Day: March 3, 2010

In this Videomaker article, the topic is slow motion. I have always been fascinated by slow motion, because I have no idea how the video software inserts additional frames in order to get slow motion. The article discusses how overcranking works, by which I mean the process of getting less material on more film, and then playing it back at normal speed so the events are stretched out. This is interesting, but not very applicable to us, since we use a bit more modern technology.
Next, the article discusses when one should use a slow motion event. One uses slow motion when they wish to slow time down and capture a dramatic event, such as a bullet being fired, somebody getting caught, or something. This creates audience tension, and when the audience is tense, that means they’re paying attention. Plus it’s fun to mess with the audience; play with their emotions. (Reason number 512 why Edward should have fried at the end of the Twilight movie.)
But I digress. The article wraps up by saying that slow-motion video is usually reserved for people who have special cameras that can either shoot at greater FPS, or people with really expensive and good editing software. I’m not sure about the camera, but we definitely have the technology. All I have used slow motion for as of yet is to make lip-synching work, and I don’t believe I’ll have much of an opportunity to do so this quarter. I don’t see much use for slow-mo in a documentary.

I recently read a article in the magazine VideoMaker that critiques the new Canon EOS 7D DSLR camera, for those of who don’t know DSLR stands for Digitial Single-lens Reflex camera, which in other words is better then your normal digital camera in quality, resoluion, has many more settings to them, and also has interchangable lens’ that you can buy for the cameras.

The article talks about how the Canon EOS 7D now has the ability to record HD video, as well as take still RAW and JPEG photos. It critiqued the camera on having to just change one switch to have the ability to record video which is very common in small digital cameras. They say how the camera is well balanced out with the lens because the the camera is obviously going to be a bit heavier then most DSLR cameras would be. The camera allows the user to change the lens and the zoom, which we don’t have on our cameras here at school. Another function that is very important to the camera is they commeneded Canon on the fast focus that the 7D has. They said how very fluid and quick the focus was able to change, which causes me to question if the still camera of it has the manual focus and if the manual focus is any different from the focus that “normal” DSLR cameras use. There is one very new quality that the camera has which is very essential for the video camera aspect of the 7D, which is the ISO can go extremely higher then most DSLR cameras. The camera can go up to 12,800 ISO which for my Nikon D40, it only goes up to about 800 or a setting called “High” which means it will go higher then 800 but you can not specifically put up to 1,600 ISO. Anyway! The high ISO that the camera can go to will allow video to be shot during the night, without excessive amounts of light in the shot. AKA “Night shooting is a REALITY” Which is very big for a camera like the 7D.

Overall Canon normally has rather good video cameras, but with DSLR cameras I tend to stick to Nikon because I don’t like the set up that Canon has opposed to Nikon. So it would be interesting to try and use the 7D and learn how to use it as a video camera in addition to a normal DSLR.

– Grace