How Does A Film Camera Work?

By Author: Dori Kelsey
Total Articles: 29
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A Frenchman named Louis Lumiere is frequently recognized for inventing the first motion picture camera. In 1895, he invented the Cinematographe - a portable motion-picture camera, projector and film processing device, all in one invention. Motion pictures started to become very popular after the introduction of Cinematographe. Of course it didn't stop there. The technological era produced various and more sophisticated equipment for the movie industry. Movie cameras have significantly evolved for the last century. But how does a film camera work? Read on the rest of this article and see for yourself

A film or movie camera works by capturing a series of images. This is in contrast with still cameras that take a snapshot at a time. These series of images is called a frame and is achieved by using a sporadic mechanism. The frames are then replayed in a movie projector at a certain speed, known as frame rate (the number of frames by second). So actually, the film camera ...
... and your eyes and brain are responsible for creating the illusion of motion by merging the individual pictures. Commercial films like those produced in Hollywood uses the standardized frame rate of 24 frames per second while the standard width 35 millimeter. Other film formats that are also widely used include PAL, plays at 25 frames per second and NTSC (common in Japan and North America) at 29.97 frames/s. People in the movie industry find rendering from one format to another as one of the technical difficulties they have to face.

Majority of film cameras in the market do not capture the sound internally. The sound is record independently using a precision audio device. This setup is referred to as double-system. There is also the so-called single-system. These are new film cameras that have either an optical or magnetic recording apparatus inside. If you have seen those clapper boards in film production with the guy holding it and yelling these words Title of the movie take 3 action, they not jut simple boards. Aside from the fact that it normally starts a take it used as a reference point in synchronizing the picture with the sound. Furthermore, it allows scene and take numbers or any other important details to be included on the film itself. Currently, the most frequently applied system is unique identifier digits displayed on the border of the film. This whole process is accompanied by a computer editing system. Every film stock manufacturer has its own name for such identification system, Kodak call their version as KeyCode. There are cameras as well that have low-accuracy film systems. They are some dubbed as non-sync or MOS. MOS cameras are used in for second-unit work and other jobs that do not require standard filming speed. The most widely used 35 mm cameras today are Arriflex, Moviecam and Panavision versions. PhotoSonics is used in high speed filmmaking.

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