James Tocher is a digital cinematographer specializing in blowups to 35mm through his Vancouver company Digital Film Group, which includes Atanarjuat – The Fast Runner among its credits. Tocher’s DOP credits include the digital movies Evirati, Croon and Noroc.

With the rise in independent productions shot on digital cameras, major manufacturers are coming up with some very innovative technology and pricing to fit the budgets of leaner, meaner digital aficionados.

At NAB2003, Sony introduced its first professional standard-definition 24 frames per second camera at a price well below its ‘standard.’ At just under US$20,000, this camera not only breaks frame-rate barriers for SD, it incorporates the latest ‘blue laser’ optical disk storage, which means not only no more waiting for tape to rewind, but no more tape period.

‘We wanted to price a pro camera with 24P technology that made sense to low-budget independent productions that expect better quality,’ said Craig Yanagi, Sony senior marketing manager for independent production.

The optical disk cameras are slated for an August release in two flavors. The PDW-510 will be capable of DVCAM quality at under US$20,000 and the PDW-530 will achieve near-Digital Betacam quality (using a new IMX MPEG-4 codec) at a full 50 MegaBits per second data rate for a minimum of 45 minutes of recording. The latter will price around US$34,000 and represents the highest quality available today for the price, with full professional signal processing and three ‘true 16:9′ 2/3’ CCDs.

JVC’s much-awaited ‘HD for the masses’ miniDV camera, the JY-HD10U, was exciting on the surface, yet proved somewhat disappointing for the indie filmmaker. Where’s the 24P on this camera? For some reason, it only shoots in 30P formats in HD modes, which makes it problematic for blowing up to film. However, for indie filmmakers with complete digital distribution, it may make sense.

The fact that these manufacturers are creating 24P-capable cameras for SD is nothing short of a coup for indies who find HD cameras and post-production costs still beyond their reach. SD 24P offers a huge advantage by utilizing far more cost-efficient post paths, and makes for an easy transfer to film without the loss of resolution inherent in traditional ‘interlaced’ SD video conversion. What you get is sharper, more film-like imagery, even from NTSC resolution.

Panasonic was way ahead of the 24P SD curve when it introduced the astounding AG-DVX100P last year. This miniDV 24-fps camera made huge waves among indies with its film frame-rate technology and price point under US$4,000. But Panasonic didn’t stop there – this month it is releasing the much-awaited AJ-SDX900.

This 24P-capable pro camera ups the image ante as a full-sized SD camera priced at US$25,000. Like the Sony blue laser disk cameras, it too offers the best professional signal processing as well as three 2/3′ true 16:9 CCDs. It records to Panasonic’s proprietary DVCPRO format at two different data rates for either DV editing or full 4:2:2 color, 50 MegaBits per second quality.

DVCPRO camera products now span from DV up to HD (at an ‘HD’ resolution of 1280 x 720). The AJ-HDC27 is the first variable-frame-rate HD camera capable of over-cranking to 60 fps at full 720P resolution. And it comes in at just under US$55,000, whereas the lowest priced 24P-capable Sony HDCAM, the HDW-F900, costs US$102,000. Some would argue that the Sony camera yields a higher resolution at 1080P (1920 x 1080 pixels), but the debate continues about the minimum resolution when transferring 24P to film. As the owner of a film transfer house, I can safely say sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference!

Certainly a miniDV camera such as the AG-DVX100P has smaller CCDs (1/3′) and therefore cannot achieve as good a resolution. If you had to make a comparison to film, you might say it looks like regular 16mm film after a traditional lab blowup to 35mm. But when you capture at 24P on an SD camera with a true 16:9 2/3′ CCD, you are approaching a resolution that, once blown up to 35mm, might easily fool people into thinking you shot on HD or even 35mm.

Good image posting and color correction cannot be ignored, but the fact that these cameras are capable of providing this kind of resolution with true progressive 24P capture means there are many new affordable options beyond the ‘pro-sumer’ camera. They might cost a little more but pack a heck of a lot more punch.

-www.digitalfilmgroup.com