DSLR Video: Is this the end of the camcorder as we know it?

When Nikon announced that its new D90 digital SLR camera would be able to record video, most of the community was impressed but expected it. When it was revealed the camera would be recording in 720p, the eyes of photographers-now-amateur-filmmakers lit up with delight.

A few weeks later, someone over at Red, a high-end movie camera company, made mention that their new camera would be capable of 1080p. A week or two later, Canon made its new full-frame professional 5D Mark II known to the world with the 1080p capability that Red had mentioned. 

With capabilities such as this now coming to the high end sensors already available in semi-professional cameras, it was clear that the video camera market might begin to suffer. The question on everybody's lips is now...

Is this the end of the camcorder as we know it?

When MiniDV appeared in the late nineties, it was the thing to have. Models from Canon, Sony, Panasonic, and nearly every other major electronics manufacturer produced inexpensive video cameras which gave consumers the ability to craft DVD quality videos. While people had been making home movies for years, video had finally come to the masses.

Video cameras then stretched across multiple formats, recording on MiniDV tapes, hard drives, memory cards, DVD's, and nowadays Blu-ray discs. Prices range from as low as $300 to $2000 for a video camera that while it might be advanced, doesn't give you a whole lot of control.

But with the advent of video in a digital SLR,  if you go on a trip, you don't have to take along two cameras. It's less weight and and there's one less item to lose. And with the ability to change lenses on a digital SLR, a few things begin to happen. The type of shot you want begins to change significantly, with your choice of lens now taking precedent. Will you use a fish-eye to distort things, a kit lens as you walk around with the idea of shooting anything and everything, or a telephoto lens to get all the action from far away?

Once you see it from this point of view, you also quickly learn the the quality of the glass used in each lens is likely going to be better than that found on a video camera. It gets better because the sensors used on a digital SLR tend to be larger than regular digital video cameras giving you better clarity and an overall tendency to look more real.

But there's also a negative of the video-capable interchangeable lens camera, something that at least for the moment almost guarantees a life for Handycams for a few years more: auto-focus.

As it is now, this new breed of video cameras cannot focus while you're recording in the video mode. Digital SLR's have improved over the past few years to allow viewing by the screen and not just the viewfinder as well as to auto-focus within this mode, but focusing within video is just out of reach at the moment. This means that people looking to a Nikon D90 as an inexpensive highly adaptable camera still have to focus manually while Canon recommends that users of its Canon 5D Mark II  not use the auto-focus while filming. On the one hand, this could be seen as useful for those learning how to take packages but a pain to others who just want to take some video and not think about anything.

With these developments, it's clear that big camera companies are now taking aim at video cameras. Promising greater control in your film-making, this will be one area to watch.