Skip to Content

Exclusive: Rock Band Unplugged Track List
AOL Tech

DSLR posts

Searching For Sonny: first feature film shot on a DSLR

by Darren Murph posted Mar 30th 2009 at 10:23AM


What's the world coming too, really? Not only did we see the first official presidential portrait shot with a DSLR this year, but we're also seeing the first feature film to be entirely shot on one as well. Searching For Sonny has grabbed the rights to that latter claim, a little ditty written and directed by one Andrew Disney. As expected, we have Canon's almighty EOS 5D Mark II to thank, though Nikon fanboys will surely love that their lenses were used. Head past the break for a sneak peek, and hit up the read link on April 15th for the full trailer. Indie filmmakers, this is the break you've been waiting for -- don't screw it up.

Continue reading Searching For Sonny: first feature film shot on a DSLR

Nikon D90's 720p movie mode gets critiqued

by Darren Murph posted Oct 25th 2008 at 7:48PM

While being the first DSLR to shoot HD video sounds mighty excellent on paper, it's not worth much if the execution isn't there, right? The general consensus was that Nikon's D90 was a stellar DSLR, but the 720p movie mode was simply a so-so cherry on top. The gurus over at CamcorderInfo decided to take things one step further and actually write up an in-depth review on the movie mode alone. The long and short of it is this: the D90's movie mode simply can't produce the same results as a dedicated HD camcorder, and while it was "often able to produce impressive results (especially in moderately low light)," the unfortunate "wobble effect" really put a damper on things. In essence, the aforementioned problem causes objects to look like Jell-o when the user pans quickly from left to right, and the only real way to avoid it is to utilize a tripod or slow down your pans -- neither of which are terribly convenient. Critics did find quite a bit to praise, and they certainly appreciated the inclusion in an otherwise amazing camera, but it's still far from being ideal in all scenarios.

More details on RED's DSMC (Digital Still & Motion Camera)

by Darren Murph posted Sep 10th 2008 at 2:05PM

You heard that Nikon busted out a DSLR with a 720p movie mode, right? Even that is going to pale in comparison to RED's alternative, or at least that's what RED would have you to believe. In a recent post over at the REDuser forums, Jannard points out that its DSLR "replacement" should be ready to rock by late 2009, and while an official name has yet to arrive, it's going by DSMC (Digital Still & Motion Camera) for the time being. Also of note, Jannard casually mentioned that this piece would be more advanced than Nikon's D90 and an undisclosed 1080p DSLR from Canon; that's the first we've heard of such a beast, but given the natural progression of technology, we suppose it fits. C'mon guys, 3K 4K 5K shooting in a DSLR, we know you can do it.

Nikon's D90: the DSLR for HD junkies?

by Darren Murph posted Sep 8th 2008 at 8:05AM


Here we have it folks: the world's first mid-range DSLR to shoot 720p. A heavenly product for high-def junkies, wouldn't you say? After all, how could anyone who appreciates tightly packed pixels even the slightest not be into shooting 720p clips from their DSLR? Unfortunately, it's probably not that cut and dry. For starters, Nikon engineers decided that Motion-JPEG was the way to go, and as we saw on the PowerShot TX1, that very decision kept it from being absolutely amazing. Even if you've got a memory card capacious enough to handle the format (which chews through free space pretty rapidly), do you really think this camera is an acceptable replacement for your HD camcorder? We're all about gadget consolidation, but we're curious as to who all is really ready to ditch their current setup for this. Any takers?

[Thanks, Stephen]




    AOL News

    Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in:

    Joystiq
    Download Squad
    The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
    BloggingStocks
    Joystiq Xbox
    Autoblog
    Big Download
    Fanhouse NFL Blog