It seems that everyone and their mother is talking about the HDSLR revolution these days. Do a search on the web and you’ll find industry leaders such as Philip Bloom and Vincent Laforet talking up the system as a possible leap in indie filmmaking. I began thinking, what does this mean for me?

I’ll be honest, I want one. Completely and totally. The problem is I’m torn by just a few small problems given my current production workflow. As some of you know, I use the Sony EX1 with Letus35 Ultimate lens adapter and a Nikon prime package (the package used on Antibody). The thing I love about this setup is the filmic look it can get, if done correctly. The EX1 has HD/SDI out which is nice for recording an uncompressed (or ProRes 422) image direct from camera. One would think it would be the perfect set for an indie film guy such as myself, right?

Well, sort of. The problem I have with these lens adapters is the amount of glass your image has to travel through, and the face that the ground glass solutions they have are not perfect. There will always be image degradation in trying to get a prettier, more filmic picture. The fact that I can only work within a certain F-Stop range bothers me as well. However, that 4:2:2 out gets a nice image for grading… if only the lens adapter didn’t mess it all up.

Don’t get me wrong, I love using a lens adapter, I just wish the caveats weren’t there. Of course, if they weren’t, there wouldn’t be $120k camera systems, would there? There’s no such thing as a perfect camera, you simply do what you can with what you’ve got.

The nice thing about the HDSLRs is the ability to use front-mounted lenses without having to go through all the bullshit to get to your preferred imagery. Furthermore, there are adapters out there for using BNCR and PL lenses on the suckers – beautiful for those of us with cine lens packages who don’t want to use SLR lenses. They have larger sensors than video cameras as well – the Canon 7D’s sensor is almost the same size as Super 35mm, and the 5DmkII’s is even bigger, allowing for better depth of field and crisper imagery and colorspace.

So, with all these advantages, why am I not out there shooting with this system right now? One simple reason: PLAYBACK. The HDSLRs do NOT have any sort of viable recording method for professional work. They either record to h.264 (terrible for editing), or cripple their HDMI out ports so you can’t get a full 1080p export directly from the camera (as the EX1 can with its stupendous SDI port).

The question comes down to this: do you want muddled imagery with an amazing colorspace, or beautiful front-end hardware with compromised playback? I’m not sure. I don’t really have an answer for this problem. I don’t have a 7D to test and my EX1 is in the shop for repairs, but it does make me curious.

I’m sure in the second generation of the HDSLR blowout (that nobody really expected) they’ll solve some of these issues. For now, we have a bright horizon before us of low cost image acquisition. I, for one, am very excited.