Cinematography: DSLR, size doesn't matter

With the release of DSLR cameras that can shoot in full HD, the screen industry stumbled unwittingly upon a new age of cinematography and many are following. Micah Chua found that producing good quality picture doesn’t need to be as expensive as it once was.

When Canon released the 5D Mark II with full HD video capabilities in late 2008 for photojournalists to accompany their stills with moving images, nobody had really predicted what would follow. It wasn’t the first camera to possess this capability – that honour goes to Nikon – but certainly it was the one that started a revolution.
“It’s exploded into a videographer subculture”, said Sony’s product specialist in digital imaging, Sean Ellwood.
But subculture may be an understatement. A wide variety of screen industry practitioners and filmmakers ranging from low budget independents through to top end international studio networks have caught on to the fact that the humble DSLR is certainly up to the task. Internationally, celebrity DSLR users include Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard, who used it to shoot a skit for the comedy website Funny or Die featuring a cast of Saturday Night Live stars, and Robert Rodriguez, who used it to shoot a music video. Even the season finale of the popular American medical drama House, directed by Greg Yaitanes, was shot on a Canon Mark II.
The last year has seen Australian productions such as Melbourne-shot feature Six Lovers, Rebecca Barry’s documentary I Am a Girl, and a range of TVCs, short films and corporate videos – from companies such as Resin, Orange Toast and Cinema Experience – shot on a DSLR.

Film schools around the world are also recognising the DSLR’s importance, with the New York Film Academy providing each new recruit with a Canon 5D, and the Australian Film TV and Radio School (AFTRS) holding seminars on the camera’s use in filmmaking.
“A number of university students have got them and are certainly using them already,” said AFTRS cinematographer lecturer Erika Addis. “They are in use in the courses and on the productions as we speak”.

The growing community of DSLR filmmakers are being cultivated by initiatives such as the eoscars.com and Vimeo, where DSLR film projects are being showcased online. Filmmaker and DOP Philip Bloom’s online blog also provides in-depth tutorials for DSLR users working specifically in filmmaking.
If these examples and the amount of online traffic locked in discussion over these cameras is any indication, the industry may have come across not just another tool in the DOP’s camera bag, but a piece of consumer technology that could potentially revolutionize the production industry.