Cameras capable of full-frame video
had DSLR filmmakers flocking to Photokina
Photokina, which ran from 18 to 23
September in Cologne, Germany, is unusual among trade shows in that it’s only
staged every two years. Two years is a long time in photography technology, so
it’s really interesting to see how things have changed since the last show you
get more of a sense of revolution than evolution.
Perhaps the biggest change in that time has
been the rise in DSLR filmmaking. It was just a very small part of the show in
2010 and now every major manufacturer has a camera that can shoot 1080p video,
many on a full-frame sensor.
In fact, full-frame is no longer just the
preserve of the high end, with both Canon and Nikon introducing budget
full-frame DSLR cameras at the show – the 6D and D600 respectively. The D600
was in the shops within days of launch and the 6D should be available to buy.
Both cameras cost the same on Amazon, with an asking price of £1,799 – that’s a
lot of camera for the price.
Canon’s
6D budget full-frame DSLR comes in at the same price as Nikon’s
Despite identical price tags and full-frame
sensors, there are a number of differences between the two cameras, especially
when it comes to video. Both can record 1080p footage as you’d expect at up to
30fps. And both shoot to SD card, which is fine for the current generation of
video bitrates that these cameras currently kick out. However, the D600 has two
slots to the 6D’s one; extra slots are useful, as it makes switching out a full
card much quicker.
One thing the 6D has over the D600 is that
it offers the ALL-I recording mode, also seen on the 5D MkIII and 1D X. This
records every frame, rather than just some key frames and the differences
between them, which results in better quality albeit at larger files sizes.
However, although the D600 doesn’t offer ALL-I, it does provide an uncompressed
clean HDMI feed that can be piped into an external recorder for even higher
quality footage. This is the third camera from Nikon that supports this
feature, which is only just starting to pop up on other maker’s cameras. The
other difference is the D600 has a headphone socket, so you can monitor audio
while you’re recording. The 6D lacks a headphone socket, so you’ll need to use
an external audio recorder with the 6D, which is one more thing to factor into
your budget and also makes editing more time consuming, as you have to sync
everything first.
ALSO OFFERING SOMETHING new in a full-frame size was Sony with the Alpha A99. It’s not a budget
offering, with a pre-order price tag of £2,499 – £700 more expensive than the
Canon and Nikon offerings. That amount of money could get you a nice lens, so
it’s not an insignificant price difference.
The
D600 has two slots to the 6D’s one; extra slots are useful, as it makes
switching out a full card much quicker
Sony has ditched the mirror entirely with
the A99, so technically it’s not a DSLR, which for video purposes is a good
thing. The mirror is locked out of the way in live view mode anyway when you’re
filming on a DSLR, so not having to shift it up in the first place makes it
quicker to start filming with.
Sony has also included a clean HMDI out, so
you can record an uncompressed signal to an external record for the upmost
quality, and there’s a headphone socket for monitoring audio while you’re
recording.
Perhaps most exciting in the audio
department, however, is the new XLR-K1M XLR adaptor kit, which, if you haven’t
guessed yet, lets you hook up a professional XLR mic straight to the A99. This
is a great step forward for a full-frame camera.
The A99 also offers 1080p frame rates up to
60fps, which is twice that of the competition. Most full-frame cameras only go
up to 30fps at 1080p, dropping to 720p if you want anything faster. The
advantage of filming at 60fps is that you can slow down the footage in
postproduction without any loss of quality. With the ability to keep at full
resolution while doing this, the A99 offers an advantage if you frequently use
slow-motion shots.
Whatever your budget, there’s no denying
that the full-frame video world got a whole lot more exciting at Photokina this
time round. Where we’ll be in another two years’ time, who knows? It’ll be
extremely interesting to look back on when the time comes.
Chaining audio on DSLR cameras
MANY OF THE
latest crop of DSLRs offer both mic and headphone sockets, so you can monitor
the audio feed from an external microphone while recording to check that
everything is working fine. There’s nothing worse than finishing a shoot and
heading back to edit it only to find later that the sound wasn’t being picked
up.
The addition of a headphone socket
along-side the mic jack also makes multi-camera work much easier. Normally, if
you’re shooting on more than one camera, you’ll record the audio separately and
then sync the clips in the edit. Software such as PluralEyes can make this
easier by automatically matching up the clips for you, but it’s still an
additional step to add to your workflow.
Sony’s
A99 full-frame camera isn’t a budget option, but it has a couple of tricks up
its sleeve, such as 1080p at up to 60fps
If you’re shooting on cameras with both mic
and headphone sockets, however, you can link them all together so they’re
recording exactly the same sound. First, hook up the microphone to the first
camera and then, instead of plugging in your headphones, connect the audio out
of the first camera to the mic socket of the second. You can repeat this for as
many cameras as you have on a shoot. You then plug your headphones into the
last camera in the chain to monitor the audio.
For this to work successfully, you’ll need
to experiment a little with the audio levels on each camera. What you want is
as loud as a signal as possible, without distortion, going into each camera. If
you clap directly in front of the mic, the levels on the first camera should go
into the red. Then reduce the record sensitivity until it stays just below red.
Next, you need to set the second camera to the same record sensitivity level as
the first and adjust the headphone output volume on the first camera until the
second camera is also just below the red. You’ll now have the ideal input and
output levels for all of the cameras on the shoot.
After they’re all set up, if you find that
the mic level on the first camera is too high or low, you can still adjust the
input level there with-out throwing out all the cameras in the chain. Provided
the input level on the first camera is still just below the red, the rest of
the cameras will also be just below red, too.
Using this approach will ensure the sound
will match in levels and quality across all the cameras, so when it comes to
editing the clips together, you don’t need to sync everything each clip from
each camera will have the same sound embedded so you can cut between them
without a problem.
