Yes – it has been awhile.  Too long To be honest.

With the economy having made many a casualty (including yours truly) of Wall Street Corporate Greed, those of us who have the passion to continue when all seems lost, have had much occur in our field of endeavor.

In that time, DSLR Video Cinematography has taken hold, proving yet again the accelerated pace at which technology can outpace ones ability to keep up in equipment upgrades.

I spent two and a half hours in a skype voice chat with my mentor David Dunkley-Gyimah recently and the insights into what solovj’ism is becoming has begun to reshape – to go through yet another paradigm shift into a realm of whether true journalism in itself can be one’s bread and butter.

Having said that – I think shooters who are looking at dslr video as the savior of the profession need to take a hard look at the profession as a whole.

I have a personal take on this:  It’s the operator, not the tool people.

Many are trying to do it all , but it’s my belief that when one tries to be everything to everyone, the end product  usually ends up being a mediocre one.

Shallow DOF is a gimmick for most – there are those complaining that they aren’t moving to it because it doesn’t work in auto focus – quit being so damn lazy.  Todays latest generation of shooters have virtually no idea of what it means to use a total manual focus setup and train yourself to follow focus.  I did it back in the day of shooting with my Canon T90′s and even the original EOS 620′s I used – I still shot in manual focus and I very rarely missed a shot – it separated the men from the boys so to speak.

Many are so obsessed with all the gear, the cameras, high speed primes, matte boxes, shoulder mounts, etc, that they’ve forgotten the true essence of  serious visual content creation – they’re more interested in looking cool than doing more with less.

It’ s time for arm chair shooters to go thru a paradigm shift – quit complaining because in essence, you’re lazy – learn to use the tools you have at your disposal – most barely use their current  tools to their fullest capabilities – myself included (I still use my tape based SONY HC7′s – they still produce technically excellent footage).  If you can’t accomplish a project with your current tools, that’s when it’s time to look at upgrading – but let’s be real here – it’s the operator, not the tool that creates compelling content.

Get over the hamster wheel upgrade cycle the camera manufacturers and the propagandists would have you buy into and get out and shoot something worthwhile.

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