HDSLRs takes over TV industry

[morgan_moore]

eh? what's that 24-105mm kit lens called then?

My SR12 is about 300mm equiv 105 is no good for a lot of newsgathering

Yeah but they beat the sh*t out of iPhone video. The video DSLRs are pretty much an anomaly and I think that the video part was purely a make do, after thought kind of design, to use as a secondary means of image gathering for photojournalists, not as a primary news gathering video camera. I think that the implementation of the 5DMkII says a lot about Reuters opinion of photojournalists, or at least their grand design to get double duty out of those folks. I am sure that they never speced out their request to Canon for a full featured video camera, but as a still camera with video capabilities. Decisions like that are not made by technology literate persons, but by spreadsheet obsessed pencil necks. Hats off to the Canon tech obsessed pencil necks, when it is all said and done, they made a hell of a camera. Not perfect, but give me a break.

As a newsgathering tool a handy cam beats the **** out of a DSLR - steady shot AF and a decent zoom - its all about the small chip not to mention something like 6 hours roll time !

Proper news happens once and happens fast and needs gathering you need to be rolling in focus and somewhat stable - thats all,

Sexy rendering of your out of focus background is not relevant

My experience in this field? - I was getting front pages of the Indy and Guardian by 1997 - Im doing a stills job for the Telegraph today 2010

So I feel qualified to say its not a good newsgathering tool - even if Reuters and Canon thought it would be

For web 'news' features, lo budget commercial web video or trade stand video, indy movies DSLR motion cameras are absolutely wonderful

Which is why I choose to use a DSLR over my EX1 or handycam 99 out of every 100 days

 

[David G. Smith]

My SR12 is about 300mm equiv 105 is no good for a lot of newsgathering



As a newsgathering tool a handy cam beats the shi* out of a DSLR - steady shot AF and a decent zoom - its all about the small chip not to mention something like 6 hours roll time !

Proper news happens once and happens fast and needs gathering you need to be rolling in focus and somewhat stable - thats all,

Sexy rendering of your out of focus background is not relevant

My experience in this field? - I was getting front pages of the Indy and Guardian by 1997 - Im doing a stills job for the Telegraph today 2010

So I feel qualified to say its not a good newsgathering tool - even if Reuters and Canon thought it would be

For web 'news' features, lo budget commercial web video or trade stand video, indy movies DSLR motion cameras are absolutely wonderful

Which is why I choose to use a DSLR over my EX1 or handycam 99 out of every 100 days

I am not arguing that the video DSLRs are good news gathering video cameras. I just want to make the point that a decision made by some folks looking to save a few bucks ("Hey, why buy two cameras, when one camera can do two jobs?") had an impact that no one could foresee. I am thankful for that actually.

 

[morgan_moore]

Cool

Im very thankful for DSLR, basically I had been half waiting for years to move into 'motion' but as someone (a pro stills photographer) with primes from 14-600 and visually tuned to larger sensors I found the affordable video options not visually attractive

DSLRs changed all of that which is great

Basically any S35 + nikkor fit camera is awesome for me because of my lens investment

Ive spent a year or two trying to morph my DSLR into a professional device (batts sound recorder etc) - Im starting to get professional 'motion' gigs too

this is both beneficial to my career financially and inspirationally - all because of the D90 which I bought on a whim

the dream of a two in one device is certainly there for me but it wont exist until I see some XLR inputs on the back of it - for starters

My current position is that I use a DSLR 90% of the time but presented with single take fast moving subjects, deadline , medium romote locations etc I grab the EX1

S

 

[bluesgeek]

You're very wise.

I can attest to the difficulty of getting footy transcoded. I covered a story for a network affiliate. An hour before the downbeat we all found out that Avid needed to transcode the non-native H.264 files. There was only time to pull in about 1.3 of my clips, and some of the best stuff wasn't ready to cut in time. These cameras definitely are not ready for the time constraints of broadcast news workflows.

However, there are a lot of other levels of newsgathering going on today. I was shooting an event for a client when I spotted a crew from AOL come in with a 7D on a steadycam vest, with a sound man and a reporter. The sound guy told me that in New York, about half of this type of news gig that he's been getting are with DSLRs.

 

[bluesgeek]

I can attest to the difficulty of getting footy transcoded. I covered a story for a network affiliate. An hour before the downbeat we all found out that Avid needed to transcode the non-native H.264 files. There was only time to pull in about 1.3 of my clips, and some of the best stuff wasn't ready to cut in time. These cameras definitely are not ready for the time constraints of broadcast news workflows.

I guess they just need to upgrade to the new version of Media Composer which works "natively with QuickTime video formats, including Apple ProRes and H.264."