The Impact of Digital Cameras
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The Impact of Digital Cameras in the Video Production Process
The world of video production is changing rapidly. The worlds of video and standstill photography are colliding every day. Up until the present era, videography and recent photography have taken up different spaces, there being more moving parts in the film; time and sound being part. Recent technological advancements in digital camera products such as the DSLR, GoPro and RED for the filmmaking industry have changed every video production process entirely by storm and have bridged the wide gap between filmography and still photography. Film producers use high-definition, digital cameras to capture HD video footage.
The exponential growth in technology has impacted the digital media. In most video departments, DSLR cameras and digital camcorders with meticulous video capture capability are an inevitable resource in film productions because they help in saving quality time that creates room for creativity using editing software after shooting footage (BBC News). Digital cameras make production an affordable cost and enhance the ability to capture 24 video frames a second in high definition. Modern digital cameras have impacted on the film industry, leaving most filmmakers taking advantage of the DSLR and other digital camera products by making and directly posting videos and films on websites such as YouTube (Musburger 64).
Inspired filmmakers or video producers in the contemporary digital media era can produce an independent film such as Panorama for a small portion of the anticipated cost of production. The filmmaker could capture the film’s video scenes on a RED, GoPro or DSLR digital camera, pitting off the cost of processing the common 35mm films and also adjusting lighting settings while filming when necessary. A great example of such technological advancement is a film that the Canon company shot, free of still sequences and time lapses, that they captured entirely using a Canon 5D2. It depicted the digital camera’s capabilities to capture still and clear images. Any person with an open mind, on seeing the video could understand that the digital camera technology is entirely changing the art of filmography (Musburger 105).
HD digital camcorders are quickly being the preference over the film camcorder counterparts, and for a variety of reasons. HD digital cameras are the newest enhanced replacement for the traditional, necessity-based film-based cameras. Digital cameras pose a major benefit in that they produce high definition and high speed digital films with appealing quality. Film-based cameras tend to produce unpleasant colors in comparison. Moreover, the color information that exists within the camera memory in terms of digital and binary forms that never changes with time allow for better performance and future proofing. This is unlike analog cameras whose colors on the films fade with increasing time.
In terms of digital camera storage arrays, the space occupied is minimal unlike the analog counterparts that take up enormous shelves of space. For instance, GoPro digital cameras facilitate considerable space savings; have quick and accurate indexing and allow for external storage via allowing transfer of captured films to external optical medium and memory drives. A typical traditional camcorder does not allow such indexing and the producer of the film has to do it physically, which is tedious. Traditional film media requires the producer to generate an independent copy of the captured video and then physically send it across; unlike the modern film cameras, such as the DSLR that allow for the storage, copying and transmission via digital channels that are preinstalled as operating software.
Digital cameras have made it easy for filmmakers to retain the quality of the footage scenes even in the process of storage, copying and transmission. The final copy from a RED digital camera is as HD as the original. Traditional camcorders have a major quandary in that every single copy reproduced of the original is of lower quality than the original copy (Watkinson 20). In the production process, therefore, a video producer using the analog camcorder faces a problem with the progressive decline in video quality of every new copy that comes from the original copy. One would not expect to see a filmmaker getting disappointed with data copying, because the entire process, for instance with a DSLR digital camera, occurs perfectly and instantaneously (BBC News). The data cannot also disappear or get lost after the filming process because the storage is intact and secure.
In addition, the film-based video production is inherently prone to various demerits, such as the ineptitude to preview the film footage under recording and a substandard video development process. Moreover, following the augmentation in the application of computer-generated imagery and graphics, the editing of film sequences and rendering such is not feasible from a viewpoint, manpower and materials. Despite that the video production media offers merits such as the aptitude to record at resolutions much greater than the HD formats and at an extensive dynamic range, such advantages are totally overshadowed by the notion that HD media induces great cost savings in comparison with the analog media, controlled by the traditional film-based media. Moreover, a filmmaker that use digital cameras perform uploads, make transfers, instill effects and edit with the aid of the digital media.
Digital videography using modern and powerful digital cameras has changed the filmmaking industry for better video quality, presently known as the 4K video production. 4K video was a subject matter in a recent show by the Consumer Electronics. This has seen most retail electronics manufacturers designing modern 4K video-compatible hardware. The strategies have come into place because most video are being preformatted by filmmakers using HD digital cameras as given in various examples above. The hardware such as TVs in the market have to be capable of displaying video in 4K HD resolutions, an advent that has changed TVs, mobile phones and household electronics that families purchase.
The 4K resolution is also called the Ultra high definition or the digital cinema, which has available and thriving because of the advent of contemporary digital cameras with whom video producers have affiliated with and forgot about old camera technology that is not compatible with such processes such as filmmaking and digital cinema mediums that people cherish, the HD and 4K, among other to come in the near future (Medoff and Kaye 98). Video producers will now have to integrate post-production and video production gear that will help them keep in touch with the rapidly changing digital world via using HD digital cameras to take video scenes and present to the film industry what people want and demand, of course, it being HD films and videos on their screens.
It is very evident that more digital camera manufacturing companies such as the Sony, Kodak and Canon among others are competing by producing more powerful and high definition digital cameras for video production use. However, the digital camera option to many may seem as an expensive option, though, it is succinct that digital cameras cut down on video production budgets regardless of the initial cost price (BBC News). For the 4K, it is no longer a query when it shall be in full use by filmmaking studios because it is already on the production table, where most video producers have dedicated significant resources and time to ensure that the digital cinema goes to the next level and that films become part of human lives as a source of education, entertainment and a channel of expression.
Additionally, the digital camera technology will result into the full use of the 4K effect in DSLR, GoPro, RED and other camera models in the filmmaking process, a move that will revolutionize the entire digital film industry in the near future. Notably, video producers who rely on visual effects and compositing will have to use 4K. Visual effect architects find themselves in numerous post-production conundrums. To prove this, it is clear that it is quite easy to position a composited element when many pixels are available to work with (Dargis and Scott). Whenever the visual effect elements are huger than the entire composition, it is quite easy to scale down, while retaining clarity in vision. That explains why digital filmography using digital cameras is changing the film production process and the world that is part of it.
The digital cameras will continue to transform film production and the lives of producers too. Filmmakers can prepare themselves by discovering and adapting to what the new color systems and rich images they will have to cope with. Getting to what the digital cameras can do, it is pertinent to acknowledge the power of each and consider its impact on the filmmaking process (FilmConnection). The greatest advantage of the DSLR digital cameras is that they possess interchangeable lenses that allow the video producer to adjust the display and background settings for the footage. Digital cameras present the control to the person shooting the video by allowing subject isolation. For a viewer to understand the concept, look at a latest major movie release and you will notice how the subjects get isolated from the real background.
In subject isolation the subject is distinguished from the actual background, is in sharp focus, and the background is in blur. Video producers achieve such isolation via using a high-speed, aperture fixed focal lenses. This is unlike the analog HD cameras that may have a reasonable zoom, but whose aperture cannot beat a digital camera’s focal length. Such features of a digital camera appeal to most producers and always end up producing the best video footage, films or documentaries (Dargis and Scott). Therefore, it leaves much to imagination what technological enhancements that will occur in the future digital cameras that will in turn change how the entire video production process is and if there will be any constraints or developments emanating from digital camera use.
It goes without saying that while the positive impacts of some lenses are tempting, there exist drawbacks when using digital cameras such as DSRL cameras. Such limitations include poor control of recording, manual zooming and availability of maximum record time (Medoff and Kaye 65). With the record time, DSRL cameras offer up to a maximum of 30 recording minutes at the highest resolution, and it depends on the manufacturer of the digital camera. However, the analog video production cameras do not have such a limitation, having record times of up to two hours and it depends on the video definition record quality and the storage media in use. For instance, an analog camcorder can record footage exceeding 2 hours continuously at the greatest resolution on a 32 Gigabytes SD card.
As noted before, most critics argue that the zooming capabilities of the analog cameras are substandard. They, however, according to supporters of the analog filming cameras, have variable speed controls. Unfortunately, when taking footage with a modern DSLR camera, only manually controlled zoom control is commonly available. Most DSLR camera users may be able to zoom manually, though it takes much practice before the zooming activity is smooth and is devoid of stop and start bumps. Additionally, audio control is a necessary feature for analog videographers who use analog cameras. Though on many digital camera models, audio control is either unavailable or has rather clumsy control features (Musburger and Kindem 293). However, modern DSLR digital cameras provide a stepped audio control for video a producer that achieves better performance. Thus, if any filmmaker is purchasing a digital camera, they ought to ensure that it is equipped with a manual audio control system.
Conclusively, there is little or no reason to conclude between the dichotomies between the digital cameras’ impacts on filmography and the analog camcorder’s effect on the same. It is apparently clear that both media for video production are in the development phase and much is doable with regard to what will happen in future cameras, depending on what is necessary at the time of any single video production (Musburger and Kindem 83). Critics may argue that they have a limited feeling of the imminent and future technological change, because the future film production technologies may require mechanical interfaces instead of electronic menus. Thus, certainly within the entrance of the digital audio, there have existed numerous developments that can re-create digital-controlled cameras that have an analog-style interface for the purpose of familiarizing engineers with the analogue technologies and principles of the traditional digital cameras and equipment.
Moreover, most cinematographers usually use analog film camera and lens peripheral devices, further using digital as the formal acquisition format. Notably, video producers can attach most lenses and other analog camera peripheral devices to the contemporary technology. With the new Genesis cameras that adopt a 35mm CCD; the modes of using such are much identical (DIANE Publishing). Whereas, before filmmakers could argue that the footage presented to them with a decreased latitude of their design, much of the dichotomies have moved out of phase and numerous video producers are presently left with an extensive array of tools from which to select their favorite mode of shooting, dependent on the budget, circumstances and movie style (Watkinson 31). Though, it is worth noting some of the basic differences between the analogue and digital cameras.
Any filmmaker can anticipate the digital cameras to continue growing, which shall provide an avenue for upcoming video producers to apply their imagination and creativity at a decreased cost. The aptitude to capture a video footage on a mobile phone in full HD and edit it using a variety of cellphone application software, then uploading it to YouTube or Vimeo via the cellular network for the entire globe to watch is already occurring. It shall be an interesting thing to see how modern technology grows to aid video producers and artists share their innovations and creativity (FilmConnection). The advent of the modern digital cameras is a continuing thing. As such cameras continue to aid in video production, some of their present limitations may fade. Meanwhile, it is advisable for any filmmaker to throw their analogue camcorders just yet.
Works Cited
“Five ways the digital camera changed us.” BBC News. BBC, 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 25 May 2014. <http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16483509>.
“The New World of Digital Filmmaking.” Film Connection Film Institute The New World of Digital Filmmaking Comments. FilmConnection, 1 Jan. 2014. Web. 25 May 2014. <http://www.filmconnection.com/reference-library/film-entrepreneurs/the-new-world-of-digital-filmmaking-0411/>.
Dargis, Manohla, and A. Scott. “Film Is Dead? Long Live Movies.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 8 Sept. 2012. Web. 25 May 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/movies/how-digital-is-changing-the-nature-of-movies.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>.
Medoff, N.J., and B.K. Kaye. Electronic Media: Then, Now, and Later. Focal Press, 2011.
Musburger, R.B. Single-Camera Video Production. Focal Press, 2010. Media Manuals.
Musburger, R.B., and G.A. Kindem. Introduction to Media Production: The Path to Digital Media Production. Focal Press/Elsevier, 2009.
The Migration of U.S. Film & Television Production the Impact of “Runaways” on Workers and Small Business in the U.S. Film Industry.DIANE Publishing.
Watkinson, John. The art of digital video. CRC Press, 2013.
