U.S. Air National Guard Staff Sgt. Scott Matthews believes that we're selling ourselves short by failing to capture any footage of the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq in a high-resolution format. Fortunately, he has a solution that bridges the gap between the expense of film and what he considers the visual shortcomings of video.

A videographer for Nashville-based Glory Cubed Productions, Matthews was in the midst of a 10-month National Guard deployment in Afghanistan when he began shooting footage of the daily lives of deployed personnel. The footage ultimately became a one-hour documentary, which was so well received that it won Glory Cubed Productions a National Guard contract to shoot footage for training videos.

At that time, Matthews was thrilled to have the opportunity to make the leap from SD to HD because of the increased visual quality. Then he started researching the RED ONE camera. "I immediately thought about the potential it had for capturing footage of the war," recalls Matthews, who was eager to test the camera. "If this camera was all it [was said to be], I realized that any footage gathered would be of a quality not seen before and could be used not just for the Web and for TV but for theatrical viewing as well."

For Matthews' first trials with the camera, he was able to shoot only in the late afternoons and in an environment that was surrounded by large mountain ranges. On the one hand, that environment solved the potential problem of overexposure, which Matthews had worried could be an issue. "Most broadcast cameras offer a neutral density filter, but with the RED ONE, a screw-on filter is required," he explains. "Since I didn't have a filter, my initial concern was how to deal with too much sunlight." The camera has multiple options for exposing correctly, such as standard "zebras" and "false color" tools that would make exposing on the fly a simpler process, but this would not wind up being an issue for Matthews.

On the other hand, with only a few hours of daylight left and prominent shadows to contend with, his challenge became managing lower light levels. "One of my concerns about working with the camera was the focus," recalls Matthews. "With a 35mm lens, there's no option of autofocus. You have to take care of focusing by eye. Fortunately, there's a tool inside the camera called the focus assist bar, which extends horizontally across the image on the LCD with a histogram at the bottom that spikes when the image in the bar is more in focus."

Matthews would ride a golf cart-like vehicle around the area while not on a rescue mission to catch "cool moments," such as troops loading or different models of aircraft taking off or landing. He also tested the camera's in-air capabilities during a flight. He said the camera performed solidly, even while hanging from bungee cords that held it to the outside of the cabin door.

What makes the RED ONE most desirable to Matthews is the level of quality, scalability and abundance of creative possibilities it offers. These attributes are so appealing to Matthews because they provide the opportunity to preserve a piece of history that he feels is being disregarded. "For the last six years, the conflict overseas has been recorded on video, and it's just not going to stand the test of time. Now the equipment exists to...record the daily life and routine of current military operations around the globe at a resolution that is not only appropriate for any use but will best preserve our history for generations to come."