SionPhoto

Lights! Camera! Traction!

All the recent 'blog posts about stills/video hybrid cameras have taken on a particular interest for me lately...'cos on Monday I'll be starting off as a 'Multimedia Editor/Videographer' at the Singapore Straits Times Digital Media Unit.

I'll be shooting and editing tapeless video for same day transmission on the Web, rather in the same way I used to shoot, edit and transmit stills for print...aah, those were the days.

About two years ago, I wrote a blog piece trying to predict what was coming down the line for 'photojournalism' (whatever that is these days) and what our response should be.

The patterns I saw then, have if anything, intensified, and the current economic climate means we need to adapt to survive.

Vincent LaForet:

"The truth is - our way of doing things - not only the way we gather our content, but also the way we package, deliver and the way we expect to be remunerated for that work - is being shattered by a variety of internal and external forces that simply aren't going to go away."

Canon Killer?

The Chase Jarvis 'blog gets da scoop on the new Nikon D90, a digital SLR that also shoots 720p video...

...blimey.

I think a corner has been turned.

In the short term this is a major tremor before some more seismic imaging gear comes down the road.

The D90 will enable photographers to shoot video using their existing Nikon lenses, with all the control over depth of field that they offer...one of the things that tends to hobble existing small chip video cameras, requiring lens adaptor workarounds for that elusive 'film look'.

You'll be burning through a LOT of camera cards, and I'm not sure how good the sound is gonna be, but for photojournalistic short-form web video, this is a total game changer.

Delay No More...

It's timelapse time again. ...a short film I shot with a Canon G9 while pottering round Hong Kong a month ago, shortly before dropping like a sack o' spuds and coughing like a howler monkey:

There's another film to follow, which I'll post once I've faffed with it a bit more.

Love Handles...

Red Scarlet Video Camera with DSLR-style 'Smart Handle',

for shooting stills and video to CF cards.

I havent blogged much recently, because after a trip to Hong Kong (where the air was like breathing sandpaper), I then went down with mycoplasmic pneumonia and took to my bed for a month.

Just before I conked out I attended an Apple Final Cut Studio event in Singapore, and briefly talked to Jim Jannard, the creator of the Red video-camera system.

I had a chance to see their astonishing Red One camera which shoots 4K Ultra-High Def video, but what I really wanted to talk about was their Scarlet 'Pocket camera', which is predicted to be out next year, to shoot 3K footage (3000 pixels plus) to CF cards AND to have a stills mode...which means the cameras imaging chip is theoretically capable of shooting frames approximately the same file size as several current top-end DSLR's at speeds in excess of 25 frames per second.

I've blogged occasionally on the convergence of stills and video technology and what this means for photojournalism, and wrote about about the Scarlet recently - the Beijing Olympics is probably the last summer Olympic Games where 35mm stills cameras will be extensively used  - but maybe the camera shape will stay the same...Jim Jannard was very cagey about the Scarlet during our brief conversation, but recently posted the image above on a Red User forum.

It's a design for the Scarlet video-cam with an optional 'smart handle' attachment.

Look familiar?

Apocalypse Whaa?

 

Park Hotel, Singapore.

I'm curious, I'm very curious. You curious ?

There's something happening out there, man.

You know something, man? I know something that you don't  know. That's right, jack.

The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad .

Oh yeah.

...what are they going to say about him? What, are they going to say, he was a kind man, he was a wise man, he had plans, he had wisdom?

BULLSHIT, man! Am I going to be the one? That's going to set them straight?

Look at me!

Wrong!

Happy Birthday...

Singapore National Day, 9th August 2008.

And a same-day Happy Birthday to Jessie too.