even better then d90 movie mode
 

What if you got an array of dslrs together, put them in a boc with a single lens, and rotated the cameras in front of the imaging circle at a rate fast enough for video? you can get used dslrs that can at least do 2 to 3 frames per second continuous. if you have say...12 of these beasts, and like i said, either rotate the cameras in front of the imaging plane or use a series of mirrors and prisms to direct the image into each sensor, it is conceivable you can get some really good video out of it.

draw us a diagram, hahaha id like to see this

http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/9431/46046836pw2.jpg

Ok, thats my extremely crappy diagram. It would sort of be like a "gattling Camera", it would just rotate around and take photos. I was thinking of getting something like a canon 450d, it can at least do 2-3FPS continuous in jpeg mode, maybe even the d90, supposedly 4.5 fps continuous, lets say you had a dslr that could always do 3 fps, you would then get 8 of those cameras together, preferable 10 incase one or two lag behind. The wheel would turn at a certain rate so that you have a smooth 24fps altogether when all 10 cameras are shooting in continuous mode, this would be a ridiculously complex system to setup properly, but it couldest be worse then making a watch or a clock. the hard part is getting the timing right and making sure your getting the image in the same spot consistently. Probably a series of mirrors and prisms might work better, something that mechanically directs the image into each sensor, you still have to worry about timing, but i think a wheel of dsrls moving at 120 RPM would not be that safe. anyway, just a crazy idea, another problem is the shutters going out on those beasts. I wonder if its possible to get a capture without a shutter on the camera, and use a global shutter, like the lens on the front could have its own shutter like in medium format lenses.

Better yet, you could put a lot of these sensor cells on a long roll and load them into a canister of sorts. You could have different kinds of rolls, like some balanced for daylight or tungsten, or night or day.

That would be one ugly beast.

The mirror idea seemed interesting though. If you could get the cameras to be timed with the rotation of the mirror, then had 3Fps, you'd be talking about 8 cameras for 24Fps. I could really see this if you could get it down to 4 cameras, but this seems a bit harsh to do anything with whole DSLRs.

You would still need to find an easy way to drop all those images into a sequence. Beyond that the only real problem is syncing audio. You'd have to have some type of electronics controlling the mirror and cameras to make sure that you were getting the exact Fps and not some slight variant.

The concept is interesting, but certainly no weekend project.

Maybe someone else can see this going over better than me though.

yeah, the dslrs are pretty big, i looked into buying just a sensor with a fire wire cable, stuff for industrial use, i saw alot of them that could do 4.5fps at 11 mega pixels, an actual full frame sensor, 36x24mm, i got a quote, each one was like $2000. You would think buying the sensor direct without all the dslr crap would be cheaper, but i think buying old dslrs would work alot better, especially ones with broken shutters, i see broken canon rebels on craiglist all the time for $100. its like buying a old crappy car for $500, it cost more then $500 to make when it was new, so its actually cheaper to buy old broken dslrs then a simple sensor.

oh yeah, for sequencing the file's, each camera would be set to have its own naming structure. usually its like, IMG_4151, but maybe the first one could be A_4151, and so forth, i dont think it would be to hard to figure out.

The film plane/sensor must stay still related to the lens during exposure, otherwise the motion drag will make all the images unusable. The standard shutter of film camera is 180 degree (1/48 second when shooting 24fps). That means you can't just rotate the wheel continuously. You have to rotate the wheel to align the next sensor in 1/48 second, and stop it absolutely for another 1/48 second, and so on. I really don't think it's very practical to try this design.

There are models out there that can do 6fps. Which means you could do with just 4 of them...

Why not just use a motion picture film camera?