By site editor Dan Chung:
Video DSLRs may not be the big thing they were a few years ago, but one of the most interesting gadgets at IBC this year uses them to great effect.
On the Nikon booth they were showing their D4 camera mounted to robotic heads to track a moving object and focus on it at the same time. Several of these robots, made by a firm called Mark Roberts Motion Control, are used with the D4 by UK local station London Live for all their studio shooting.
I spoke to Bryn Balcombe of London Live and James Banfield of Nikon about the setup. While regular 2/3 studio cameras could have been used, Balcombe chose DSLR for its more cinematic look and flexibility. One surprise is that the D4 can be left on in Live View mode for hours on end without failing – something that some older DSLRs would struggle to do.
Below is a great video showing just what a Mark Roberts robot with a Nikon D810 is capable of:
