Screening the 2023 HBO Camera Assessment Series: A Decade of Testing by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the August 2023 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter)   The Digital Cinema Society was really gratified...

Can’t We All Just Get Along?  Sound of Freedom vs. Indiana Jones...Why Not See Both? by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the July 2023 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter)   “Can’t we all just get along?” ...

Everything Everywhere All at Once + Avatar at The 2023 HPA Tech Retreat by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the February 2023 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter)   In a DCS tradition maintained for many...

The Only Constant is Change -- Celebrating 20 Years of DCS and the Technology Trends We Covered by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the January 2023 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter)   The Digital Cinema...

Can James Cameron Save Theatrical Exhibition? by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the December 2022 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter)   The reviews are in and it is no surprise that James Cameron’s long...

Covering Standup With 5 Cameras, a Limited Budget, and a Little Help From My Friends by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the November 2022 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter) As regular readers of my monthly “One...

Raising the Bar: The Work Being Done to Improve Motion Picture Image Quality and Ensure Content is Viewed as the Filmmakers Intended by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the September 2022 Digital Cinema Society...

Picking The Right Digital Cinema Camera To Buy Is Hard To Do by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the June 2022 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter) In a tradition going back to the early days of my writing for DCS,...

DCS Employs Camera-2-Cloud for Streaming Coverage of NAB 2022 by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the May 2022 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter) NAB 2022 marked a return for the industry and for the Digital...

by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the February 2022 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter) It’s Great To Be Back - DCS Explores the 2022 HPA Tech Retreat In a DCS tradition maintained for many years, (with the...

by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the December 2021 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter) The world of in-person events and entertainment has been thrown into chaos amid an explosion of COVID-19 cases.  While this...

by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the November 2021 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter) I shared earlier this year in an essay for DCS that I finally decided the time was right to invest in a mirrorless stills...

by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the August 2021 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter) Deep Fakes -- Not All Fun and Games Anymore Artificial Intelligence is a powerful tool that can be used to speed up and...

by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the July 2021 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter) The question of what to call the smartphone/camera reminds me of the famous dialogue at the finale of Chinatown, “She’s my...

You may send me to wash my mouth out with soap after you read this, but old habits die hard and the vernacular we use on film sets is slow to change.  In fact, the word “film” is still used pretty loosely even as the actual use of celluloid is getting evermore rare. ...

by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the May 2021 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter) This is not the first time prognosticators have predicted the end of the movies.  TV sent a chill up the spine of Exhibitors...

This is the second in a series documenting my ongoing quest to find the right small form factor camera to add to my equipment arsenal.  I own several full featured Digital Cinema cameras including a couple of Panasonic Varicams, a Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Pro 12K,...

First, let’s start with the headline news: Sigma has announced a major upgrade to their Compact Mirrorless fp camera and added a detachable EVF.  The new “fp L,” is identical to the extremely compact body of the original fp released in 2019.  However, the “L” has...

by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the February 2021 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter)I have a Canon 5D that takes beautiful pictures; it’s not a 5D Mark III, or a 5D Mark II, but the original 5D released in...

by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the November 2020 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter) In mid-July of this year, Blackmagic Design CEO Grant Petty held an online press conference to announce their latest...

Excuse Me, I Think Your Camera is Ringing — iPhones for Movie Making Part II by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the October 2020 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter) The iPhone is so prevalent, especially in the...

by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the August 2020 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter) Streaming, Progressive Downloads, Over The Top or “OTT”, Video On Demand or “VOD”; whatever you want to call it, this general...

by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the July 2020 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter) There is a tectonic shift taking place in the process of making motion pictures, perhaps as significant as the introduction of...

by James Mathers Cinematographer and Founder of the Digital Cinema Society (Excerpted from the June 2020 Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter) As I sat down to write my essay this month, I wanted to cover any subject that would not require mention of Coronavirus,...