The Benefits of a Rolling-Shutter

J

Jean Dantes

Well-known member
I been trying to make films since I was 14 (24 now). I've shot with mostly shi*ty fixed-lens handycam MiniDV cameras. I'm new to all this VDSLR stuff. What the 7D can produce literally blows my mind - what I'd give for a camera like the 7D to have been around back when I was 14 (haha, I sound like a grandpa) :violin:.

Anyways, after attending two film schools, and dropping out of both, I beared withness to a lot of films shot with both fixed-lens handycam MiniDV cameras and your typical shoulder-mount "wedding" HD video cameras. One thing I noticed about all these crappy film school movies was there was something missing in regards to the camera movement - the images just weren't cinematic - quick whip pans, no dolly shots, shaky hands - pretty horrible stuff.

Now, the point of this rather pointless rant is - rolling-shutter is a *****, and yeah, it'd be awesome if it wasn't there - but I guess one of the benefits of rolling-shutter is that it is gonna force the filmmaker to be much more cinematic in their movement.

I still think that you'd be able to pull off a "Saving Private Ryan" intro with a 7D, or mimic the cinematography seen in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu/Rodrigo Prieto films, but I think the best way to turn a negative into somewhat of a positive, is to bend the limitations to our advantage.
 
not to mention that rolling shutter is one of the trade-offs for actually having these tools at affordable prices at all. yes, its an annoyance, but i'd hate to be in the alternate universe where cmos dslr's don't exist at all, and the gap between handycam wannabe vs pro gear is still as wide as it was in 1985.
 
Also, I believe CMOS sensors are typically a lot sharper than CCDs (I could be wrong about that).
 
I fully agree about the shakycam, which will soon look as passe as the overuse of zoom in the 1970s. A lot of people don't realise that what kinda-sorta works on TV often looks terrible on the big screen. I've seen 35mm shorts where the audience complained about the handheld feel during the Q&A. Public Enemies had a lot of this style of camera work and I absolutely hated watching it.
 
Eddy Robinson said:
Public Enemies had a lot of this style of camera work and I absolutely hated watching it.
Click to expand...

There were a couple shots in that movie that actually felt like the camera guy was stumbling and it was a mistake, the shakyness was so bad.

It has its uses, but is sometimes over done. Just like most things in life.
 
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