Newspaper video as cinema – from Dan Chung of the Guardian
Mongolian Racer from Dan Chung on Vimeo.
Dan Chung from the Guardian UK newspaper made a production out of a story on Mongolian horse races. He gives a complete rundown of the equipment he used and how he did it over on his blog: DSLR News Shooter
Whenever I look at Dan Chung’s work, I have pangs of longing to go out and shoot visual stories. He does great stuff. Alas, the metrics and the bosses say I have to produce daily news stories and not features. I have resisted shooting DSLR on news stuff just because it’s so hard to use. Might have to rethink that….
New Sony big-chip camera and new Vixia HF M32 announced
Two interesting new cameras:
1) Canon Vixia HF M32 is the next step in the tiny, AVCHD line of camcorders which keep improving with each new model. It will give 24 hours of recording to the built-in memory plus SDHC/SDXC memory cards. What makes this one interesting is that it has “Powered IS” image stabilizer, which is a hand-held miracle, and it has built-in downconversion to standard def while retaining the HD. Works with Eye-Fi cards. I am so getting one of these. $999 suggested retail. Read press release on PDN.
2) Sony says their new $2000 NEX VG-10 interchangeable-lens big-chip camera (shallow depth of field) camera will be available in September. Also does stills at 7fps. Looks awesome. New E-mount lenses dampen my enthusiasm for this one, but hopefully adapters will work with it.
UPDATE: I see E-Mount adapters on ebay for Nikkor, Canon, and Leica lenses! This Sony NEX VG10 is suddenly more interesting!
The trough of disillusionment
Oversold or breakthroughs? | crews.tv. Great cocktail napkin graphics exploring the Gartner hype cycle and how it applies to dslr video cameras.
Better focus for dslr video
Making your stills lenses into better video lenses Part 1 – Follow Focus gears « DSLR News Shooter.
Dan Chung, a photographer for the Guardian in the U.K., rounds up the follow focus choices for dslrs. No comparison reviews, but a good look at what’s available.
Obama admin bans press from filming BP oil spill areas in the Gulf
via YouTube – Obama admin bans press from filming BP oil spill areas in the Gulf.
This pisses me off, so I’m reposting it here – the administration that promised “transparency” now threatens all citizens with felony charges for getting near the oil spill and its victims.
Life in a Day – Ridley Scott and YouTube
YouTube – lifeinaday’s Channel.
Ridley Scott, Kevin MacDonald, and a gazillion YouTube participants plan to document a single day on earth – July 24th – to make a feature film for Sundance. Should be interesting. I’d hate to have that editing job!
24 HOURS IN 19500 FRAMES on Vimeo
24 HOURS IN 19500 FRAMES on Vimeo on Vimeo
I spent many years photographing NASCAR, Indy Cars, and Sportscar racing. Autosports photography is very difficult, dangerous, and it’s really hard to make nice images in the cluttered, barricaded, and advertising-blanketed environs of a race track.
So I was stunned when I saw this video by brothers Tim and Nick Hahne, who shot with one 5Dmk2 each and four lenses between them during a 24 hours race at Nürburgring. They did a terrific job of capturing the look and feel of auto racing – and all without fancy rigs or mounts for their 5d’s.
Really inspiring work, guys!
Blog for documentary film makers
DocumentaryTech is a new blog for documentary film makers and is put together by Edward J. Delaney, who is a “former reporter, bureau chief, columnist and contributor at such publications as The Denver Post, Chicago Tribune Magazine, Colorado Springs Gazette, The National and other newspapers. Occasional contributor to The Atlantic Monthly and author of two books of fiction,” and by Kurt W. Lancaster, an assistant professor at Northern Arizona University, who trained Christian Science Monitor reporters in video journalism.
Google TV – will this change everything?
Google TV will bring the internet and TV together on your big-screen display in your living room. Will this change the TV industry? From what I saw at NAB this year, the broadcast industry is doing everything they can to head off the convergence that is coming. In addition to Google TV, there is a new “Freedom” Intel chip-based set top box coming this year that will also provide OTT – Over The Top – delivery of internet-based programming.
I think a big shift is coming toward internet delivery and away from broadcast, no matter how many barriers the broadcast industry throws up.
Video editing in the cloud – edit via YouTube
This is really interesting as a way of doing collaborative video: YouTube now lets you edit video online. Some info on it from Google here.
Some more from NewTeeVee here, including some links to other online editing sites.
UPDATE: Speaking of editing in the cloud, ‘participatory video’ site Stroome today won a $200k Knight News Challenge grant. The site is a mash-up video site with online editing, where you can upload clips and use others’ clips to create new videos. Seems like very few news sites would participate, what with the giving-up-all-rights issue and the non-commercial use clause in the terms.
