New portraits camera

Since I have started with the moving portraits I used many different cameras. There isn't any one camera that does the job exactly as I want it. I used still cameras, video cameras, computer cameras, each comes with it's own limitations. Each limitation forces me to make a different portrait.

Recently Casio announced the first digital fast frame rate camera. Casio EX-F1 that suppose to take 60fps. I got very excited, this was what I was waiting for. Later on they came out with EX-FH20 which came in the comfortable price of $600 and can take 40fps or videos of 210 fps. So I got me one of those and started doing tests. At first I was highly dissapointed, you see it does takes 40 fps and it is pretty impressive, but it is limited to 40 shots. For me it means I can only make very small gestures portraits with this camera. Huge disaapointment.

Then I started testing with it. fun. one thing that striked me right away was that slow motion in high resolution (fast camera) is the cheapest manipulation that triggers emotional response. It doesn't matter what I shoot, when it is in fast mode and you see every flatter in slow motion you immediately gush over it. This is certainly worth exploring. Bill Viola explored it quite a bit, but still I am curious to explore it on my own.

Here is a portrait of my son smiling. It's a movie composed of still images. The rate of the movie should be faster, but you get the idea.

Here is a video, taken as video in 210 fps. The resolution is much lower but the slow motion effect is clearer here.