Hopper Stone started as a photojournalist in 1988, and by 1997 he found himself working as an on-set photographer (aka unit stills photographer) for movies and television. He has worked the gamut of productions ranging from low budget horror movies to Academy Award and Emmy nominated projects. In 2012, Hopper was awarded the Publicists Guild Award for Excellence in Television Stills Photography, and his nomination was recently announced for the 2024 Publicists Guild Award for Excellence in Motion Picture Still Photography.

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“As a stills photographer there are two main issues that I deal with. Shutter noise and light. Film sets are very, very dark. Before the advent of mirrorless cameras, on set photographers used to have to put our cameras inside of a box called a sound blimp, which is basically a casing for your camera that feels like having your camera encased in a cinder block. These blimps would dampen about 95% of the noise of the mirror and the shutter. But even when digital came along, they still had a mirror, so they still made too much noise to be uncased on a movie set."

“My introduction to mirrorless was in 2014 when I was working on a Sony movie called Goosebumps with Jack Black. Sony reached out and said they had this new technology called 'mirrorless'. They sent me an Alpha 7 and a few lenses to evaluate on set. The image quality was good, and it kept up in low light, but it still had a shutter that made noise. So I used it for shooting behind-the-scenes and when the camera wasn't rolling. After a couple of days, I packaged it back up and I sent it back to Sony with the feedback, 'This is great, except that we can't really use it on set because it still makes noise'. And their response was basically, 'Hold on, we have something coming.' And sure enough, very soon after that, they announced the Alpha 7S. I did some reading and I looked at reviews, and the reviews said that it was silent and that it worked very, very well in low light, better than any other camera out there. I thought, 'oh, this seems like a good idea'."

“In 2014 I was doing a movie called Vacation, sort of the reboot of the Chevy Chase franchise with Ed Helms. For this job I bought an Alpha 7S and an adapter and used my other camera lenses. Everyone on set, including myself, was blown away by this new realm of still photography. The camera was so small, and I could flip out the screen put it down on the ground and get into places where I wouldn't be able to get with a camera encased in a sound blimp. When Vacation wrapped, I took the money from that and I bought a second Alpha 7S body and a couple of Zeiss for Sony F-4 zooms, and I’ve never looked back!"

“The next movie I did was a Melissa McCarthy movie called The Boss. The first time we met, as I started shooting, she said, 'Well, when are you going to start shooting?' And I said, 'Oh, sorry, new technology, silent camera.' She said, “Well, say click-click or something!' To this day, whenever I have the opportunity to work with her, I always say, 'click, click, click, click', and then she laughs, and she tells the story about the first time we met."

“After The Boss, I was doing the all-female cast reboot of Ghostbusters shooting in Boston, when I had a technical issue with my camera. I had recently joined Sony Pro Support, so I reached out to Johnny Pham and he referred my repair to Precision Camera in Connecticut, which is where I first met April Trujillo. Sony and PCR took amazingly good care of me. PRO Support overnighted a loaner body right away so I could keep shooting, just another part of the great support perks. Everything came back fixed, and as I said, I haven't looked back. I’ve since shot several movies on the Alpha 7S and Alpha 7S II."

“In the summer of 2017 I was doing a movie in Budapest called The Spy Who Dumped Me. There was going to be some action, and I had heard that the Alpha 9 had amazing auto focus and a faster motor drive, so I added an Alpha 9 to my kit. The ability to shoot at a fast frame rate with unbelievable auto focus really opened up a whole new world. There was literally no difference anymore between shooting with an SLR or shooting with mirrorless. After The Spy Who Dumped Me I switched to exclusively Alpha 9’s, and I've been shooting on the Alpha 9 and Alpha 9 II. Most recently I did the movie Saturday Night and I shot that on the Alpha 9 III, which again, was just spectacular."

“Sony Pro Support has been amazing throughout the entire time that I’ve been a member. In the fall of 2021, I did a movie in Saudi Arabia called Kandahar. These were very harsh conditions. I was shooting with two Alpha 1’s and an Alpha 7S III, because I knew there was going to be a lot of night work. When that movie wrapped, my camera gear… gross is the only way to describe it. It was just full of sand and dust, and I was starting another movie right away! I reached out to PRO Support and I explained that I was coming in really hot with three bodies and something like seven lenses that needed to be gone through, checked, cleaned, and possibly repaired."

“I flew into Atlanta and PRO Support had two bodies and two zooms, which is the minimum I need to work with, waiting for me at the production office of my next movie, Harold and The Purple Crayon. I packaged up all my stuff and shipped it off to Precision Camera. There were a couple of repairs, but not as bad as I expected, to be perfectly honest. They had everything turned around within days. It was incredible! The stuff that just needed to be cleaned got turned right back around, and the stuff that needed repair took an extra couple days to get parts. And luckily, Sony Pro Support had loaners waiting for me, so I did not miss a beat."

“At the end of the day, I am extremely happy with my decisions. First, to go mirrorless, and second, to go with Sony because there really is nothing that does as well in low light as the Sony system.”

You can see Hopper's set photography at stonefoto.com and @hopper_stone.

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