Canon Rebel T5 Video Stills

I thought I'd show some still grabs from video shot with my Canon Rebel T5. This is using the stock 18-55mm lens. This was shot with a tripod and manual focus, but everything else was set to automatic.

(Click on the images below to enlarge.)

A lot of videographers are going to DSLR cameras these days and getting out of traditional camcorders. You can get a DSLR with a very large CMOS chip and large lens for just a few hundred dollars compared to a few thousand for a comparable camcorder. And single CMOS chips have gotten to where they have color that looks every bit as good as as a traditional 3-CCD camcorder setup. The large sensor and lens makes them take great shots in low light, even candlelight. I shot the footage below with just a single 150-watt light bulb. Even at that I managed to blowout the exposure a little.

What I can't get over is how good this cam works in automatic mode. Most of the time I couldn't make the picture look much better if I set everything manually. Everyone says the stock lens isn't very good, but you could have fooled me. Of course one of the great selling points with a DSLR is that you can change lenses with it. To have a camcorder capable of interchangeable lenses costs upward of $5 grand. I can get a decent zoom lens for this Canon for just a little over $100. I only paid around $350 for the camera last Christmas, so even with the zoom lens and extra battery and a large capacity storage card, I'm still under $500.

Many TV shows and movies are being shot on DSLR cams now. Most are capable of 24 frames per second and of course you can fit a pro lens on them just fine. The first one I ever saw was the finale of the medical show—HOUSE. That was shot using a couple of $2,500 Canon 5D Mark II cams. That's still a very reasonable price, and truth be told, the image quality is not much better than my T5 Rebel. It's a changing world. Some things are actually getting better.