Ah, I love the reality TV folks switching to DSLR because of the beauty of the image over VIDEO. And news folks, and documentary producers, and advertising productions....
I have a question for this crowd. Are RED and Black Magic Cinema video cameras? And what should we consider the differences are between digital film and video cameras?
There isn't much difference between a "digital film" camera and a video camera. Traditional film cameras use a framerate of 23.976fps with usually a 180 degree mechanical shutter. Because of the size of the film format, film cameras can achieve much shallower depth-of-field than a video camera. With that shallow DOF, you can pretty much throw autofocus out the window, so you need a set-up with a good manual focus. Usually you have an assistant cameraman (known as a focus puller) keep the focus while the cameraman is filming.
So a "digital film" camera is a video camera that can simulate a 23.976fps framerate with a 180 degree shutter (2x framerate) with a sensor large enough for a cinema-like depth of field, and a way of doing manual focus pulls. More expensive cameras like your RED's, ARRI's, and even the Black Magic, will also take advantage of the tack-sharp HD sensor by allowing distortion-free prime lenses to be mounted for bleeding edge sharpness. Most DSLR's like the Canon 5d and APS-C cameras use a non-optimal method for converting the camera sensor data to a 1080p image thereby limiting how sharp a video image can be, and are instead used for their versatility in achieving the filmic look. Compare them to something like the Lumix GH3 and you'll know what real 1080P looks like.
If you do photo timelapes, though, even a Canon 550D will put out jaw-dropping ultra sharp videos.
Of course, I'm waiting for Nano to release an alpha or something so I can get the intervalometer functionality back on my 650D ; )
