Video DSLRs – Pointless Arguing | Amateur Photographer

Jan 22 2010

Video DSLRs – Pointless Arguing

Published by John Rappold at 11:48 am under Video

I ran across a thread in a video forum awhile back asking “are DSLRs that shoot video a fad?” The majority of posters seemed to think “yes”, because they see the cameras only being used to create shallow depth of field. Invariably, someone brings up the tired old argument that shallow depth of field isn’t needed because of Gregg Toland’s work on Citizen Kane. as if his deep focus work on the film was a mandate that all future film should be shot with focus from front to back. In my opinion, shooting with deep or shallow focus should be an artistic choice. Most modern films use both techniques, and even video games use shallow depth of field, especially when they want to draw a player’s attention to a specific spot on the screen.

I can see why most posters in the thread see that video DSLRs are a fad. Take a look at a video site such as Vimeo, and you’ll find loads of “depth of field test” shots with these cameras, but in comparison there aren’t that many actual finished pieces of work. I believe that if most people are wanting to shoot video with a DSLR because they want shallow depth of field, they are buying for the wrong reason, and actually missing the best feature of these cameras.

First, if you want shallow depth of field and you already own a camcorder, either shoot at full telephoto or get some Neutral Density filters. A set of NDs and maybe a closeup filter set can give you most of what you want, and is a lot cheaper than a DSLR. True, unless you have a high-end camcorder you probably won’t be able to get focus pull shots, but really, how often do you need to do that? I see lots of focus pulling on DSLR video test shots, but not much in a finished video.

Below are two shots from my Summer Light video on Vimeo ( http://vimeo.com/5752303 ) shot with a stock Canon HF10. I have actually seen comments from people on other videos where some idiot makes fun of someone because they would have to shoot further away to get such shots from a camcorder. Really, if you’re too lazy to move your camera around, you need to find another hobby or profession.

When I was ready to upgrade my Nikon D70s, I was ready to pull the trigger on the D300, when I received a call from my Pro Photographer friend that Nikon was due to release the D90, the first DSLR to shoot video. I bought mine the first week it was released, not because I would be able to do shallow depth of field shots, but because I would now have a wide selection of different lenses. Sure, I can use a fast Nikkor 50mm f1.4 or 1.8 lens for shallow depth of field, but I was more interested in wide lenses for my landscape work. The frame grab below was shot on the D90 using my Sigma 10-20mm lens (a favorite), cropped to a 2:35 ratio. The video is available at http://vimeo.com/6415353. In 35mm terms, this is a 15mm focal length shot: