Film-making revolution?

Here’s some amazing time-lapse footage of the Icelandic volcano. (Go to Vimeo to get the full HD effect). The reason I’m showing it is that it was shot with a still camera, not a video camera. This particular film was recorded as a series of still images and then assembled together as a video, but the camera used would have shot full HD video. Something fairly revolutionary is happening in low-budget film-making: indie film-makers can get better results with a still camera costing around £700 than with a video camera costing £5000.

The footage above was shot with the semi-professional Canon 5d, which costs around £1700 for the body. The same camera was used to film the most recent series finale of House (see trailer below), which gives you an idea of its capabilities. But you can now get close to that quality with their consumer camera, the 550d, which costs around £600 (body only).

Why is it better than a video camera? The main reason is that SLR cameras have huge sensors compared to normal video cameras - even £5000 ones. The Canon 5d has a sensor as big as a traditional 35mm still frame, while the cheaper 7d and 550d have sensors roughly the same size as a 35mm movie frame. (They’re different because in a still camera the film runs sideways, while in a 35mm movie camera it runs vertically and includes an audio track). This means that images shot in low light look much better, because a larger sensor suffers much less from ‘noise’ (an unpleasant multicoloured grain effect) in those conditions. It also reduces depth of field, so you can get nice shallow-focus effects.

The second reason is that an SLR takes interchangeable lenses. So you can buy (or hire) an ultrawide lens if you want to play at being Sergei Uresevsky. If you want shallow depth of field, you can get a ‘prime’ (non-zoom) lens with a wide aperture, which will have much better image quality and better-looking out-of-focus backgrounds (what photographers call ‘bokeh’) than you can get with a zoom video lens.

Many indie film-makers and documentary makers are going down this route. There are drawbacks to using a DSLR for film-making: the body shape is designed for shooting still images with the camera to your eye, so the handling is poor unless you mount it on a tripod or special rig; and sound recording is limited (so most film-makers will record sound separately with a digital audio recorder and sync later). But it does mean that, suddenly, you can get extraordinary image quality at a price most people can afford (I haven’t bought one yet, but I’m planning to).

Will they be used much in education? They are demanding in terms of planning and technical skills, so I can’t see them replacing video cameras for most school use. But I can see them being used in Art, Moving Image Arts, and standalone film-making projects where image quality is important.

Just one word of caution: I think the HDSLR is an intermediate stage in the evolution of the video camera. I suspect that someone (probably Canon) will soon bring out an affordable camera specifically designed for video, but with the same large sensor and ability to take SLR lenses.