Seeing the light: Capturing motion and emotion while filming a parkour athlete in Portugal

"It's funny, I used to love shooting everything when it was cloudy and raining," says Giulia Gartner. "I just love that mood. I still love it, but nowadays I think I really enjoy things brighter and more colourful. That was one of the reasons I wanted to go to Lisbon to shoot this film. And the weather was fantastic."

Giulia is an Italian cinematic content creator and filmmaker best known for her outdoor, scenic, and travel film and photography. She is based in the Dolomites in northern Italy but travels widely for her various projects. Recently she went to Portugal to film her friend Luís, a parkour athlete, in action in Lisbon, and took the opportunity to try out the Canon EOS R6 V, the flagship EOS / PowerShot V Series camera for video-first content creators.

"Portugal has a very colourful landscape, and colour is such an important part of my creative expression," Giulia says.

Colour is important for her because of the emotional resonance it adds, she explains. Her film is not just a portrait of Luís and his very active life, as a parkour practitioner and also a stuntman, but it tells his life story – how he moved from Brazil, where he was born, to Lisbon, where he now lives, and how discovering parkour has influenced his life. Giulia filmed scenes in the "blue hour" – one of her favourite times of day to shoot – for thoughtful, reflective moments. She shot a lot during the "golden hour" because, she explains, the warm lighting creates a very nostalgic feeling. And in addition to footage of Luís in action in the bright daylight of vibrant Lisbon, she loved capturing backlit shots of him warming up, which she says have a romanticised atmosphere.

The Canon EOS R6 V suited her style of filming perfectly, with its ultra-high resolution and colour fidelity ideal for working with such varied lighting conditions. The camera is capable of 7K 60p RAW, although Giulia prefers to use its oversampled 4K 60p to capture all the detail she needs while keeping file sizes more manageable. She used Canon Log 2 to give her the colour and tonal range she wanted with the flexibility she likes in the grading to fine-tune for the effects she aims to achieve.

Canon's renowned colour science is a key reason she loves using Canon kit, she explains, and the EOS R6 V fully lived up to her expectations. "I was really blown away by the dynamic range and the colours," she says.

Giulia's film mixes dynamic action sequences with static shots and interview footage captured using the camera on a tripod. These different types of shot "express something different," she explains. "Contrast is a big part of my filmmaking, not just in the sense of shadows and light. Cutting from really fast movement to something static takes the viewer on a little journey."

The variety – contrasting colours, static compositions plus camera movements, different urban settings, various focal lengths – reflects Luís's rich life and also the very dynamic, changing environment of Lisbon. Such variety also poses a challenge for a camera, and Giulia was delighted with the way the EOS R6 V combines pro capabilities with a lightweight package. "It's so compact but it gives you the quality that a bigger cinema camera would give you," she comments.

For both static interviews and fast-moving action sequences, Giulia put her trust in in the EOS R6 Vautofocus. It has Dual Pixel CMOS AF II and intelligent subject detection, making it great at tracking Luís in motion, even when his eyes and face – and sometimes his head itself – were not visible for a moment. Giulia also switched to manual focus occasionally, particularly for "rack focus" shots, manually pulling focus from one subject in the frame to another at a different distance.

Giulia was using the Canon RF 20-50mm F4L IS USM PZ power zoom lens and found the zoom range ideal for the project. "You can cover a lot of ground. You can get really wide shots, and then zoom in if you want in the moment. For me, it felt very natural. My go-to lens is a 24-70mm, but that's obviously much bigger compared to this. This lens, in combination with the compact camera body, was so good for moving and running around."

Giulia adds that she enjoyed experimenting with the power zoom, especially being able to customise the zoom speed. "It was really cool to have the ability to change so many settings and get just the look I wanted."

When making a film like this about someone, Giulia goes out with a shot list and some idea of the story arc she wants to end up with, but she says it's important to leave room for spontaneity. "I love being inspired by the moment. My favourite shots are probably the ones you can't plan, so you have to leave space for them." Using a lightweight, easy to handle camera like the EOS R6 V means she can react quickly.

Part of this is that the EOS R6 V makes it so quick to swap from video to photo mode, with a switch on top of the camera to change instantly from one to the other. "It's super intuitive and super fast," Giulia notes. For her commercial photography, she uses a Canon EOS R5, and she says shooting stills with the EOS R6 V "felt like shooting on the same camera. Colours and details all look so good, comparable to what I know."

Although Giulia describes herself as a "social-first" creator, she says she wants people to view this film on their TV, or at least on their desktop, not on a phone, so that they can appreciate its cinematic scope. The full frame sensor in the EOS R6 V was key to delivering this, with a matching cinematic depth of field, in addition to the camera's outstanding low-light performance.

Giulia is also a big fan of the camera's Open Gate recording setting, which enables it to record using the full width of the sensor. "It allows you to capture so much more of the frame, which is cool especially if you know you're going to use something for a social cut, and gives you the flexibility to use a different crop." It meant she could cut both horizontal and vertical frames from the original capture without having to switch orientation mid-shoot. People recording specifically for social platforms, she adds, will welcome the option of vertical shooting with the EOS R6 V using its vertical tripod socket .

The EOS R6 V is Canon's smallest full-frame camera with In-Body Image Stabilisation (IBIS), delivering up to 7.5-stops of stabilisation at the centre and 7-stops at the edge of the frame, depending on the lens used.

"I shoot handheld a lot, so it's great to have," Giulia says, emphasising that "in windy conditions, it's good not to get those 'micro-jitters'. But sometimes I like a shakier look rather than something super-smooth. With action, sometimes you want to feel like you're almost falling into the scene." For shots like that, she found it very straightforward to switch the IS on or off using the switch on the lens.

The EOS R6 V is optimised for handheld shooting and for solo shooters like Giulia, with features such as a front record button and 12 custom buttons, although one of the options she found most useful was a default setup: when she wanted to check her focus in manual mode, she could toggle focus peaking on and off by pressing the right of the scroll wheel on the back of the camera, "right there where your thumb is."

Giulia's film immerses the viewer in Luís's Lisbon. The setting is beautiful and colourful, but "it's not the typical Lisbon you will see in a travel vlog, because it's through the eyes of someone who lives there," she says. "Luís took us to places that probably no one has ever seen in any commercial or travel brochure." Instead, the Lisbon we encounter is, in the spirit of parkour, a place where obstacles are transformed into opportunities. The film is not just about the place but about Luís's relationship with it. It combines contrasts, mixing action and reflection, local colour and personal emotion. And it was the capability and versatility of the Canon EOS R6 V that enabled Giulia to capture all the varied facets of Luís's inspiring story.

In the film, Luís says of parkour and of life: "Nothing really ever happens the way that you think it will happen. So just let it flow." This applied also to the shoot. It was the adaptability, ease of handling and responsiveness of the EOS R6 V that made it possible for Giulia to keep up with him, be ready for the spontaneous and react in each moment.