The Quail - A review of Anton Bauer’s Titon Base (fuelled by Donuts)
This August I had the chance to film at The Quail Rally and Motor Sport Gathering in Carmel, California — one of those dream shoots, especially for a petrolhead, that reminds me exactly why picking up a camera has allowed a shy kid from Barnsley the chance to travel and see the world.
The Quail Rally is part of Monterey Car Week, a pilgrimage for car lovers from around the globe. Hosted by The Quail, the rally is invitation-only and open to a carefully curated group of drivers. Think coach-built Ferraris, Le Mans legends, prototype Porsches — the kind of cars most people only ever see under museum lights, suddenly let loose on public roads. For three days, the rally winds its way across the Monterey Peninsula, taking in some of the most cinematic landscapes California has to offer.
To witness it with a camera is to see living history in motion. Two loops of Laguna Seca with priceless machinery diving through the infamous corkscrew, moody and misty passes at Bixby Bridge, chasing late-afternoon light down the cliffs of Big Sur, and even the surreal experience of shooting inside the Monterey Bay Aquarium, surrounded by drifting jellyfish and curious sea otters.
The Gathering
The rally is only part of the story. It all builds towards The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering — a day-long event held at the Quail Lodge & Golf Club in Carmel Valley. If the rally feels like an adventure on the open road, the Gathering is the grand stage where cars and culture converge.
The atmosphere is unlike any other car show I’ve filmed. It’s curated, elegant, and intentionally intimate — ticket numbers are capped to keep the crowds comfortable, which means you can actually move between the displays without fighting through a sea of people; well, except if Lamborghini are unveiling a new car!
The cars themselves range from century-old Bentleys and coachbuilt Ferraris to modern hypercars and concept vehicles fresh from design studios. Each lawn becomes its own themed stage: pre-war racers in one corner, Italian exotics in another, cutting-edge EVs and hydrogen prototypes lined up under canopies. It’s not just about the machines either — the event is as much about lifestyle. Think Champagne bars, caviar tastings, live music drifting across the lawns, and conversations between collectors, designers and enthusiasts who’ve flown in from every corner of the globe.
As an operator, it was a visual playground. Morning light across polished chrome, shadows carving along bodywork, reflections of Monterey’s cypress trees bending in curved glass. Every car has its own story — a Le Mans history, a restoration journey, a prototype that hints at the future — and my job was to capture not just the steel and paint, but the reverence in the way people interacted with them.
Meeting one of my heroes, Harry Metcalfe from Harry’s Garage, was a personal highlight — a reminder that sometimes the people behind the cars are just as inspiring as the machines themselves. Add in reconnecting with my American crew, and it felt less like work and more like a reunion road trip. Plenty of root beers were drunk, far too many donuts mysteriously disappeared and of course the obligatory In-N-Out burger fuelled the drive down from San Francisco.
The lineup of cars
The Icons of Monterey
The Quail Rally’s route isn’t just about cars; it’s about place. Few backdrops in the world can match California’s central coast.
Laguna Seca Raceway is the crown jewel, a place I had only ever driven in video games. Built in 1957 in the dry hills outside Monterey, the track is famous for one feature above all: the Corkscrew. A blind, left-right chicane that drops the equivalent of five stories in just a few seconds. To watch priceless classics and cutting-edge hypercars snake through it is to feel the full drama of motorsport history in one corner. I got to ride in the pace car — a Cayman, leading the pack at a gentle pace. We had a second camera covering the Corkscrew, but I was excited just to be operating a small tracking camera from the Porsche as we cruised the raceway.
Reece Day - Bixby Bridge, California
Then there’s Bixby Creek Bridge, probably one of the most photographed bridges in the world. Completed in 1932, it spans a rocky canyon along Highway 1, 280ft above the Pacific. It’s art deco, it’s iconic, it’s been on postcards, in car commercials and countless films. But on a misty morning with a bright green V6 Lotus Emira crossing its span, it felt completely surreal.
And of course, Big Sur. A stretch of road that writers and filmmakers wax lyrical about for good reason. Sheer cliffs, crashing waves, redwood forests, and a ribbon of tarmac that hugs the edge like it was designed for cinema. Chasing supercars from our modest BMW X5 was addictive. Every bend revealed a new angle — golden light breaking through sea fog, the sun flaring through trees, headlights sweeping across coastal curves.
The Practical Side of Glamour
For all the magic, the realities of production never disappear. These shoots are fast, sprawling, and unpredictable. Cars that can vanish in seconds, roads you can’t close, owners whose schedules are as packed as their garages.
That’s why I leaned on the Sony FX3 as the backbone of my kit. Compact enough to tuck into a car’s interior, discreet enough not to draw attention, but capable of cinematic images when paired with G Master glass. The challenge, as always with small cameras, was power. It’s not just feeding the camera — it’s keeping accessories alive. For me, that meant powering a SmallHD Cine 5, which is non-negotiable thanks to EL Zone exposure, focus tools and framing guides.
Camera Prep & Testing in West Yorkshire
That’s where the Anton Bauer Titon Base proved its worth. On paper it’s a 68Wh battery, but in practice it became the heartbeat of the rig. Slim, compact, mounted under the camera instead of behind it, with three P-Taps and a USB-A port. That single detail alone meant I could run the FX3 via USB-A to USB-C, while simultaneously feeding the Cine 5 via a P-Tap to Lemo cable — one power source, one tidy system, no Frankenstein build.
The LCD fuel gauge was another revelation. Instead of a vague row of dots, I had a proper minute readout. With the monitor at full brightness in California sun, I was still getting six-plus hours per battery. With two in rotation, I could comfortably cover a ten-hour rally day — one charging at lunch while the other still had juice in the tank. Charging itself was painless too: about three hours from empty to full using the P-Tap charger.
The shape of the battery influenced how I shot. On handheld runs from a cine saddle, I found myself naturally gripping the Titon Base like an extra handhold. Flat and compact, it slotted neatly under a Sachtler Touch plate, letting the FX3 double as a clean B-camera for interviews on sticks. Most importantly, it kept the camera small. I wasn’t suddenly dragging around an FX6-sized rig when the whole point of an FX3 is to stay nimble.
I also pressed a second Titon Base into service on my iPad cage — a game-changer for using the iPad as a genuine production tool. Schedules, storyboards, even running Sidus Link for lighting control, instead of babysitting its flaky internal battery, the Titon Base kept it powered all day. Suddenly the iPad felt more like a dependable part of the workflow.
No kit is perfect. A metal baseplate would add reassurance, and a USB-C PD port would future-proof things. Given how often I ended up holding the battery itself, a rubberised grip wouldn’t go amiss. But these are nitpicks. The real value is trust. I’ve seen cheap batteries introduce chaos with unstable voltage or dodgy connectors, and that’s not the kind of roulette you want to play when working away, or anywhere for that matter. With Anton Bauer, I never gave it a second thought as it’s a brand I trust implicitly. Even in the California heat, the Titon Base stayed cool and consistent.
For me, it’s become the missing link: bridging the gap between professional reliability and the agility of lightweight, covert camera systems. It kept the FX3 lean, discreet, and genuinely usable in a high-pressure environment — which is exactly the point.
Beyond the Gear
Looking back, the rally wasn’t just about the machines. It was about the people. Meeting heroes like Harry, catching up with old friends, swapping stories over tacos and coffee after long days on the road. These are the moments that remind me why I’m lucky to be an operator — and how this career has given me a passport to places I could never have imagined growing up. Without finding this obsession, who knows where I’d have ended up.
Jobs like this don’t just fall from the sky. I was lucky to have a great relationship with an outstanding director, Paco Guerrero. Opportunities like this are the product of being positioned in the right circles, of trust built with clients who know you’ll deliver under pressure, of reputation carried by people who vouch for your work. In the world of cars and collectors, credibility is currency. Show up prepared, shoot with respect, deliver without fuss — and you get invited back.
In the end, the Titon Base faded into the background — and most importantly, it kept a small camera small. Which is exactly the point. It kept the FX3 discreet and professional, letting me focus on what mattered: the roar of engines, the mist rolling in off the Pacific and the laughter of a crew fuelled by tacos and donuts becoming a great memory in the reflection of the rearview mirror.
Donuts!