This article is to demonstrate that the DSLR is not suitable video for Wedding Videos, commercial broadcast video, or feature films.  Many new and inexperienced wedding videographers buy the DSLR because is 1/3 the cost of a PRO Video Camera and are lead to believe that it shoots the same quality or higher quality than the Pro Cameras.  They are sadly misled and the results speak for themselves as the problems of the DSLR become very apparent to even the causal untrained viewer.

DLSR Video Problems:

1. DSRL Jello Effect  - As demonstrated in the video below, because of the way the sensor reads the video when the camera wobbles there is a shaking effect in the video that looks as if you are viewing the video though a bowl of jello.  The only way for the DSLR videographer to avoid the jello effect is to have the camera on a tripod and only use show pans and tilts – and that is not suitable for wedding videography since the videographer needs to be mobile and on the move.
   
   

2. DSLR focusing problems – The DSLR is notorious for shallow depths of fields that will blur out anything in front and behind of the focus point.  This may be great for a photo, but for video is it undesirable and can be straining on the eyes.  Many DSLRs in video mode cannot auto focus so there is a lot of out of focus video, or soft focus, that again creates undesirable video.

3. DLSR Lens – Most DLR’s don’t use prime lenses because they are very expensive, and the non-prime lenses that are much cheaper are not as sharp and may actually create some distortions in the video.

4. DSLR Rolling Shutter – The DSLR camera records the image one line at a time from top to bottom, instead of all-at-once, this cause a sort of odd motion blur (see video below) that give a leaning effect and jumping effect to the video – it looks as if you are watching an earthquake!
   
   

    

    

5. DSLR sound – the DSLR was never built for recording sound well at all.  All of the DSLRs have a mini-jack  input for external mics and record at a 32K compressed, where as PRO cameras always record at 48K uncompressed and use XLR inputs.  DSLR audio is often tinny sounding and the mini-jack input is susceptible to picking up hums, static and other audio problems that comes with unbalanced line input.

6. DSLR stabilization – simply they are not built for videography!  Even if the DSLR videographer add prime lenses, a high end audio recorder, a focus puller or assist unit, and stabilization the videographer ends  up with Frankenstein’s monster! – an out of balance contraption that is hard to maneuver and operate.

Professional Video cameras, such as the Panasonic HVX200, Sony HVR-Vi1 and the Cannon XL-H1A are built for vidoegraphy and do not have any of the problems that the DSLR is plagued with, and produce high quality video that is suitable for broadcast, film making, and wedding videography. They are often great for mobile – “on the move” shooting and are built to be balanced and easy for the videographer to operate.

Written by Mark Vetanen - www.EventOneVideo.com