Directions Unit: Coursework| Camera Workshop: Canon 7D DLSR Review

In today's lesson, we spent a day on a camera which the university supplies : The Canon 7D DLSR.

Overall I think I prefer this camera compared to the Sony - this is many because you can change lenses making it more appropriate depending what you are filming. I found that because it was smaller, it was generally quite easy to use. For example, it had less buttons than the Sony yet however still gives most of the same functions as the Sony.

I think that this camera will work well for my 4 minute film. This is mainly because the lightness of the camera will make it easier for me to create an edgy hand-held camera use for when my character is feeling 'trapped'. Not only this, but it's easily adjustable features (such as the iris size, focus, brightness and contrast) will allow me to show the difference between being trapped and becoming free. For example, once free I could obtain a more naturalistic approach of the camera, such as sharper focusing, increase in brightness etc.

However this camera faces a couple of downfalls in general which however I feel won't really affect my filming. Firstly, the add on microphone isn't as 'crisp' and efficient as the Sonys. I learnt that this camera is for film which focuses primarily on the filming and not too much sound, meaning that this camera wouldn't be suitable for something with lots of layers of sound. Nevertheless, this doesn't really effect my film as I'm planning to use minimal sound anyway to make the film seem more tense, and my film generally won't involve much sound.

The main problem I found with this camera is the size of the memory card. The 16 GB card can only record a maximum of 15 minutes - this worried me as it would make it very awkward for filming, because the memory would fill up quickly meaning I'd have to travel back home and free the memory card up again before filming. Basically, I would have a lower chance of filming all at once. Nonetheless, Fergus told me that this 15 minutes maximum is only if the camera is recording at one stint. This changed my opinion as I'm only filming shots - I won't be filming long pieces (i.e. like weddings) meaning I'm less likely to run out of space.

Therefore, this workshop has allowed me to feel confident with the camera and I have chosen to use this camera instead of the Sony due to it being more convenient and generally being better to film on for my project. The only downside would be my sound quality however this shouldn't be a problem due to the lack of sound in my project.