Though if you’re like me, it all begins as a hobby. You may find yourself wanting to film better snowboard videos, family videos, etc, and your little point & shoot camera or pocket camcorder just isn’t cutting it. The scary thing is, the best pro-sumer camcorders at your local Best Buy don’t even come close to producing anything Spielberg-like, and even if they did, the prices are enough to make you cringe. As you begin making a list of all the things you think you need to make great films, seemingly benign pieces of equipment like lens adapters and steadycams come with price tags big enough to swallow up an entire pay check or more. Before you know it, the cinematic film you’d envisioned of your daughter’s first steps, or your friend’s new snowboard trick (…or in my case, something resembling Top Gear) is going to cost a bajillion dollars (in case you were wondering, that’s a million gajillions (I tend to use a lot of brackets by the way (nested ones too))).

Without being too specific and going beyond the scope of this article, the three major things that set Spielberg’s films apart from the average Joe’s are; the lens the film is shot through, the audio equipment used, and technique (in regards to both filming and editing). Now you can easily cover up bad audio with a little music, and improving your technique just takes time and practice. However, the lens and whatever it’s attached to is going to cost you. Bigger, better lenses or “glass” as you may hear me refer them to = a lot more $$$$.

Using the right lens

Before you get all worked up about the cost of good glass and then I calm you down with the inexpensive work-arounds, we need to talk briefly about why the lens is so important to cinematography. I know, most of you are probably saying “umm, cuz that’s where the light comes through, sttttuupid”. And most of you are right, I am stupid, but that’s besides the point. Most consumer camcorders and cameras have relatively small lenses and apertures. The aperture is the circular filament or iris inside the lens that controls the amount of light that gets through to the camera’s sensor or film. The degree to which the aperture is open or closed is referred to an f-stop. Confusingly, bigger f-stop values like 8 mean the aperture’s nearly closed and letting little light through, while smaller f-stop values like 1.4 mean the aperture’s wide open and letting lots of light through. An easy way to think about it is; the bigger the f-stop number, the greater the amount of light that’s being stopped from getting through.

Apertures could be an entire discussion of their own, but how it relates to what your video looks like essentially boils down to this; smaller apertures (e.g. f8, stopping lots of light) put nearly the entire image in focus… while bigger apertures (e.g. f1.4, stopping little light) allow you to be much more selective with your focus, such as putting your subject in focus while the background remains out of focus. Film makers commonly refer to the bit that’s out of focus as “bokeh”, which is highly desirable. The selective focus creates “depth-of-field” that mimics the way you look at things with your own eyes more naturally.

Because most consumer camcorders and cameras have relatively small lenses and apertures, they tend to put the entire image in focus, which is okay, but it doesn’t look very cinematic. There are a few tricks to manually creating a little more depth-of-field, which usually involve either being super close in macro-mode, or zooming in a lot first but require you to be much further away from your subject. As you climb towards more expensive camcorders, you begin to find larger lenses with bigger apertures too. However, even professional camcorders that cost $5000 or more have trouble creating a desirable depth-of-field for cinematography or creating that “film-look”. Yikes!

35mm film adapters

Canon HF10 camcorder, with a TwoNeil 35mm adapter and a Nikon 50mm f1.8 lens, mounted on Cavision rails (click to enlarge)

At the beginning of 2007, affordable consumer camcorders like Canon’s HV20 began popping up, which could film in 1080p24p (1080p at 24 frames per second). 24p is the frame-rate cinematic movies are commonly recorded at. Most consumer video recording equipment records at either 30p, 29.97p or 60i, so the HV20′s 24p attracted a lot of attention (I’ll talk about the differences between “p”-progressive and “i”-interlaced footage another time). Yet still faced with the small lens and aperture problem, crafty filmmakers began making 35mm lens adapters and attaching them to the front of their HV20′s. Check out my Canon HF10 35mm rig pictured here.

Inside a TwoNeil 35mm adapter, with an HD achromat (click to enlarge)

A 35mm adapter is essentially a round tube with a small semi-transparent focusing screen on the inside, which allows you to mount a traditional Nikon, Canon, etc, lenses to the front of. It’s called a 35mm adapter because the internal focusing screen represents 35mm film stock and works as follows; light enters through a big [but cheap] prime camera lens… the image is focused onto the 35mm adapter’s internal focusing screen… and then the [inexpensive] camcorder records that image from the other side. Voila, affordable cinematography solved. Well, sort of, but we’ll get to that in a moment. In case you were wondering, here’s a video using the 35mm adapter pictured above (Family time – with depth-of-field that draws your attention to what’s in focus), followed by a video for one of my other sites, shot using the same camcorder but without the 35mm adapter (Park Life @ Tremblant – nearly everything’s in focus)…

For the first time, 35mm adapters made decent looking cinematography affordable to the average Joe or Jane, but they came with a few drawbacks. The adapter itself cuts down the amount of light that gets through to the camcorder… the camera lens also flips the image, which causes it to appear upside down on your camcorder’s view screen… there can be a significant amount of vignetting… and sometimes dust settles on the focusing screen which shows up in your video. Some of the more expensive 35mm adapters vibrate the internal screen to eliminate the dust problem, but they can cost more than the camcorder! Furthermore, depending on the unique characteristics between the camcorder and the adapter, you may also need an achromat lens to help the camcorder focus on the image within the adapter.

You could still put together a camcorder with a basic 35mm adapter and a prime camera lens with lots of depth-of-field for about a $1000, which was fun. By the way, a “prime” lens means it’s a lens with a fixed focal length (which are relatively inexpensive and come with bigger apertures). However, those budget camcorders had limitations of their own, namely poor low-light performance which doesn’t help when the adapter’s already reducing the amount of light that gets through. So, filmmakers began putting more complicated [expensive] 35mm adapters on their more capable $5000+ camcorders. Though before you know it, you’re looking at a bajillion dollars again.

DSLR’s & cinematography

Enter in the DSLR, or digital SLR camera. Dun, dun, dunnnn. Towards the end of 2008 and nearly two years after the HV20 came out, Canon released the 5D Mark II, which was the first DSLR camera to feature 1080p recording at a full 30 frames per second. Not to mention, a huge “full-frame” sensor equivalent to the size of 35mm film stock. 1080p… check. Big lens… check. Excellent low light performance… check. Breathtaking cinematic quality… check. Affordable… “screeeech” crash! The 5D Mark II takes absolutely beautiful footage that rivals some big budget film cameras used in major motion pictures, yet it isn’t exactly cheap itself at a hefty $4-5k when you include the lens, extended warranty and taxes. Until recently, it was also limited to recording at 30p, which left a lot of people wanting that elusive cinematic 24p. Though the camera was definitely a step in the right direction.

About a year later in the fall of 2009, Canon released the 7D. I know what you’re thinking, “7D is more than a 5D!”, but the 7D is actually a small step down in terms of sensor size from the 5D Mark II. Although, the 7D still enjoys big lenses, creates beautiful looking footage, performs superbly in low light and records in frame-rates of 24p, 30p, and 60p! (60p can be conformed to 30p or 24p in post production to create silky-smooth slow-mo, but that’ll be a topic of its own in another discussion). The best part is, the 7D costs about $2k, which is roughly half the price of a 5D Mark II… we’re getting closer to affordable cinematography!

The Canon T2i, aka, 550D (click to enlarge)

At the beginning of 2010… drumroll please… Canon released the Rebel T2i (also known as the 550D in Europe). The T2i’s video capabilities are virtually identical to the 7D and costs roughly half the price at only $1000. Granted, the T2i doesn’t have the same weather-proofing or magnesium alloy chassis as the 7D, nor all of its photographic capabilities. But for filming purposes, who cares! We finally have affordable cinematography!

You may be asking “what about Nikon DSLR’s for filming?”. Don’t get me wrong, Nikon makes some wonderful cameras and I actually prefer many of their prime lenses. Their D3S is probably the best DSLR out there at the moment for filming in low light too. However, their video capabilities in the same price range as the T2i leave a little to be desired for. Canon really pioneered the amateur cinematography movement and their DSLR’s are backed by a lot of strong technical know-how from their professional camcorder devision. As the trend continues at Canon, look forward to better lenses, sensors and video capabilities at even more affordable prices in the years to come.

Concluding thoughts

So there you have it. Affordable cinematography with DSLR’s. You can forget about all those complicated 35mm adapters and super expensive pro camcorders. Just pick up a T2i and some affordable prime lenses with great depth-of-field. George Lucas & Co are just beginning to experiment with 5D Mark II’s and the season finale of the popular TV show House was just filmed on one too. So what are you waiting for! Learn, practice, have fun and show Spielberg what you can do!

By the way, here’s the first vid filmed on my T2i. Hope you enjoy it!…