In the era of globalization, enormous colleges and universities are fully devoted to prepare high skilled filmmakers to take advantage of new advances in digital and 3D cinematography techniques.
The cinematographers of 21st century has rejected the old and bulky Machines, heavy dollies, camera rigs, lights, etc. As 21st century offered a new type of mechanization by offering Digital sensor cameras like – Arri Alexa, Red Gragon, Sony cine Alta, Advanced compact Go Pro, new Mobile Phones -as we are producing now myriads of images. We are in the world of Digital Sensor which has the capacity to hold enormous amount of information rather than the old 35mm Film. We are still progressing in the field of data as camera companies didn't have compatible Formats and Codec's to record digital sensor data in an uncompressed format. The good news is, most of the camera companies are now offering multiple picture profiles like Log, Cinemascope Profiles which can record on footage with high dynamic range but the dynamic range of eyes is still much ahead of our camera.
New technologies like Gimbals, Drones, and sliders rejected the old dolly, cranes, jimmy jib technologies and are much more in market as they offer super stabilized shots. With new digital catch and even digital coloring software, it is now very easy to manipulate any of the digital image in the simplest of time like color contrast, saturation, tint, color correction, advanced chroma techniques. But we forget about the old film processing labs where hours were spent to edit and make the film ready.
We as the cinematographer always look for different light sources to light up the film sets, but also want to work in available light as much as possible. Due to less amount of natural light at night, most of the people prefer shooting either in studios or at daytime. But thanks to digital advancements, we can now use different exposures even at low light levels of night.
In earlier times, cinematographers were in a dilemma of choosing cameras due to the different requirements of a shot but 21st century cameras are much more advanced which offers all latest features in a single body like high FPS, Variable shutter, increased bitrates, different picture profiles, shooting of raw formats etc. The latest devices create a tough competition in the camera market. Equipment is just a tool; the development in technology help humans to evolve in a much better way.
