It’s been almost 2 years that HDSLR short video clips appeared on Vimeo, most of them unedited with a piece of music running along, usually portraits, cityscapes, landscapes and some timelapses using digital photo cameras. As an avid emulsion lover till then the only words spoken by me was 1.66, 1.85, super 35mm super 16 etc. Industry people back then started shooting on the Legendary RED ONE but still the look of the image was still “videoish” yet expensive for indie filmmakers and students.
Along with the experimental HDSLR videos shot by students mostly, a DoP Guru suddenly appeared on blogs, forums and video related pages. One of his early HDLR works was shot on location at George Lucas ranch and everybody started commenting how beautifully the picture looked, some other interesting shallow depth of field videos came along and here you go Boom! The HDSLR dogma bloomed like spring flowers. Despite the fact that photo cameras never mend to be used vastly like video cameras some accessories was designed in no time to make photo cameras friendlier to camera operators and industry professionals.
DVD’s how to use a DSLR along with BTS materials and useful tips started spreading around and then the first truly detailed comparison test was shot by Zacuto, it was then I’ve decided to sell my film equipment and buy a DSLR camera body and a good set of prime lenses, monitor and accessories. Actually it took me several months of research, shooting lens tests, reading blogs and forums in order to choose the best products and lenses out there.
Since then many things changed, HDSLR became an industry standard, BBC started using it, many TV commercials was shot with it, House seasons last episode was in the list and a few short films rereleased to cinemas. Of course sites like Vimeo and Youtube helped young filmmakers to present their work and I’ll have to admit that there are very interesting pieces of work out there with excellent stories to tell, narrative or not, experimental or docs and 99% was shot with no – low budget.
Bottom line I do miss film and I’m looking forward shooting something on my little bolex or 35mm on commercials that I direct for a living, but seriously nowadays that budgets shrank due to recession buying a DSLR was a good choice.
