The digital revolution has been going on for some time now. We’ve seen some exciting developments since we first started producing short films – Mini DV, HDV and then true HD – an evolution as well as a revolution.
Well now there’s another new kid on the block – but this one’s predecessor isn’t a digital video camera but a digital STILLS camera. We’re talking HDSLR or high definition digital single lens reflex camera, and these guys are taking the filmmaking world by storm right now.
One look at the images these cameras can produce and you can see why. These are more digital film cameras, than digital video cameras, producing the beautiful crisp, yet creamy picture quality and shallow depth of field (due to their much larger sensors) usually associated with celluloid.
Of course we got very excited by these cameras the moment we heard about them – and saw what they were capable of. But when we saw the price tags of these cameras – costing a fraction of professional HD cameras, we became sceptical.
As fate would have it, there came a time when we needed to purchase a new camera, unfortunately it was also a time when we didn’t have an awful lot of money with which to purchase one. But the camera HAD to be better quality than the one we were replacing, which was a Sony HDV. After a bit more research, we decided to go for it and purchased a Canon Rebel T2i or 550D as it’s known in the UK.
I have to say, from the moment we opened the box, the bug began to take hold – it brought back a lot of magical memories of playing around with SLR cameras (you know, the ones that used reels of film) when we were kids.
But it was the moving images this camera produced that truly impressed. On the very first day of spring, we decided to take the Rebel out on serious road test, using just the kit lens (with ND filters). The result is posted below.
