October 10, 2008

Film is not Moving Photography

Wired has a piece up about the new breed of DSLRs with the ability to shoot HD video. Now, the main objective of the piece is to point out that new chip designs have lead to this ability, but I take issue with comments like this:

"The single biggest difference between still photography and a movie, aside from motion, is lens choice and depth of field," says Vincent Laforet, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who is part of a Canon marketing program, "Explorers of Light."

Okay, first of all, I'm not sure that Laforet is aware that professional film cameras, including digital cameras like the Red One, do have the ability to changes lenses and offer a shallow depth of field as well. Later:

Laforet predicts that this low-light sensitivity will lead moviemakers to dispense with expensive, bulky, and obtrusive lighting equipment, shooting their movies entirely with available light.

Documentary, maybe. But as a professional photographer, I would think Laforet would know that light use is not simply utilitarian, only to expose the shot. Light can and should be an artistic choice. This alone means the "expensive, bulky, and obtrusive lighting equipment" isn't going anywhere any time soon.

Laforet is correctin one area: these cameras will be a great asset to news photographers who can now get snippets of video.

Now, call me elitist ((Listen, I recognize that the democratization of technology is generally A Good Thing™, but it also leads to an ever decreasing signal-to-noise ratio.)), but while I am excited to see the potential of these new DSLRs unlocked by the tallented people who use them, these cameras will not turn photographers into cinematographers or filmmakers. Just as having Photoshop does not turn one into a designer. They need to realize film (both documentary and narrative) is not simply moving photography. There's story. There's sound ((Please, use a good microphone! I'm glad to see the Canon 5D Mark II add an external mix jack, the lack of one on the Nikon D90 is sad.)). There's pacing.

My predictions: at first, we will see a lot of beautiful moving photography. Then, once people get over that, we will begin to see the true potential of these cameras. But just remember: if the content isn't there, it doesn't matter how pretty the image is, it will still be boring ((I do sound like an elitist, don't I?)).

September 28, 2008

The Falcon 1 Has Made It Into Space

On their fourth attempt, SpaceX has successfully launched the Falcon 1 into space, marking the first for a privately funded rocket.

September 7, 2008

DNC/RNC Speeches through Wordle

picture-5Wired blog Threat Level ran the speeches of both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions through the website Wordle and posted the results. Developed by IBM, Wordle takes whatever text it is fed and creates "word clouds." The more frequently a word occurs, the larger it appears in the cloud. McCain, for example, spoke frequently of "country" while Obama spoke of "promise."

August 28, 2008

Wired: Red Digital Cinema

Red Digital Cinema, creators of the Red One 4k camera, is profiled in Wired magazine this month. The Red One is an amazing piece of tech (though the post workflow is still continually evolving), and this piece by Michael Behar goes a long way in explaining why. Though John Gruber puts it more succinctly:

[The] Red One movie camera is, dollar-for-dollar, the best and most amazing camera in the world. It sells for $17,500 — but if you think that sounds expensive, consider that the equivalent film camera rents for $25,000 per month...

♥︎ Built with love from Minneapolis. Projects are copyright of their respective clients. All others ©2004-2023 Paul Conigliaro.