Canon 60D

I asked on the Media Education Association forum recently and it turns out some Media Studies teachers are using HDSLRs such as the Canon 7D with their students. Obviously there are drawbacks - handling, focus and sound - but the image quality, particularly in low light, is very good. As you can see from the picture of my Canon 60D rig below, they can also be fairly cumbersome once you add all the extra stuff you need.



I'm impressed with the 60D. It feels very solid, the in-camera audio is surprisingly acceptable, and it's allowed me to resurrect my great old Olympus OM Zuiko manual focus lenses. (The focus puller is a bolt strapped onto the lens with two reusable zip ties.)

The results are terrific, but focusing with the Live View is very tricky. I ended up buying an LCDVF viewfinder magnifier. It's well made (it should be at nearly £100) and gives a good clear image, but it doesn't have diopter (eyesight) adjustment like the much more expensive Zacuto alternative. I've made a removable mount from black foam board, with an elastic strap, to mount it on the 60D's articulating screen. Two layers of board move the viewfinder far enough from the screen to focus without eyestrain.

Here's some footage shot with it (and the cheap kit 18-55 kit lens) from the forthcoming Making Movies Make Sense 2 which we're developing with Cineclub.



I used a Gorillapod Focus and a Manfrotto tilt head which makes handholding much easier.

I also shot some audio dialogue footage: for that I used a Zoom H1 recorder mounted on a baby Gorillapod. I'll be using Final Cut X to sync it - I did my first editing with the same setup on FCX (a video of a music performance for a friend's daughter) couple of weeks ago and it did the job, though the learning curve is quite steep.