Pro video blog…Produced by Philip Johnston DoP/Editor

 

esquireIf the fusion of video cameras and dSLRs hadn’t blurred enough before, Esquire shot their June issue cover of Megan Fox in video—a purported first in the magazine world.

Rather than click and endless series of stills, photographer Greg Williams shot the cover with the 4K Red ONE video camera. Fox essentially acted out a scene for 10 minutes, the best moment of which will appear on the June 2009 cover. (Not to be wasteful of Megan Fox footage, the video will also be uploaded to Esquire’s site, of course.)

red-one-formattsIt’s fascinating that as digital cameras evolve, so will the roles of photographers, models and publications. I can’t see traditional photography ever dying, but whether photos will always be captured in photographs is another question.

The diagram on the right shows you the sensor sizes so it’s not surprising that the Red ONE 4 K video camera filming in 1080p captures Megan Fox for an A4 cover shoot.

Personally it’s a gimmick, let’s not kid ourselves we all know video runs at (UK 25fps) (USA 29fps), so if you shoot enough FPS with a large sensor running at 1080p you are using a glorified digital stills camera running at 29fps. Nothing special, apart from the cost of hiring a Red ONE for a morning.

It’s the coin flip on the digital SLR having the ability to film in HD…so what. Camera manufacturers are becoming obsessed with the “MUST DO EVERYTHING” these days, personally I still prefer a DSLR for taking photographs and a camcorder for filming live action. If I ever get round to upgrading my Lumix G1 to the GH1 I may rethink my last statement.

author

Having been working in the video business since 1988 I have amassed a great amount of knowledge of both the kit and production values over the last 30 years.

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