Digital Video - February 2008 - (Page 6) DV UPDATE One of Kesterson’s images taken with the HVR-A1U. Below: A self-portrait. DIRECT FROM THE FRONT SHOOTING HIS DOC AT WAR, VIDEOGRAPHER SCOTT KESTERSON FOUND HIS WEAPON OF CHOICE. BY JON SILBERG I n 2005, Oregon-based contractor and avid amateur photographer Scott Kesterson was searching out avenues to pursue his aspirations in a more committed fashion when he sought advice from award-winning Dallas Morning News photojournalist David Leeson on MySpace. Leeson had been a proponent as early as 2000 of shooting video for his still work on the newspaper. Neither could have imagined that they would soon be embedded with the U.S. Army National Guard 41st Brigade in Afghanistan, shooting video that would become the basis of the award-winning documentary At War (www.atwarfilm.com), footage that ran as part of an episode of PBS’s Frontline and within news programs on the Canadian Broadcasting System. In addition, a great many frame grabs from the footage have also been repurposed as a portfolio of stills posted on a number of Web sites. Kesterson’s research into video cameras that had the compactness and durability for combat situations and the resolution for frame grabs suitable for Web or print took him to Sony’s HVRA1U (the precursor to the currently-available Z1U). He liked the images the HDV camera could record on its three 1/3” CMOS chips and the ruggedness of the body. “It could take harsh conditions of temperature changes and dust,” he says. “It would work down to 0º [Fahrenheit] and up to 140º. And that was important,” he adds, noting that he witnessed another Sony DV dv february 2008 camera, rated only to work up to 130ºF, shut down when temps pushed beyond that point though his A1U kept running. “The still photographer tries to find that one frame that can bring to life a sense of sound and motion,” Kesterson posits. “But now, I can get the elements of sound and movement [with the video camera] and I know there are also probably singular moments within that extended moment. I’m really capturing two things at once — the still frame and the bigger story including movement and sound.” One of the key pieces of technical information video shooters must consider if they are also expecting to pull frame grabs has to do with motion blur. Good still photographers are masters of controlling shutter speed to convey a sense of motion or of freezing time. Shutter speeds around 1/48th or 1/60th of a second are www.dv.com 6 http://www.atwarfilm.com http://www.dv.com
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