Take three

We test three new digital video cameras in an homage to film noir.

By Heather Mund

Dec 30, 1999 | It's a great time to be a rookie filmmaker. In the 1950s and '60s, when 16 mm film stock was cheap, you could pick up a Bolex camera and shoot films purely for the love of the art. Nowadays, to shoot three minutes of 16 mm film, you would need about $1,000. Believe me, the artistic passion is subdued a bit when you have to choose between three minutes of film or a month's rent. But, thanks to digital video, amateurs and poor film students like me can entertain the idea of filmmaking -- and not break the bank.

Digital video looks as crisp as any TV show; it has twice the resolution of VHS or Hi-8 and it captures great color and detail, so your killer footage of the Grand Canyon is no longer reduced to the hue of warmed-over meatloaf. You pay for the quality -- camera prices haven't dropped much below $1,000 -- but the zillionth copy of your video looks just as good as the first and these cameras record CD-quality sound. Besides, you also can take digital photos, so you really are getting two cameras in one.

Also Today Decide for yourself which camera suits you best. Click below to view the video. 28.8K | 56.6K | 100K  RealVideo (Don't have the RealPlayer 7? Click here to download it free.)

Great. Once you decide on digital video, how do you choose a camera? I decided to look at a handful: Sony's DCR-TRV900 has gotten a lot of consumer press and looked good, even though it is the priciest at $2,500. The Canon Elura is an easy traveling companion with a comfortable price of $1,100. And the Panasonic PV-DV910, with its sporty retro design, reminded me of my aunt's old Super 8, and sells for $1,000. All three have a FireWire port -- a really fast way of exchanging data between digital devices -- which I considered a requirement. After all, I was looking for a long-term investment, not a quickly outdated tech toy.

Film noir is perfect for testing cameras under dramatic lighting situations with lots of shadows. So I began my research at Bruno's, a slick San Francisco joint that can cajole even a gin-hater to order a martini. I met the crew early one Saturday morning. Our mission: Get three good takes, one with each camera, and wrap production by 4 p.m., before the real martinis started flowing.

I called the film noir-inspired project "Goose, Baby" and crammed as much character development and as many plot twists as I could into a minute. I also made sure to include lots of red and white: Red tends to bleed into other colors, while white tends to glare. But shooting film noir in the 1940s must have been easier because more people smoked then; my actors weren't used to it and hacked through a couple of takes. I even had to teach them how to light a cigarette.

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