DSLR Cameras

[Jared Isham]

I was curious to know of peoples opinions on the new DSLRs that are shooting HD Video. The one that is catching my attention is the Canon EOS Rebel T1i - mainly due to the price. The big set backs I see is the lack of a 24p option.

What are your thoughts. I often record audio separate so that is not a huge concern for me - more the picture is what I am think of.

 

[BenB]

24p is in fact over rated marketing hype. It does absolutely nothing but make your "video" look like jittery "video". To make it look like film, you absolutely MUST light like film, frame like film, block like film, and use a lens adapter with 35mm glass to get the film DOF. 24p by itself degrades the quality of motion on video. Film does not have jittery motion, 24p video does. So why make jittery video? It doesn't look like film at all.

As for DSLR's that record HD video, they're fine. Drawbacks are: very short single shots, very limited storage capacity, very highly compressed codecs, NLE compatibility. You also can't do hand held shots the same as you would with a video camera, due to physical form factor.

On the flip side, they do get very clean images, and have great DOF due to the glass on the DSLR's. Once you work out the NLE issues, they can be fun to use. But I'd never do a whole, serious piece of film work using only one of them.