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The Digital SLR Phenomenon - part 2 of 1 2 3 4 5

by Giles Christopher Published 01/10/2010

He's never gone back.

Today, along with partner Abigail Cockroft - herself a successful producer and photographer - Christopher owns two businesses: Media Wisdom and Video Wisdom, shooting both still and video images for the long list of clients the duo has built up over the last decade.

Combining the two disciplines has also meant that Christopher - a self-confessed gadget and technology geek - has become an expert on movie capture using HD DSLRs, specifically the Canon EOS 5D MkII and EOS 7D. "Most of my clients are still image, but some are video and that's because of shooting on the 5D," he admits. "I love the way that HD on DSLRs has brought film making to the masses.

It gives people an opportunity to dabble and through that some will decide they want to do it for a living. But it's all very well having the equipment; you still need a good script and a good subject to photograph. I worry that the standard is falling; it's not just about the camera."

Christopher's reservations of the medium due to its increased accessibility strike a familiar chord among professional photographers but, in his experience, it's not just 'have a go heroes' who are getting work by cutting prices. "Production companies are also trying to reduce budgets by shooting on a Canon EOS 5D MkII or 7D. Whether that's a fad we'll find out," he tells Professional Imagemaker. "I think either camera is fine if you're just shooting for yourself.

But if you're using it for a TV commercial, the workflow is much slower. It's fiddly, you have to wait for the monitor to fire up and the camera is physically too small to have a focus puller, a camera operator and cameraman trying to work on it. In my experience, the shot rates using a mechanical film camera are much faster than on the EOS 5D MkII."

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1st Published 01/10/2010
last update 09/12/2022 14:59:02

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