Maxx Productions Photography

The 7D, as seen from the eye of an SD600I finally bought myself a fairly serious camera and it arrived yesterday. I've been meaning to write about it sooner, but I've just spent too much time playing with and researching accessories for it. It's the much talked about Canon EOS 7D. It's a relatively new offering from Canon's line of DSLRs, and what excites me about it is that it's a good, affordable still camera that happens to record video at 1920x1080@24p! That's "Full HD" at cinema frame-rate, with SLR lenses!

I had been holding out for a Red Scarlet but at the time that I ordered the 7D, Red hadn't even set a release date for it. They did make an announcement the other day saying that the Scarlet won't ship until sometime between May and June 2010. So I'm happy to have the 7D because I can shoot something, if I wanted, now. And they also raised the projected price on the Scarlet. Granted, the Scarlet is designed to be more of a motion picture camera, and therefore will do video, or "digital film" many times better than my lowly 7D can, it also is many times the cost. With the new pricing, the Scarlet with the accessories I'd want/need will cost more than I've got to spend. I figure by buying a much less expensive camera, I'll be able to really build a complete package. Even with the compressed HD offered by the 7D, I think I can make some really cool shit. Or, at least I'll have some fun doing it.

Here's looking at you, kidWith all the research I've been doing to pick accessories, I really haven't had a chance to actually use the camera. And to be honest, I was never really into photography on a technical level. I always appreciated how cameras could capture moments and stories, but it wasn't until I started concentrating on film that I became really interested in cinematography, which to me, is a natural extension of photography. Over the past few years I've only studied cinematography in an abstract way, absorbing concepts and ideas, but only in rare cases have I practiced any of it, and only for short amounts of time. So, owning my own camera is a critical next-step of my education, if you will, and once I get my core kit together, it's on!

If anything, this is fun for me. I hope to create some interesting stuff, but who knows, right? I'll probably come up with a bunch of crap for a while, but I figure it's about time I did it. I'm reminded of something James Cameron once said:

If you wait until the right time to have a child you'll die childless, and I think film making is very much the same thing. You just have to take the plunge and just start shooting something even if it's bad.

Self-portrait taken on the 7DI won't go into a full philosophical dissection of his statement (and I could), but I will just say that it reinforces an idea that motivates me: with all the crap out there, some of which is popular or award winning, there's gotta be room for my crap. You can quote me on that.