matthewkappenman.net/blog

I generally try not to post a bunch of technical-industry-mumbo-jumbo on here as most of you could care less, but I saw this picture today and I just about did a cartwheel. The picture, courtesy of Stu Maschwitz of Prolost, the DV Rebel’s Guide and one of the founders of The Orphanage, is what amounts to my cheapo-movie-making dream setup.

What you have there is a consumer grade, $1,000 HDV camera that anyone can go into best buy and pick up and start shooting with. Generally the downside to these cameras is that the sensor which records the image is fantastic, but the lenses attached to the camera are fairly mundane. Enter Stu and the guys at Redrock Micro. They are working on prototyping the rig you see above which sets the little consumer camera on rails to give you more support, and then hooks it up to a lense converter which allows you to connect high quality lenses. This gives you a pristine image with a lot more control over focus and the all important Depth of Field.

With this camera and rig from Redrock you can create HD (compressed but who is counting for 1000 bucks) movie quality images for cheapo. The best part is that with Redrocks adapters you can hook up almost any digital/film SLR lenses and be up and running. This allows you to use high quality glass but at a relatively affordable price of SLR lenses. In the shot above Stu just has a 50mm Nikon lenses that would normally work with a digital SLR hooked up. STU, I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE IMAGES!

For me this setup revolutionizes low-budget production as it can produce images for under 3K (once you buy lenses and an LCD) that rival that of cameras that cost over 10K. Now it’s no RED, but we’re talking about an order of magnitude difference in price and I can’t help but be excited about the future. Now where’s that Best Buy credit card….