Rick Guest Dancer Test Shots

Test shots with photographer Rick Guest on the 120 camera DSLR rig.

What Did We Do?

In December 2019 the 120 camera DSLR rig was built at Malcolm Ryan Studios in Wimbledon for a week of commercial work. Photographer Rick Guest, known for his portraits of dancers, brought a dancer to the studio and used time around the main shoot to run test material of his own on the rig.

The tests were pure movement exploration, with no brief and no client. The dancer performed freely at the centre of the array while all 120 cameras fired together, freezing each pose as a single frozen moment the camera can travel around.

Layering the Performance

Because every take is captured from 120 fixed positions, separate moments from the performance can be combined in one frame. The multi layer edit below stacks several of them into a single move around the dancer.

Individual Moves

Seven more moves from the session. Each one is a single frozen moment with the camera travelling around the dancer.

Why Stills Change the Edit

Each camera in the DSLR rig records a still image at around 5.7K rather than a video frame. An edit delivered in HD or 4K starts with far more resolution than it needs, which leaves room to reframe, crop and zoom in post without losing sharpness. The demo below pushes a full frame shot to 400 percent scale. Skin texture and individual hairs stay visible.