The Next Wave in Digital Video For Marketing - Video DSLRs and Theater

As a videographer I have spent thousands of dollars on the equipment I use, for instance I've easily invested over $7,000 for my high definition video camera alone. But, like all things digital, equipment costs keep going down while performance increases dramatically at the same time.

Now we are in the middle of a real game changing trend that is going to have a huge impact on visual storytellers - Video DSLRs. Companies like Canon and Panasonic have created digital still cameras with fantastic video capabilities, including shooting full 1080p high definition video, replaceable lenses and very large sensor sizes that allow us now to get very cinematic looking images. Getting that "film look" is perhaps the gold standard when it comes to online video. What does film look actually mean? That's a big debate but one or two features most everyone agrees on:

• Shallow Depth of Field - meaning the background behind your main subject is blurred out/out of focus


• Various ways to smoothly move the camera using steadicam type gear, "sliders" to full on jibs and cranes.

These cameras do present their own challenges including the need to record your sound "off camera" and then later syncing it back to the video during editing. A non-technical challenge is whether or not our clients will accept them.

Already videographers are asked to justify their pricing as compared to Uncle Ted's videocamera that he has laying somewhere on the bottom shelf of his bedroom closet. Frankly, part of what clients are paying for is the "glamour" of being on-camera, they actually LIKE all the lights, sound gear and professional videocameras - and how do they recognize a professional videocamera when they see it? Why it's big of course!

So now we have to be concerned about our clients having a small moment of uncertainty when they see you pull out of your bag a camera that doesn't even look like the videocamera they themselves probably own. Why is my videographer preparing to take snapshots of me?

There is a solution but it has as much to do with theatrics and marketing as it does client benefit.

It's to buy a bunch of add on equipment to transform the basic camera into a much larger piece of gear - to make the camera look bigger and more impressive to the customer. Once you add in all those extra pieces of kit you are suddenly approaching the price range of the more traditional professional videocameras - but maybe that's something we as business owners will have to accept.

If you are on the client side or a fellow videographer I'd love to hear your thoughts on this issue.