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

by Giles Christopher Published 01/10/2010

One of the growth areas for the DSLR HD video market is the hardware to bring the rather small and light stills camera up to scratch for film making. The first and most major difference between stills and video is that the camera is most likely to be on the move, as well as the subject. Think about this, as it is fundamental - in stills, the model is posed, stationary and then photographed from a fixed position, everything we are taught is about keeping things still! With video everything can be on the move.

Thus the kit that is bolted onto the DSLR makes it heavier, larger and many times more expensive! In a fully featured rig it is almost impossible to tell which bit is the camera! The aim is to provide smooth transitions across a scene, often with changes in viewpoint, focus and zoom.

Focusing is a particular issue. The camera has to work with the mirror locked up and so focus is manually adjusted but the back-of-camera screen is too small and so a magnifier or repeater screen is needed. Lighting also needs to follow the gaze of the camera sometimes and then you have to throw in the requirements of sound.

Suddenly the whole thing is way beyond the capabilities of a single person and you are staring at the budget and costing of a 'crew' rather than a solo, stills operator. Small wonder then that you are treading into something of a minefield and are going to need quite a lot of training and practice before you can even begin to make progress.

At the simplest you can put your DSLR into a movie head of a tripod and record a couple of seconds at a wedding. The other end of the scale appears to be almost limitless!

Faced with enough knowledge to realise that all this is above your editor's pay grade we send Trevor Lansdown to see Giles Christopher (who actually makes films using DSLR technology) and the outcome of the interview and Giles' thoughts are set out on the previous pages. Our investigations over the past 12 months have revealed a healthy divergence of opinion as to the qualities of DSLR video.

Some say it will never be as good as film, others have rushed out and explored the boundaries of what can be done - this is a situation that we have seen before, at one stage 'film was never going to be replaced by this digital fad'.

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

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