During an episode in season three of The Grand Tour, hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May take a moment to sit down and discuss the photography equipment they plan to bring to photograph wildlife in Colombia.
The exchange from the trio is right on course with what you’d expect from Jeremy, Richard and James, if you know them from their Top Gear days; the guys poke fun at three different kinds of photographers and the gear they bring along for photoshoots in a way only they can.
Richard opts for the full suite of Canon prime lenses and camera bodies, complete with strobes, filters, a ThinkTank photo belt and BlackRapid camera strap to carry it all. Jeremy, on the other hand, keeps it simple with what appears to be a Canon 5DS R attached to an EF 600mm f/4L IS II. James eschews the weight and debate by further streamlining his gear with a single Canon PowerShot G9 X Mark II.
All in all, the two-minute segment makes for a few good laughs.
If you like this video — and "Top Gear" and "The Grand Tour," check out the DriveTribe website. The three of them post on it regularly. (Full disclosure: I am a DriveTribe tribe leader. My tribe is called "AutoMatters & More"). Jan
If the comments here are any indication, people (you know who you are) really have lost their sense of humo(u)r.
This humo(u)r in this segment had nothing to do with camera brand...in fact it had nothing to do with cameras!
It was a skit about the range of human personalities and how different people approach the same thing. It could just as easily have been about 3 guys' approach to buying gear to go on a motorcycle adventure and one showing up in $3000 worth of Klim riding gear and another showing up in a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops. The same skit could be constructed about many topics where some are all about the "gear" and others are all about the experience. Get a life, people!
The very end actually made me laugh : James May: "The woman in the shop says this camera takes good pictures. That's enough for me". By the way, any relation to Brian May?
Great video! Not surprisingly, Richard is the biggest geek. Jeremy, as usual, is straight to the point. James - always modest, cool, simplistic. Regards
Clarkson is a public school bully of the old-school and therefore not worth watching, listening to or using as a behavior model. He has proven his ill behavior on a number of occassions, had an opportunity to make right but never quite turned that corner.
He is, however, quite right. As a m43 owner I'm constantly barraged by the "prime lens!" crowd, which from experience is great for when you can predict the subject beforehand...and useless when you can't. And, with wildlife, you can't. Been there, done that.
I see almost everyone missed what this "article" was about. Forget Canon. This is not Canon placement, well, maybe it was back when it originally aired a year ago in January 2019.
This is Amazon placement. It screams "People! Watch The Grand Tour! Subscribe to Amazon Prime Video!"
Who owns DPR? Amazon. Is it wrong to advertise own product on a website that belongs to the advertiser? Of course not. I just noticed the obvious.
By the way, I liked Top Gear when it was made with the three chaps staring in it. I do not have Amazon Prime subscription, therefore, I do not watch The Grand Tour but, it seems to be that same good quality fun as before from the glimpses I saw on few occasions online.
"...it seems to be that same good quality fun as before." You're right. The original trio are now only doing the "travel specials", which were always the funniest, most scenic, and most interesting parts of the show. The replacement "Top Gear" on BBC is now an embarrassingly bad, worn out zombie of a show, with three irritating loud blokes constantly trying to out-bloke each other, while playing my-regional-accent-is-stronger-than-yuuurs.
Unfortunately, the readers have become the editors now. But its not just DPReview. Lets look at cameras that require firmware updates to fix bugs. Consumers are now the beta testers. Yes its lazy and they just want to content/product out as soon as possible.
Just to be nitpicking: ColUmbia is in the USA. Like in District of Columbia, Washington D.C. We are talking about ColOmbia here. South America. Fire away boys
Kai, Lok and Alamby from the old Digital Rev days were the photography equivalent. I still enjoy Kai and Lok's videos but they don't have the same budget to destroy things.
These are pros debating what to arm themselves. What about tourists? What tourists on safari should bring with them aside smartphones? My bet:. Whatever available they have in their closet except, if course, their Limited Edition Leica
From 2:05 in the above clip: "The woman in the shop said this takes good pictures. That's enough for me."
Seriously. Does that sound to you like a "pro" debating about the best kit?!?
Meanwhile, from 1:53: "Welcome to 2018. Everything you've got in all that kit that you've just shown us is in there...".
Again, that would be a ludicrous statement coming from a 'pro". Even most amateurs at least understand there is a difference between 84mm and 600mm optics.
@peterwr Yes - the RX10 P&S (i.e. the model with the 24-600mm 35mm-equiv zoom) would make a bucketload more sense on a wildlife trip than the PowerShot G9 X Mark II featured here.
It still wouldn't actually compete with the bigger rigs in all respects other than price and portability, but I guess the skit guys were going for laughable, not credible.
When I read the description underneath the video, I didn't even bother watching it. All about Canon placement. When talking about different shooting style, I would imagine something like one photographer shooting with film, the other with any kind of DSLR or MLC with longer tele lenses for wildlife, and one using a high MP digital medium format camera for landscapes for example no matter of the brand!
It is interesting how many comments are aimed at the brand choice while somehow missing the innate humor in the segment. Note that none of the presenters say 'Canon', not even once. Indeed, the brand is entirely irrelevant to the humor of the skit. Yes, it is highly probable Canon paid for a product placement. But then again, maybe not as the brand nor the logo is ever flaunted. Indeed, you have to actively look for it else the brief glimpses of the Canon badge will pass you by. Never is there a close up of the logo or any other deliberate attempt to call out the brand. In the grand scheme of things it is a rather subtle product placement, (see Leonard Part 6 et al. for much more egregious examples).
(FYI, I say all that as a long standing Canon disliker. Honestly, that was as subtle of a product placement as they come).
As you note, it is so subtle that it may not be a paid product placement. Nothing wrong if it is, but perhaps they wanted to do this skit on camera gear...kind of goes along with their schtick on car gear...and Canon is so used and known in the pro world, that the producers of the skit naturally turned to Canon gear.
I think it's more simple than that. Canon offers a wide range of gear. It was probably easier to purchase everything from one source. Perhaps they got a volume discount from the retailer and/or Canon for making a bulk purchase?
It is equivalent to three photographers making a joke about car owners and then simply going to Ford to purchase a Pickup, Sedan and Sports car. Much more simple than going to three different dealerships to purchase a Ford Pickup, Mercedes Sedan and Porsche Sports car.
Nah it's even simpler than that... they ask themselves "what does our average viewers consider professional cameras" and the answer was "as long as it is big with a white lens". That's what non-photographers perceive "pro", and that's exactly what they got. The pocket zoom also being Canon is probably just a coincident.
If they'd used multiple brands of gear for the skit, that would have misled some viewers into thinking that they were wading into brand wars, which was not the point.
By leaving brand out of the equation, the focus is entirely on differences in approach and priority.
Well put, tailings. Some years ago "Mad TV" had a product-placement deal with Toyota, and one of their vehicles (the Yaris, I think) would show up in sketches in so many shows that season. However, the Mad TV writers had creative control.
The resulting placements were very un-subtle, but hilarious.
Canon is the biggest camera brand out there and it's known that Richard Hammond uses it. He actually did a wildlife series using Canon gear. They were never going to use anything else.
"...maybe not as the brand nor the logo is ever flaunted. Indeed, you have to actively look for it else the brief glimpses of the Canon badge will pass you by. Never is there a close up of the logo or any other deliberate attempt to call out the brand. In the grand scheme of things it is a rather subtle product placement..."
Funny skit and I have no issues with the product placement, many shows and movies do that sort of thing, but your comments made me laugh, as I can easily and clearly see "Canon" on the camera bodies and dangling on the Canon neck straps, without issue, and certainly not "subtle" lol
I don't think this clip is about product placement at all.
I sure don't think Canon would have been silly enough to pay to have someone promote the idea that one of their P&S models does everything that a high end body with ≥$10k of glass can do. On a wildlife safari, no less!
Canon's whole success has been built on promoting the myth that their entry level cameras are every bit as good as their pro gear. I can think of no other company who has so successfully sold that myth. I still encounter people who show off their $400 Rebel as if it were a $6000 camera for no other reason than it carries a Canon badge. I can think of no other brand where that phenomenon is so deeply ingrained.
30 years ago all of the photo gear would be from Nikon. I can remember a time when Nikon had the professional market locked-up. . . There was only one member of our state ASMP chapter who shot Canon.
It's amazing to have witnessed just how far Nikon has fallen since then.
This episode sponsored by Canon! The small Canon point and shoot had an item sticker on the bottom plate. All of the gear looks like it was given to them for the episode.
Could be...and nothing wrong if it is, that's capitalism and marketing.
But...Canon is the most recognized camera brand in the world, and is heavily used in professional circles. So maybe the person in charge of getting the gear just immediately thought of Canon, and went out and got some Canon gear. Plus Canon would be one brand that would offer the full suite of equipment from large to medium to small, which is a big part of the skit.
The Canon gear most likely came from a rental house. Television show producers don't own gear, they rent what is needed for each show. The gear could have been a freebee (from the rental house) to a good customer.
If it was product placement you would have seen the Canon logo in a close-up.
lightandaprayer, the general public wouldn't know what camera was being used. Nor would they care. There only way a phone-photographer (the general public) would know they were Canon cameras/lenses is if they saw the Canon logo.
Just try to remember that very few people obsess about cameras. More people are obsessed with chocolate or bacon than are obsessed with camera gear—sad but true.
That was a hilarious bit and quite spot on in many respects. 'Bout time someone called out those prima donna wild life photographers and their cushy lifestyle ;).
It would be more interesting if one guy chose a Canon DSLR camera and a few heavy lenses by Sigma and Tamron, the other guy bought a Sony mirrorless camera and a humongous telephoto lens, and the third guy flipped out a pocketable Panasonic P&S superzoom camera.
"All Canon" Well, they are buying from a local retail shop which has historically been dominated by Canon for several decades now. Credit to the GT team for not being fooled into purchasing a camera with a TV brand badge ;)
"All old white guys" I take it you are not familiar with Top Gear/Grand Tour?
And keep in mind that the purpose of the skit is not to compare brands, but make a funny point about different stereotypes of photographers and the gear they use.
There's no reason for any production assistant to spend any time researching the different brands in hopes of providing some diversity of equipment.
So imagine they go into a local retail shop, and say, we want 3 types of setup for a skit: a big camera with a big lens, a big camera with all sorts of medium sized specialized lenses, bags, filters, flashes, etc...and a small point and shoot. It's very reasonable that the person at the shop just starts taking out Canon gear. Really if you were to stick with one brand then only Canon and Nikon would be able to provide this sort of range of equipment.
Best motoring show presenters ever! And if you compare them reviewing cars with other presenters these guys dont spend too much time on the individual specs of each car, they focus a lot more on how it feels. Many people miss the point and feel they are just doing comedy. But you can read the specs on the manufacturers website, but nobody will really tell you how a car feels like on a much more deeper level like these guys do, and that too while still having fun and not making it a technical discussion.
They do point out how it feels to drive and why(without getting too technical haha).
What it would really be like to own the car, not just compare the specs on paper. (Hint hint to us here....) While being pretty damn funny along the way.
I remember the episode they guessed correctly while blindfolded the car they were in was a Chrysler because of the terrible suspension and the sound of cheap plastic interior flapping about.
They are part of the reason I own an e39 M5. I dont care that its BMW, I care about how excellent the feeling of driving it is. Its a darn nice looking car also.
Yes the 6 has the better tactile steering. Its not a perfect car but it is one of those special cars still.
When I give it a wash and drive down Robson street it still gets a lot of looks. Tonnes of money and insane cars here so, it means the e39 is still looking good.
Everything is stock also. Adding something makes it worse. Beyond stock M package i mean.
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