Camcorder vs. DSLR: an indie filmmaker's perspective

Canon T3i / 600D, 60D, T2i / 550D, 1D Mark IV, 7D, 5D Mark II.
Panasonic DMC-GH2.
Nikon D7000, D5100, D5000, D90.
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Stephan
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Camcorder vs. DSLR: an indie filmmaker's perspective

Post by Stephan »

A 2-part article describing the pros & cons of camcorders vs. DSLRs: ("bokeh" being another name for shallow depth of field)

The point is tough and comes from a filmmaker perspective, but it also comes from experience as it seems. I especially like the pros & cons recap:
Paul Harrill wrote:Traditional low-level professional camcorder:
- not a stills camera
- less cinematic depth of field
- fixed lens
- somewhat video-ish handling of light
+ actual HD resolution
+ accurate focusing
+ less pronounced jell-o problems
+ single-system sound with XLR inputs
+/- all in one build (pros: it’s meant to be used this way; cons: looks like a video camera)
+ solid HD codec
+ stability/durability as a camera intended for video

Canon DSLR:
+ great stills camera
+ cinematic shallow depth of field
+ option of interchangeable lenses
+ beautiful handling of light
- difficult-to-edit codec with “reversal film” (i.e., limited) flexibility
- less-than-HD resolution
- issues obtaining accurate focus
- aliasing and moiré problems
- jell-o problems
- double system sound with separate sound recorder
+/- modular build (pros: pick what you need; cons: you’re only a strong as your weakest link)
- some overheating problems
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Doughie
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Re: Camcorder vs. DSLR: an indie filmmaker's perspective

Post by Doughie »

Interesting.
Whilst the writer of that article has some very valid points, and i agree that using DSLRs for video does have drawbacks etc, my suspicion is that he has a hidden agenda as the main reason for him writing the article. I have a different opinion on these new DSLR cams, and I will preface my comments by stating that i dont own any Canon stills or video equipment at all, - i only own Sony conventional videocams. I do have a Nikon SLR but i only use that for stills.

-Basically everyone needs to choose the most appropriate tool for the type of shooting you want to do. Nobody would advocate using a DSLR for run-of-the-mill vacation recording or documentary shoots. The writer is talking about film-making so let's take a look at that...

Budget : My opinion is that he has piled on all kinds of accessories, most of which are nice-to-have but not 100% necessery, in order to come up with a $ figure that is very close to the pro Pana camera he's using as a comparator. Throughout that article there seems to me that there is a whole undercurrent of pro-Sony&Panasonic, and anti-Canon vibe. I can give text examples, but i wont bother - they're in the article. He's essentially in my opinion having a pop at both DSLRs and also Canon, using the Canon DSLRs as the mechanism. Likely he is heavily invested in conventional Sony and Pana equipment, and likely makes his living out of using Sony and Pana conventional equipment, and is maybe IMO feeling a bit threatened by nascent technology and, maybe or maybe not, potentially making a dent in his income. So he wrote an article essentially justifying to himself his investments,- i am sure he has great equipment and is very talented.

Yes the new breed of video DSLRs ARE harder to use, have probs with aliasing and moire, focus needs a viewfinder to make it easier, blah blah. Everything has up sides and downsides. All these problems can be worked around. People can and do work around them - So let's ask ourselves the question : Why do they bother with all this hassle of using DSLRs?? Because of the 3 principal reasons that they chose to work with a DSLR (for video) :
Huge sensor - gives great low-light
Huge sensor - gives the option of very shallow DOF if you want to go that way
Interchangeable lenses - takes conventional lenses (which a lot of people may already have a selection of SLR lenses)

some of my points, these items mentioned by him as things you really have to have in his "bare-bones" (his words) DSLR kit :
Monitor : you dont need one, and if you DID need one for a DSLR, then you would need it too for a Pro videocamera.
Batteries : you'll need these for both machines. He says "And, a manufacturer like Sony or Panasonic supplies an AC adapter so you can run your camera off wall power. Canon does no such thing." How often do you record with your cam while plugged into a wall socket? Me - never. If you're buying a nice 4-figure recording device, you'll buy a couple of batteries.
Tripod : need that for both
Memory cards : so cheap, almost irrelevant. need that for both (IF the videocam doesnt use tape or Harddrive, Sony EX1 needs cards, and if you choose SxS they are very expensive (althought you dont have to use SxS anymore as you can get a SD-card adaptor for EX1 now)), He mentions the Pana HPX-170 a lot and that uses P2 cards whihc are US$389 for a 16Gb card. Hugely expensive. A 16Gb CF card can be had for less than $50. So memory cards for the HPX170 P2 cards and the EX1 SxS cards are hugely higher.
Separate sound recorder : for proper film-making naturally you'll need that for both, obviously and the proper mics / cables etc.
ND filters : you certainly dont need to spend $450 on expensive Tiffen set of ND filters.
Jell-o effect : this will be there to a greater or lesser extent for any cam running CMOS sensor, which 99% of recent models are. If you want no rolling-shutter probs at all, then use a CCD cam.
PluralEyes : i've used it, its quite clever but it doesnt line up the soundtracks exactly right (its close but it is not exactly right), and in any case, i am OFTEN synching 3 different soundtracks and it takes literally 3 or 4 minutes to get perfect synch. Just look at the waveforms in the edit - its easy to do.
Focussing : "accurate focussing" for 'traditional low-level pro camera". Yes but only if you use autofocus! He's talking about serious film-making and we all know that serious film-makers only use manual focus... Get a Z-finder for a DSLR and you can focus accurately.
difficult to edit codec : yes, but simply transcode to ProRes if you use a Mac, or Cineform (100bucks odd) if you use a PC, problem solved.
Lenses : you do not need to buy a $1100 L-series lens to get great images. You can, but you dont need to. Plenty of VERY good and quite-fast prime lenses available from Sigma and Canon at 30mm, 50mm, 85mm etc for around 4 or 500dollars. I own some Nikon lenses that i could use on a Canon DSLR with an adaptor. So, that would mean zero initial expenditure on lenses. (Many people own some SLR lenses already) Again IMO he has chosen an expensive lens to get his "you have to spend this much to get a usable system" up to his 'target' of around US$4000.
"Less than HD resolution" : No, they output 720p ansd 1080p. Its HD and thats that. also the 7D can do 24p, 30p, and 60p (60p at 720p), and so can the US$800 T2i/550D.

Finally, you dont need a US$1700 7D or a $2500 5D. you can get an $800 DSLR with the same sensor as 7D : 550D/T2i.

Summary : to do film-making with any tool, you will need to buy a lot of these accessories or all of them. It all makes life easier for that application. You can choose an $800 cam with a huge sensor, or you can get a $4000 Pana or $6300 sony (the two he mentions) and you will STILL need to add on most of all these accessories he's referring to. Just my opinion/observations.
steve
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Re: Camcorder vs. DSLR: an indie filmmaker's perspective

Post by steve »

Doughie,

I'm not trying to take any sides here, (my main camera is an FX1E - 1/3 inch CCD chips, MPEG2 codec etc.) I think that there are two different aspects of this. Without doubt, a large sensor and a good matched lens will produce good native resolution images, with attributes such as shallow depth of field, much loved by some. The quality can be easily demonstrated by well-taken stills.

Now when it comes to video mode, a whole new set of problems occur. First, the 5d MKII 4:3 sensor's native resolution is 5616x3744 (effective). Even if cropped to 16:9, the captured image will still be 5616x2808, so before coding at 1920x1080, a real-time down-res. will be required whatever codec is used. To do this, the image from the lens which is nearly three times the required resolution, needs to be optically filtered, usually by a bi-refringant optical filter. Unless Canon actually fit a second physical filtering arrangement, that is switched in when the video function is selected, the full 'still' resolution is sent straight into the decimation process that precedes the compressor. If the subject matter has significant high frequency components above the nyquist frequency, artifacts are sure to result.

Clips showing shallow depth of field imagery are all over Vimeo and You Tube, and some of them very good, amongst them are those from Philip Bloom. But they are short clips of at most, second generation encoding so any artifacts are not always a problem. The situation is slightly different with a full video production, where post production may involve more stages of processing ending in a compressor required for the final distribution format (e.g. MPEG2 for DVD or H264 for Blu-Ray) that either exaggerates the artifacts until they are visually unacceptable, or gobbles up the available bandwidth, resulting in a soft image.

Just my thoughts.

Steve
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Doughie
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Re: Camcorder vs. DSLR: an indie filmmaker's perspective

Post by Doughie »

Oh i totally agree Steve that these DSLRs are designed for taking stills and the sensor / processing for video is likely very much a 'well we can do this so we may as well add this video feature on'. I have no problem with people taking a different viewpoint - thats what these forums are for. I guess my post on this was fairly opinionated and perhaps a little strongly put !

What these cameras do to get down to the recorded 720p or 1080p res is skip lines from the sensor. Literally it takes one line uses that, and then skips another couple of lines and just discards that, and then reads the next one etc. It's really a very crude way to do it and inevitably this will give aliasing problems and it DOES give those problems. Essentially the sensor is too hi-res for the outputted video files.
- I would be very interested to know if canon/nikon etc have on the drawing-board designs for a next-gen camera (well, likely they're now on 3rd gen, with 2nd-gen already scope-fixed and likely about to go into production) where they use a more elegant solution than line-skipping. Also if they can give a RAW out, that outputs without using the (inevitably) heavily compressed codec then that would be great, and should be easily achievable.

This is interesting times for these 'hybrid' devices are concerned and how they will fit (long-term) into the spectrum of video-recording devices. I do think there is FAR too much 'massively-shallow DOF' D-SLR stuff out there. its easy to do, due to physical huge sensor and fairly inexpensive fast SLR lenses : f2 and f2.8 lenses are often used. I think so far that aspect of using these DSLR's has been somewhat overdone. Also they're harder to use and so making a longer film, an hour or more, is going to be a big challenge. - Because as you and the writer of that article said, (and i agree) they're not DESIGNED to be video-cameras. its just a feature that got added on by the manufacturers (Nikon were the first with D90 in around Sept. 2008, closely followed by Canon with 5D Mk.II).

My other thought is this : Nikon have been really somewhat absent (to a large degree) in the last year and i *suspect* this may be because their "D400" or "D700s" or "D900" (some of the labels i've heard) or whatever their next-gen cropped-sensor camera is called, might be because they have had to do a bit of a re-think as far as the specs for VIDEO for these next DSLRs, based on what has happened with the CAnon 7D and 5D MKII. D90 and 1D MK.iv are currently using MJPEG codec and limited to 24p and 720 res and i think Nikon need to decisively 'get with the program' and move beyond this old codec and limited res. I think this is a train that is leaving the station and being driven by a Canon driver and Nikon need to jump on that train fast. Maybe this is why these new Nikons have been late-arriving, they want to get it right as this video aspect on DSLRs is i think an increasingly inmportant feature as far as capturing as many sales as possible.
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Re: Camcorder vs. DSLR: an indie filmmaker's perspective

Post by steve »

Doughie,

Nobody (outside the core design teams) know where the next generation of DSLRs are heading. I suspect that we may be looking at a convergence between high-end SLRs and pro cameras designed for 'cinematic' footage. At the lower end will be new ranges like the recently announced Sony (as featured on our forum's home page). Slightly higher up the scale are the video cameras based on large sensors, like the Red range.

Its interesting that this range is taking a very long time to stabilise, - how long has the Scarlet been arriving? They are being offered as 3K and 4K cameras that will downconvert to 2K in real time. As we can see, this is no mean feat, and these cameras are being used for independent film productions where budgets are set to achieve high quality output.

Steve
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Stephan
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Re: Camcorder vs. DSLR: an indie filmmaker's perspective

Post by Stephan »

Good debate!

Taking a step back, I think the author's argument in comparing costs is just pointless. How can a filmmaker complain that $4000 is too expensive? As far as I recall, it's an order of magnitude (or close) cheaper than a fully equiped RED ONE, two orders cheaper than a Sony F35. If their whole feature production depends on being able to save a meager $2K, then it's closer to a hobby than anything else.

Now, regarding some technical stuff:
  • I think the most insidious difficulty lies in using lenses that match the sensor, as Steve said. Once aliasing is in there because the two don't match, I can't see how you can work around that and recover the footage. But after all, it's just about being careful enough to pick the right lens for each camera: manageable, provided that you have access to the right information.
  • Regarding the other source of aliasing (down-res), as long as the sensor resolution is at least twice that of the recording format, it's only about proper downscaling algorithm as Doughie said. If cameras can't have enough CPU power now to implement it real-time, or if it just can't fit in the small body at this time, they will surely solve it in the near future - or fit that into another form factor. I'm quite optimistic.
  • About jell-o: I never had jell-o with my 1/4-inch CMOS FX7. RED kind-of solved it by overclocking the sensor as I understand (hence the RED's 50W-or-so power consumption). Capturing sensor data through multiple simultaneous paths, like post-HDR-HC1 CMOS camcorders, will solve the issue.
So I believe this is all going to be worked out, basically.

Now when is that? What's the next step as Steve said? I agree with the hints of convergence. Beside Sony's announced hybrid camcorder that you mentioned, there's also the Panasonic AG-AF100: But with HD-SDI outputs, I don't expect the AG-AF100 below $6K. Filmmakers again. I'm eager to see which market segment Sony is targeting.
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Re: Camcorder vs. DSLR: an indie filmmaker's perspective

Post by Arkady Bolotin »

I have a slightly different approach to the “Camcorders or DSLR” dilemma. Without diving into technical details, my point is this.

Theoretically both devices (SLR digital cameras and camcorders) take pictures, therefore they have (again, pure theoretically) a great deal of components in common, and some of the models even shared identical – across the board – imaging processors, lenses and LCD displays.

However, admitting their similarity we cannot dismiss the principal difference between them: motion, motion capturing, to be exact.

In fact, human eye has different static and motion acuity. Speaking numbers, this difference is about tenfold: that is, our perception of a static picture is ten times sharper than that of a picture in motion (or of a static picture that we see only a split of a second).

That is why we can accept standard-definition television images (each frame of which is lousy 704×480 pixels or ×576 in PAL) but cannot stand a photo of the same size and resolution. Even the marvel of the modern technology – HDTV – has less than modest 1,920×1,080 pixels per frame; hardly anyone would be impressed looking at the still picture of the same resolution being stretched over a 50-inches-screen of home typical TV.

Studies show that in order to believe that we are watching a motion picture undistinguishable from real life, a frame resolution of 4K would be enough. Thus, to have photo resolution for video acquisition is simply overkill.

Obviously, we can use only a part of a photo-dedicated sensor for video capturing, but the question may arise, would be this wise?

The same dilemma presents in computer technology: can I use a server as a personal PC, or a personal PC (if it is powerful enough) as a server? Principally, the answer is yes (on the condition I would add a graphic card to the server or a RAID-type hard drive to the personal PC).

There is no other argument against the use of the server as the personal PC (or vice versa) but only expedient one.

I believe the same goes with DSLR and camcorders. No cut-off line lies between them, only expediency and practicality for a purpose.
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Re: Camcorder vs. DSLR: an indie filmmaker's perspective

Post by halfpipe »

nicely put Arkady!
At first when these things came out I was excited with the prospect to shoot stills and video simultaneously.
Alas shutter speed is the limiting factor for my image capturing endeavours. 1/60sec in my nstc world is really the only viable shutter speed for video whereas action sport stills will require 1/250 sec to avoid the blurr.
So reconciling these two speeds thru the same lense at the same time is not going to happen.
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Re: Camcorder vs. DSLR: an indie filmmaker's perspective

Post by Doughie »

Interesting article / use of 5D MKII, this is essentially a 'commercial' for the Navy :

http://blog.planet5d.com/2010/07/shane- ... ommercial/

Vimeo HD clip :
http://vimeo.com/11306252
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Re: Camcorder vs. DSLR: an indie filmmaker's perspective

Post by Stephan »

Beautiful photography! Very nice skin tones (with some make-up alright ;-) I always pay close attention to skin tones, they're a faithful test whether you're capable to control your colors or not.

I also especially like the beautiful views of the helicopter (01:30, 03:39, 03:50-03:54 in the mountain, and also the one @ 03:18 backlit & hovering above water). Most probably they've all been color-corrected, and the results are outstanding.

Side note regarding the helicopter views: I'm a big, big, 100% absolute fan of underexposing in overcast days with a pure neutral white point set on the clouds. Like this video, it gives beautiful shades of gray in the clouds, and a pure dark green to the trees... Fabulous. These 2 tips (underexposing + pure white point) will produce outstanding footage even on modest consumer camcorders.
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