tokyo 2020 Games (yes, it’s still called that), it was very much a success. They recently posted an announcement stating that 55% of the camera used by professional photographers to document the Olympics were Canon – beating out all of the other brands combined.

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No, the BBC weren’t in Tokyo covering the Olympics – It was faked using a game engine

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The BBC’s Tokyo 2020 (yes, I know it’s 2021, but they kept the name) studio looked pretty real to casual observers watching the coverage of the recently-concluded Olympics. You’d turn on your TV and you’d think they were actually in a fancy rooftop studio in Tokyo providing their thoughts and commentary. But no.

The BBC Sport team was actually in a comfy green-screen studio in Salford near Manchester, England. The on-screen magic was brought to life thanks to Unreal Engine. Some very clever software mapped the positions of the cameras in the studio, keyed out the presenters from the green background and then composited it with the virtual set in real-time.

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Olympics photography workflow: Going through 2000 images to deliver 25 selections asap

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I was joking with someone yesterday about the craziness of the Olympics, and the pressures that we are all under during the Games. We were talking about how the world has different time zones and maybe they should add another just for the Olympics. For the media here, there is absolutely no consistency to our eating and sleeping patterns and time is just different. When a bus is 10 minutes late at home, it usually is no big deal, but here at the Olympics, when you are under deadlines all the time, ten minutes seems like an eternity. And those deadlines can be really daunting.

When I first photographed the Olympics, there really was no such thing as social media and the deadlines were in the hours, not the minutes. I remember being in Beijing and people were saying, take your time getting us images because it is still in the middle of the night back home. But those days are long gone, and we live in a world of immediacy. The team does not want to wait for hours to get my photos, they want them as quick as I can deliver them. And I am not alone in this. The media here are either working for entities that expect images right away, or they are freelance and competing to get their images picked up by the different news outlets around the world, therefore earning them an income.

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The Nikon gear vault at the Tokyo Olympics shows not a single Z mount mirrorless camera

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The long-awaited 2020 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo have begun. And as usual, the camera companies are there, too. Back in 2016, we got to take a look inside both the Nikon and Canon gear storage to see what they had available for NPS and CPS shooters at the Rio Olympics. Now, we have a chance to see what Nikon’s brought to Tokyo, courtesy of Vincent Kalut.

Sure, it’s cool to just look at pictures of a room full of gear, but I think a look inside the Nikon camp at this year’s Olympics is quite revealing. From what I can see, there’s not a single Z mount camera or lens in sight. It’s all still F mount, largely appearing to be Nikon D6 bodies. What conclusions can we draw from this?

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Photographing the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic opening ceremony with the Canon EOS R3 (maybe)

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[A little while back, we caught our friend Jeff Cable’s post about him getting the Canon EOS R3. This is very exciting news for anyone who is waiting for a possible Canon R3 announcement in September. Jeff could absolutely not confirm if he even took the camera with him to the Tokyo Olympics, so the title is 100% my educated guess. Anyways, for anybody out there who likes Photography, sports, and the Olympics, Jeff’s blog is a must. This is it from your friendly editor, it is all Jeff from now]

Two nights ago was the long-awaited Opening Ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (and yes, they still call it that even though we are in 2021). In some ways, it was like all the other openings I have done in the past, and in other ways, it was completely different.

The first major difference, of course, was that there were no spectators in the audience. But we were still required to be in our photo positions hours in advance and not allowed to move around the stadium at all. Normally we are packed in to our sections, but this time there was a seat in between each of us. I have to admit, I liked that part since it gave me room to have my equipment spread out around me. I always shoot with two cameras at these events, one with a long zoom (in this case the Canon 200-400mm) and one wide lens (this time I used the new Canon RF 15-35mm) for the firework shots.

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