HDSLRS and video journalism

I wrote a piece on HDSLR cameras for the July edition of The Number 1 Shimbun, the journal of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan.



Here's the article:

"When Canon announced that high resolution, high definition video would become part of its digital SLR camera range in late 2008 there was plenty of buzz. But it is only now, in 2011, with the cameras having infiltrated every corner of video production that we are seeing the true potential of these devices. The application of the HDSLRs, as they have come to be called, was most immediately recognizable in independent film production, where the cameras provided a cheap alternative to much larger, much more expensive HD cameras. But it was the cameras' application in news production, particularly online, that wasn't immediately apparent. In the past few years, particularly with the increasing popularity of social media and mobile devices, short-form documentaries and other video have been becoming an important part of most news sites. And this is truly were the strength of the HDSLR cameras come to the forefront.

The cameras were never custom-built for news, in fact, they were never custom built for any kind of video production. It seems that the video capabilities were an afterthought by the manufacturers. Other cameras such as Sony and Panasonic's mid-range HD video cameras have much better, integrated, workflow systems that make the speed from the camera, to the edit to broadcast much faster than the Canon cameras. The video from the Canon cameras usually has to be converted, in order to be edited, due to the clunky nature of the format that comes directly from camera. Also sound is a major problem with the HDSLRs only coming with small, inbuilt mics useless for broadcast. They also have no high-quality inputs for professional grade microphones (also usually there is no visual monitoring of sound while shooting).

But the fact that the industry was essentially flipped on its head means that there was a reason these cameras have been so loved by people within the world of video production -- the images from the cameras are beautiful. You are shooting on the same sensor that any photographer using the camera is shooting on, just at 24 frames per second (the rate at which motion pictures are shot) or up to 60 in the latest models (giving true slow motion). Also, now hundreds of different lenses are at the disposal of shooters, giving flexibility, again at a much cheaper price point.

The size of the camera itself is also important. The use of a much less obtrusive camera can have the added effect of putting interview subjects at ease. Also in the field, it doesn't hurt to occasionally look like a solitary tourist, rather than an entire CNN news crew.



Last year I was sent by Boston-based news site Global Post with FCCJ member Justin McCurry to Pyeongyeong Island after it was bombed by North Korea. To be able to throw the camera and laptop in a backpack and jump on a plane is a huge advantage and the video that was shot was much better than video that I would have shot on most other, much bigger, much more expensive cameras. Also, in minus 10 degrees with a minus-10-degree wind chill, the less gear the better. This year I shot an entire 25-minute documentary down in Okinawa with Michael Penn for his Shingetsu News Agency (SNA), promptly jumped on a plane to Tokyo, and then took a shinkansen to Osaka to spend a couple of days in the Kamagasaki slum area of Osaka with Justin McCurry. Again, being inconspicuous in these situtations was a bonus. The next day I arrived back at my apartment in Tokyo. That was March 11. Since then, I've been up to Tohoku shooting for SNA, The Guardian's multimedia section as well as Global Post. Everything was shot on the same kit and with great results.

I use a Canon 60D - this was the third Canon HDSLR to be released. I generally shoot with a Tamron AF 28-75mm f2.8 zoom lens as it covers most of what I generally need. I have another Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 zoom which is often needed for press conferences or if I need to shoot something fairly far away. I also have a Canon EF 50mm f1.8, which is great for interviews and other general shooting. The reason I bought this camera and these lens was for the same reason that most journalists make purchases - because they were cheap! But not only that, they shoot absolutely beautiful images. The 60D body was bought online for about 80,000 yen and the Tamron 28-75 was about 30,000 yen. The other two I bought secondhand for even less.

Of course hardware and software are needed for post-production. I use a secondhand 17-inch Macbook Pro. This is loaded with both Final Cut Studio and Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 which I use for editing, colour correcting, sound manipulation etc. This is a fairly high-end kit and quite expensive but you can get away with using Final Cut Express for editing and a 15-inch Macbook Pro. This might cost around 150,000 yen for a complete editing suite.

The capabilities of HDSLR cameras have gone hand in hand with the increasingly exciting, expanding world of multimedia journalism. At the moment, the landscape of digital journalism is still in its frontier days. Initially newspapers were confused about how they should tackle multimedia. We saw bewildered reporters getting shoved in front of cameras and told to talk like they do on the TV. Then, these same bewildered reporters had handicams thrust into their hands and were shoved out the door of the newsroom. But now we are seeing multimedia section editors with more cohesive strategies with more skilled video journalists at their disposal. This new breed of journo comes from a variety of backgrounds - TV journalists, documentary filmmakers or even newspaper hacks who have skilled-up and made the transition. Online video journalism is also one of the few areas in news where demand is high, a point not lost on many freelancers. But from the point of view of a journalist who comes from a print background, the short-form documentary is an expressive, emotive and artistic form of journalism somewhere between a written feature article and a film. It is both powerful in its ability to connect the audience to the subjects and in its potential reach via the method of distribution.

Of course, cameras are just tools. These particular cameras, however, happen to be exceptionally powerful tools, helping to strengthen a new and exciting area of digital journalism."

- Michael Condon