Last week, Illya Friedman, President of Hot Rod Cameras stopped by the studio to chat about the Canon HDDSLR’s that his company is modifying to fit PL mount lenses. We discussed about the HDDSLR movement, the benefits of standard cinema lenses, and how modifying these cameras to fit those lenses creates more of an industry standard workflow.
As a still photographer who has made the transition into the world of motion, it was interesting to talk with Illya – as he pinpointed so many of the small differences between still photography and cinematography that account for large issues on set – many of which I have discovered myself over the past two years. Luckily for the end user, Illya and others have recognized these discrepancies and are providing a solution. Check out the video above to learn more about how Illya is engineering these cameras to work with professional cinema lenses.
And of course you can always check out Illya’s site directly by visiting www.HOTRODCAMERAS.com.
PS- The lens featured at the end of the interview is the new 14-24mm T2.8 Ruby Zoom by FOCUS OPTICS. Check it out by CLICKING HERE.
Here’s a great interview on Stockland Martel’s blog with Grey Advertising’s Executive Vice President Nick Childs (and me.) It really does a good job of showing the progress of the Beyond the Still Competition and is a good reminder that you still have 2 chapters to enter and be part of it!
The contest, as you know, is like a video version of the game exquisite corpse, created by the Surrealists, in which an artist would make a drawing and then mail it to another artist, who would add on to the artwork and send it on to yet another artist, so that the final piece is a collaborative effort, yet the participants have communicated with each other only through their work. In this case, Canon gave Vincent a still and asked him to create a story with the photo as his starting point. And then they opened it up to the whole world and asked people to compete to create the next “chapter,” continuing the story from the last frame of Vincent’s film. And so on. (The contest is still going on. Details here.)
Aptly titled “Beyond the Still,” the contest performed above and beyond anyone’s expectations, according to Grey: “The first month alone spawned a tidal wave of entries, and Canon EOS 7D weekly sales exploded, increasing by 88% since the contest launched, making it the #1 selling DSLR in the world. Huge spikes in sales also spilled over to the Rebel T2i and 5D Mark II.”
Here’s a combination of two interviews I did with Vincent and Nick Childs, EVP, director of branded content, at Grey, about how the contest came together and what the awards mean.”
While many have been focusing on the antenna issues – others are taking the opportunity to shoot with these phones and produce some impressive work!
While I don’t see this changing the world of filmmaking overnight – I do think it points to a general trend towards smaller cameras, and using devices that are always on you at all times…
As Chase Jarvis said: “The Best Camera is the one that’s with you.” And I couldn’t agree more. Chase basically coined one of the foundational points that every young photojournalist has drilled into them by their mentors: ALWAYS HAVE YOUR CAMERA WITH YOU – YOU NEVER KOW WHEN SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN.
That’s why I think we’ll see a lot more of these videos in the near future – and especially in the news business – and it’s just a matter of time until a reporter does a live broadcast from a scene with “facetime” and that we see some breaking news videos shot with these phones.
This will likely cause yet another wave in the citizen journalism vs. professional media debate that’s been going on for years- especially for photographers.
Ever since the London Bombings and the Miracle on the Hudson (flight landing in the Hudson) – events that were primarily documented by amateur still photographs made with relatively high quality cell phones – breaking-news still photographers have found that it has gotten extremely difficult to compete with people who “are at the right place at the right time” equipped with just a cell phone.
I think the same will now happen in the video world… with phones that can shoot pretty amazingly clear 720p video – expect to see a LOT more first person footage shot by non-professionals on CNN, BBC, etc.
Interesting times… check out both of these videos. Pretty amazing to see what can be shot – with YOUR PHONE!!!!
I’m guessing that there are already a half-dozen people shooting music videos with them as well this week… I almost shot one with the previous generation iPhone 3Gs but didn’t think the quality was quite there yet.
I can say that both the 720p video and the still photographs I’ve seen coming out of the iPhone 4 are pretty stunning… I used one of the original digital cameras 10 years ago… the Canon DCS520 – and the quality of images coming off of this phone – ABSOLUTELY SMOKES that now archaic $20,000 camera… funny how things can change in 10 years… wonder what will happen in the next 10 years… heck – in the next 5 years to be honest!
