According to director of photography Michael Marshall, the biggest challenge in shooting HD is in the lighting.

The cinematographer recently shot the CTV drama series Whistler using a HDWF900 camera from Sony and Panavision.

He says HD works well in studio shoots, but doesn’t recommend it for projects with lots of daytime exterior scenes.

‘It is tough to work with HD outside – especially in the middle of the day,’ he says. ‘The contrasts just aren’t right in bright outdoor light. I would never want to shoot a western in HD.’

He adds that HD offers several creative advantages in the fast pace of series work.

‘HD can be a bit more daring, especially in TV work where you want to try interesting things with light and make scenes moody but don’t have a lot of time,’ he says. ‘You can do this really quickly with HD because you can see what you are doing – it is right in front of you on the monitor.’

A DOP can also perform minor changes in color, contrast and timing right on set.

‘On a series project, I am not in the transfer suite for each episode to make these kinds of changes,’ says Marshall. ‘But with HD, I have more control and can do these tweaks right on set with the camera.’