Cameras Don't Shoot People, People Shoot People

OK, this is a bit nit-picky and silly, but anything other than more Spirit articles, right?

Almost all the photography blogs I read have taken note that the official Obama presidential portrait was created using a Canon 5D Mark II. That's certainly of some interest, but what bugs me is how many of the blogs used wording that seemed to ascribe to the camera the actual authorship of the photo:

photographyblog.com: Canon 5D Mk II Shoots Obama Portrait

canonrumors.com: Barack Obama Official Portrait by Canon

digitalcamerainfo.com: Canon 5D Mark II Snaps First Digital Presidential Portrait

Call me pedantic, but the 5D did not shoot the portrait, and it is not a portrait "by Canon." White House photographer Peter Souza made the portrait, using a Canon 5D Mark II.

Hardly the most important thing to harp on today, but language that assigns creative authorship to technology rather than people is a personal pet peeve. After having never missed an issue, I unsubscribed from Wired magazine the day I read an article about visual effects that stated "the computer removes the blue."

Happy Holidays from ProLost

I love this time of year, and I hope you're enjoying it too. Here's a little ProLost gift for you iPhone users: some wallpaper images vaguely holiday-ish in nature. Right-click the images to download them, or grab them all in a zip archive here.

Above is Xmas Russell (readers of the DV Rebel's Guide know my dog Russell to be a patient photography subject). I call this next one Holiday Travel:

And this is Icicle Drip:

What I most wanted for Christmas in 1978, the Kenner TIE Fighter:

And lastly, in case I don't catch you before New Years, here's a slightly Suggestive Bloody Mary from Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis to help with your 1/1/09 recovery:

These images are copyrighted but free for you to use as wallpaper images on your personal iPhone or iPod Touch. If you want to share them, please simply link to this page.

Born TWiPy

ProLost is the Site of the Week on TWiP. If you're a first-time-visitor, thanks for stopping by! Here's a topical greatest hits to make you feel at home:

• The post that got me in is this, my tinker-toy musing of what the digital cinema camera of tomorrow might look like. Since then camera gear manufacturer Zacuto has gotten in on that game.
• But in order for all that stuff to make sense, we need camera manufacturers to get serious about this new class of camera.
• The first to do so may be Panasonic, with their announcement of the Lumix G, the first SLR-esque camera designed specifically to shoot video. Thoughts here.
• I wrote a letter to Canon asking for 24p support on the 5D MarkII.
• I wrote about RED's plans for making DSLRs obsolete.
• I explained why, as lovely as it is, Reverie looks like video, not motion picture film.
• Long ago, I preemptively praised Panasonic for the specs of the LX3. Today mine arrives from Amazon!
• At any time you can see all my posts tagged Photography or Cameras.
• On Flickr, here are my 12 "most interesting" photos, here are some of my selects, and here's my photostream.

Enjoy! I read all your comments and respond where appropriate. You can also find me at the Rebel Café, where we discuss stuff related to my book, The DV Rebel's Guide.

UPDATE: I appreciate all the requests for my impressions of the LX3. I'm going to refrain though until Lightroom supports it's raw files—until then, it's not a real camera. But I did post a couple of sample 720p24 videos on Vimeo to appease those who wanted to see how much of an improvement they represent over the LX2

:

Panasonic LX3 Video Sample: Chairs from ProLost on Vimeo.

Reverie

Image © Vincent Laforet

Vincent Laforet has a posted stunning new video made during the brief 72 hours for which he managed to get his hands on a pre-release Canon 5D Mark II.

You’ll immediately notice two things about it. I mean, once you get past the Moby soundtrack and helicopter shots:

• It’s gorgeous and
• It looks like video.

There are two reasons for the latter. The first, as previously discussed, is that it’s shot and shown at 30 fps.

But even more responsible for the video-like appearance of some shots is the shutter interval. Film usually has a shutter speed of 1/2 the frame duration, e.g. 1/48 second shutter speed for 24 fps. Video, unencumbered by a physical shutter, often has a shutter speed equal to the frame rate. The most video-like sections of Vincent’s short are those with 1/30th shutter speeds.

This issue plagues many 24 fps HD examples as well. Even at 24p, a “360 degree shutter” results in too-smooth motion with a video-like appearance. You may have seen this in some Hollywood movies shot with 24p HD cameras. It’s not the dynamic range or resolution that blows it for digital movies—it’s a simple choice to use a shutter speed impossible on a film camera.

I’m not trying to critique Vincent’s beautiful piece at all, just hoping to preemptively answer the question of why some 30p samples can indeed look filmic, and some don’t.

I’m also seizing this opportunity to discuss the 360 degree shutter issue, as it’s one that needs airing out. Sure, it may be a creative choice for a filmmaker to use a greater-than-180-degree shutter, but when my mom sees the trailer for Collateral and asks me why it looks like video, we’re talking about a choice that sets back the progress of digital cinema. If you want your 24p HD to look like film, the film we know and love, stick to a 1/48 second shutter speed or faster.

It gets right back to good old less is more—not only is 24p a minimal frame rate, it turns out that a big part of the signature film look is that you only see half the motion in each of those 24 frames per second.

In other words, 24p is only one part of what the filmmaker needs from an HD-equipped DSLR—another, equally important component is manual control, specifically the ability to enforce a 180 degree (1/48 at 24p) shutter speed.