Ever since I bought a Canon 5D mark II last year, I have been tinkering with the video – much to my delight. I still cannot get over the sharpness and clarity of the HD footage. Moreover, for me at least, moving from the still to the moving image proved quite intuitive and in many ways almost liberating. I frame the videos in much the same manner I frame my stills, but now have an extra dimension in which to play.

After over a year of misconnections I finally had the opportunity to contribute to the New York Times. I met with reporter Andrew Jacobs to discuss story ideas and found we had a mutual concern surrounding the imminent destruction of the Gulou neighborhood, one of the last holdouts for historic hutongs in Beijing. Both Andrew and I live in the area and hit the streets for three days interviewing locals and walking through Beijing’s narrow alleys. Although priority went to stills, I also decided to shoot video to present to the multimedia editors at the New York Times.

Click on picture to play

It was my first time shooting a complete video and I was using rather rudimentary equipment. My kit included TheEvent rig from Redrock Micro with a Redrock Microfollow focus thrown on the side. For sound I used a Sennheiser MKE400 shotgun mic – not a bad mic but it still picked up a lot of wind noise as you can hear on the exit shot when I pan across the trolley leading to the KFC storefront. Having said that a lot of my shots were off the cusp with no rig or mic attached to the camera. Even though the sound quality of the internal mic is certainly not up to par working with the camera without any extra hardware really allows you to blend into the environment without drawing attention to the fact you are shooting video – something quite important in certain situations in China.

In Beijing with the 5DmkII

Right now we still live in a world where people don’t assume that you are taking video with a DSLR camera. This is bound to change eventually, so take advantage while you can. I kept everything very simple with the video – I wasn’t trying to impress with a bunch of quick changes or fast paced action. It is mainly just slow pans and still shots. In the future I hope to change it up more, but I feel there is a certain grace to such simplicity and it allows the viewer to engage more with the subject. All the same, I still have a lot to learn.

The 5DmkII with Redrockmicro The Event rig, follow focus and Zoom H4n

Since I made this video I’ve added a Zoom H4n to my kit which I mount on the hotshoe and plug straight into the camera with a Pinknoise systems -25db PAD cable. I really like using the Zoom H4N as I can easily detach it to record ambient noise or place separately from the camera and remix later (especially for concerts). Also, call me crazy, but I never use an LCD loupe like the Z-finder. I find it distracting and it disengages me from my environment. I need to be able to respond to changes in the world around me and feel comfortable enough with my camera and lenses that i don’t need my eye crammed up against the screen to get what I want. An external monitor might be nice in the future, but for my run and gun tactics it still remains a distraction. Otherwise, the only thing I see my self buying in the future are a fluid head with video tripod and some prime lenses. I still absolutely love my Canon EF 17-35MM f2.8 and I used it heavily in the video, but I want to add a set of primes, especially the 14MM f/2.8 for ultra wides and 50MM f/1.2 for that shallow depth of field everyone continues to flip out about. In the end I am always trying to keep it simple and mobile. I like to work by myself and try to equip accordingly. Anyway, there will be much more to come.

Click here to see stills from the assignment

You can see more of Matthew’s stills work and contact him on his website

It’s six am and as the sun begins to rise over the Mongolian steppes I’m standing – 5DmkII poised – wondering if this time I’ve bitten off a little more than I can chew.  We’ve pitched a short film of the horse racing at the annual country wide Naadam festival to my bosses at The Guardian.  As ever with the newspaper I’m on a limited budget, with the crew consisting of reporter Tania Branigan and myself; there is no second camera, sound man, assistant or producer.   I usually prefer shooting solo as it allows for more intimate footage, but for this assignment I wish I had more help – I can only be in one place at one time and for a live race event like this there will be no second chances.

Getting to this point was hard enough. We arrived in Mongolia less than a day earlier so had little time to prepare.  I had briefed a local fixer ahead of our arrival that I wanted to follow a young jockey through his day.  But while he found a suitable child in the capital he could not find a local race where we could get sufficient access to the subjects.  Luckily I’d researched online and found a possible alternative, so taking a bit of a gamble we drove half a day out of Ulan Bator to the town of Kharkhorin (a bumpy ride despite the 4×4).
Luckily the local race organisers agreed to all our requests. Our next task was to find our subject. It didn’t seem that hard given the tens of competitors, but I should have known better. With weeks to befriend one it might have been different, but every child we spoke to was incredibly shy.  Tania decided it would be far to follow one of the horse trainers instead and managed to find Tsedendamba – an amazingly eloquent 61-year-old who has been in the saddle since he was four. He had a young jockey called Purevsuren who was racing the next day and we agreed to meet them just before sunrise.

I had anticipated just how hard it would be to get all the shots I wanted so I packed accordingly, bringing five HD cameras – a Canon 1DmkIV, 5DmkII, 550D and two GoPro HD cams.  As I was travelling light I also chose three slower, ligher weight, f4 aperture Canon L lenses – a 17-40mm, 24-105mm and a 70-200mm.   I also had a 50mm f1.2L and a Sigma 12-24mm lens which I intended to use on the 550D in cases where it ran the risk of getting damaged.  Even though I only had a 20kg checked baggage allowance I also managed to bring with me a Manfrotto 561BHDV monopod, Redrockmicro shoulder rig, Zacuto Z-finder, Steadicam Merlin, Juicedlink DT454, Sanken CS-1 shotgun mic, Sennheiser G2 radio mics and a Gitzo 2941LVL tripod with Manfrotto 701HDV head…with a bit of help from Tania.

After a few hours sleep in our ger – the traditional Mongolian round, felted tents that herders live in – we headed out to the location in the dark.  Tsedendamba had been up the whole night, preparing for the race, but greeted us enthusiastically.  We started to interview him as the sun began to rise, as this is when herders look to the skies to predict what kind of horse will win that day.

For the extreme close up of his eyes I used a Canon EF12 extension tube on the 50mm f1.2L. Normally I would use a 100mm macro lens but I had no room for it this time.  For audio I used radio mics into the Juicedlink DT454 on one channel and then a camera-mounted Sanken CS-1 shotgun mic into the other as a fallback.  Thanks to the Juicedlink’s headphone monitor I was able to hear what was being fed to the camera.  
For the long shots of the sunrise I fitted a Canon 2x convertor to the 70-200 f4L.   The resulting f8 maximum aperture wasn’t an issue because most of these shots were quite bright and shot as a silhoutte.  

Sunrise shot with Canon 70-200f4L IS and 2x convertor

Next I fitted a 550D with the Sigma 12-24 to a Steadicam Merlin and filmed some walking shots of the boy and trainer.  Even though I’ve had a little hands-on instruction with the Merlin from its inventor Garrett Brown, I still find it hard to set up and use in a hurry; hopefully my Steadicam skills will improve in time.  Setting the lens aperture at f8 allowed me to set the focus at around 2 metres and get pretty much everything in focus so I wasn’t constantly trying to adjust it.

One shot I was keen to get was of the boy and trainer walking off, from a high angle.  Sadly I didn’t have a Kessler Crane to hand so I had to make do.  I held up in the air my 5DmkII with the 12-24mm on top of a Manfrotto video monopod, wedging the monopod’s little feet against my body.  I started with it at head height next to the trainer and, as they walked off, slowly raised the camera to fake a jib effect.  It’s far from perfect but I think it was worth a try.  When I came to edit it I applied Final Cut Pro’s Smoothcam filter to iron out any minor bumps.

Next I had to quickly shoot a montage of shots to illustrate the festival itself.  The bulk of shots were on the 70-200 f4L IS, with the new Genus Fader ND and Zacuto Z-Finder fitted, using the monopod and with the lens image stabilizer to help steady the image.  The focus pulls I did were all done by hand with no follow focus (again I had no room in my luggage); most were bad, but a couple came off okay.  For the slow motion shots of the wrestlers I switched the camera to 720p/50 and conformed the footage to 25p afterwards in Apple’s Cinematools.  I was allowed to go into the wrestling ring for only a few minutes to get the wide shots, so I had to go handheld using the 17-40mm lens on my Redrockmicro custom rig. Steadicam would have been better but was too hard to get right in the time I had.  Most of the time I was just trying to avoid the wrestlers so I couldn’t really get as close as I wanted either.

For the horse race I wanted to make sure I had enough shots to allow me to cut a fast-paced sequence that showed just how intense it was.  I also needed to make sure there was no additional danger to the jockeys from what I was doing – especially as there are ethical questions about whether such young children should be racing like this.  I had brought a pair of GoPro HD cameras with me for this very purpose.  The boy jockeys were very happy to wear them so we attached one on Purevsuren’s chest, and another on the helmet of another rider.  The GoPro’s record in 1080p but have no viewfinder so setting up can be a little tricky.  I guestimated the framing by looking at the reflection of the image in the lens head-on.  GoPros have an amazing battery life and can record uninterrupted for long periods.  This was important as I had to set the cameras running a long time before the race actually started.  Unfortunately it was very dusty and one of the cameras somehow got a smudge in the lens between setting up and the race – in the end I had to use the footage as I couldn’t shoot it again.

One other downside to the GoPros is that there is no easy way to fit Neutral Density filters (apart from a small custom one, which I didn’t have, which goes inside the case).   This meant that the GoPro was going to be using fast shutter speeds in the bright light of the race.  Luckily this wasn’t a complete disaster as I had made the creative decision to shoot all the race footage at high shutter speed anyway for an action movie feel.  I set the DSLRs at shutter speed around 1/2000th/sec when shooting the race.

Ready to shoot from the sunroof using Redrockmicro rig and Z-finder

We had arranged with officials for our 4×4 to follow the race along with the other escort vehicles.  For the race start I had Tania shoot a wide shot on my second camera.  This worked out well as I needed both wide and long shots.  I stood out of the car sunroof ready to roll.  We had to maintain a safe distance so as not to frighten the horses; as a result most of the shooting was on the Canon 70-200mm with the Redrockmicro shoulder rig for support.  The terrain was very rough and it was going to be impossible to get smooth shots for more than a few seconds at a time.  Focussing was going to be tough too, as much as I love faster apertures I decided to shoot at around f5.6 or f8 instead so that focus was not so critical.  I had also tested the Steadicam Merlin but there was no way to make it work in the high wind and with a long enough lens – I reckon the best way to do this properly would be a r/c helicopter mounted camera. I also equipped the 550D with a tripod for wide angle shots; the aim was to get ahead of the riders during parts of the race and put the camera down on its own near the track so the horses would come past it.  Occasions like this are perfect for the 550D as if it were to get destroyed by a stray rider or car it would not be as bad as a dead 5DMkII.

Our 4x4 needing a clean

When it came down to it, the whole race took less than half an hour.  I got almost enough usable footage to string together in the edit.  There were a couple of shots missing however and though we were only able to follow one race all the way though I was able to pick up some b-roll from static positions on a second race later in the day.

If I were to do it again I would certainly bring a bigger crew and more equipment. That said, I hope the end result is watchable and more cinematic that one of our regular news reports.  Let me know what you think.

A quick update just to say that DSLRnewsshooter.com contributor Seppe Van Grieken has posted another great timelapse video from the Shanghai World Expo – this time from the German pavillion. Seppe says this is the last in his series which he previously shared with us here.

The German Pavilion from Shanghai Expo Timelapse Machine on Vimeo.

We are always looking for interesting contributions to post here on the site. If you have news or feature video shot on DSLR that you think is worthy please feel free to email me at pressphotographer@gmail.com or message me on twitter @dslrinformer.

Much of the tech buzz on the web today is about Sony’s NEX-VG10 APS-C sensor camcorder which I previously blogged about when it was first announced as a prototype. Now Sony have given it a name, a price ($2000 US), issued this sample footage and provided us with more details about it. It should be in stores by September.

Beautiful Bali captured with the Sony NEX-VG10 Handycam camcorder from SonyElectronics on Vimeo.

This camcorder should be the first to market to combine regular high end consumer/semi-pro video cam ergonomics with a large sensor. Panasonic’s large sensor camcorder the previously announced AG-AF100 is not supposed to ship until later in the year. Whilst a few months back many commentators were expecting Canon to be the first to do this we have yet to see a large sensor camcorder offering from them. How the new Sony camera stack up in terms of image quality against the established Canon 5DmkII, 7D, 550D and 1DMkIV remains to be seen. One major drawback the Sony seems to have is the lack of a 1080/24 or 25p mode, instead it offers interlaced output only. This will be good for some TV shooters but pretty annoying for the rest of us trying to get the ‘Film look’. It also has a relatively low bitrate around 24Mbps, which even given the AVCHD codec may not rival the likes of the 5DmkII. Indeed the year old Panasonic GH-1 has recently been hacked to provide far higher AVCHD bitrates.

On the plus side Japanese lens mount adapter manufacturer Rayqual has already announced a range of NEX fitting adapters that allow you to put Leica lenses onto the NEX-VG10, with Nikon, Contax or Canon FD sure to follow. Sony also have their own mount adapter to allow the use of Sony/Minolta Alpha lenses in manual focus mode. Another interesting point is that at least one website is claiming the Sony will have a HDMI output which can be recorded offering potentially higher bitrates for recording when used with devices like the AJA KiPro or Convergent design Nanoflash.

One thing is for certain, these cameras make shallow depth of field video far more accessible to video shooters who are used to cameras like the Sony Z1, V1 or A1. Sony also previewed a bigger large sensor camcorder at NAB earlier this year so one assumes that before too long the diminutive NEX-VG10 will soon be joined by a professional EX or NXCAM variant with better audio and control layout. I envisage a lot of news shooters leaning towards buying one of these rather than a DSLR purely on the grounds of familiarity and ease of use.

There are several other hands on examples online – this one is in German.

Sony Handycam NEX-VG10 EXCLUSIVE: the first testvideo from Charles Michel on Vimeo.

UK based AFP staff photojournalist Leon Neal has been one of the company’s first in the UK to use DSLR for video

Nikon D3s kitted out with Audio Technica Pro24-CM mic

The Glastonbury festival 2010 was a new experience for me as this year would be my first attempt at trying to cover an event in both still and video.  After requesting some new toys from the head office in Paris, they managed to get a Zacuto Z-Finder Jr and an Audio-Technica PRO24-CM couriered to me on the day before the festival. The downside to the tight delivery time was that the Z-Finder clip needs to be stuck in place and allowed to cure for 24 hours before use, so I had to bury it under all the camping equipment and photographic rubble in the boot of my car overnight with a stepladder pressing it into place. Thankfully, I hadn’t destroyed my D3s by the time I arrived on-site but anyone buying one should note that you can’t just use the eyepiece straight out of the box.

Leon Neal shows off the Zacuto Z-Finder Jr. (Photo by Ian Gavan)

As I have touched on before on my own blog, I volunteered for multimedia training at AFP some time ago, with the opinion that not only is there no point in trying to hold back the technological advance but also if my employer is wanting to train me up and allow me to learn on company time, I’d be foolish not to accept the offer. Unlike some other agencies, AFP only expects “webclips” from their photographers as they have a full dedicated multimedia team already. A webclip is simply a ‘flavour’ of what actually occurred, without interviews, captions or extended footage. In a continuation of the role of the photographer as a “silent witness”, the video allows the viewer to experience the sounds and vibe of an event with (hopefully) very little bias or comment through composition etc. Aiming to send files of around 60 seconds to the edit suite, the MM team will then chop, crop and edit the footage in whichever way that they need so that it can be embedded into the AFP online news service. With this in mind, I was asked to provide whatever footage I could while shooting the weekend’s events.

After an initial five or six clips that had to be deleted due to me forgetting to turn the mic on (I told you this was all new to me..) I started to try to think in both still and moving images over the weekend. While my first attempts at video on Wednesday were pretty awful, by the end of the weekend, I had become a bit more used to switching between the two different ‘disciplines’ without too much fuss. While it proved a hindrance if I was trying to cover something that was happening quickly, such as goal reactions as fans watched the televised England World Cup matches, this was cancelled out by the chance to record aspects of the festival that have never really lent themselves to the still image, such as the silent disco. With the inclusion of audio, you can now understand how the disco works and that there really is no music audible to those passing by other than the sing-along chorus of the crowd.

The biggest problem that I’ve faced so far is overcoming what seems to be the most important single “danger” in video; camera shake. While dedicated TV and multimedia crews can carry around tripods for rock-solid stability, video is secondary to me so it must remain a light part of my kit. As I travel on public transport during the working day, I’m already overloaded with the tools I need to capture still images, never mind lugging a tripod around too. While the obvious answer may seem to be image stabilisation in lenses, the manufacturers have been slow in developing the much needed multi-use lens. For news, I want and need fast glass so really don’t like to buy anything below f2.8. However, the wide and midrange glass currently offered by both Nikon and Canon in this aperture range doesn’t include image stabilisation. If I want VR (vibration reduction) or IS (image stabilisation), I have to go to an f4 or above lens. Again, I’ll stress that if I had the use of a tripod, these issues wouldn’t be a problem, but trying to capture news on the fly in a fast moving situation already provides enough challenges before I factor in the use of legs on my camera.

AFP supplied the Zacuto Z-Finder Jr for the D3s

While the Zacuto Z-finder jr helps by allowing me to ‘anchor’ the camera to my eye for an added point of stability, it still doesn’t deal with the problem fully. I’m aware that there are a variety of brackets and shoulder stocks available for this reason but again, it’s another thing for me to carry. As far as I can tell, the only answer is either move to f4 lenses with VR built in or hope that Nikon and Canon are aware of the customer base that are patiently waiting for something that addresses the issue. Rumours were buzzing around the camera forums last year that there would be a new series of 24-70mm f2.8 lenses with VR but, as yet, these have come to nothing.

As I finished writing the three Glastonbury blogs for www.leonneal.com and looked at the video again, I considered not publishing the video as I can see so clearly where I need to improve but I’m a believer in marking my development and as this is a starting point, it should give me something to look back on and laugh at hysterically (before sobbing as I realise that I shared it online). So here, in all it’s frequently wobbly glory, is my first proper attempt at video with the D3s. Knowing that there are countless photographers out there who are miles further down the line than me when it comes to video, all comments, tips, advice, criticism and cash donations (for no real reason) are appreciated.

As far as I was aware Canon hadn’t actually acknowledged the erratic aperture behaviour issue on the 550D and 1DmkIV up till today. I’ve found with my Canon 100mm macro and 200mm f2L the aperture has been jumping quite a bit as you focus in and out. Hopefully this latest firmware will fix this permanently. This from the Canon site –

The following fixes have been incorporated.

Fixes a phenomenon in which the set aperture moves unexpectedly when shooting movies in manual exposure mode using some Canon lenses (such as macro lenses).
Supplemental Information: This phenomenon involves the aperture of the lens moving unexpectedly when the focusing ring moves (during focusing). Please note that aperture values also change when operating the zoom ring of a zoom lens that has variable maximum aperture values; however, this is a normal operation because the camera controls aperture values properly depending on the focal length (zoom position).

Corrects misspellings in the French and Spanish menus for applicable products.
How do I check the camera’s current firmware version number?

Turn the Power Switch , and press the

button to display the menu. Turn the Main Dial and the Quick Control Dial, and you will see the “Firmware Ver.X.X.X” at the end of the settings shown in “Set-up 3 (Yellow)”, which is the currently installed firmware version number.

How do I update the firmware?

These are two ways to update the camera’s firmware.

Download the firmware file from this web site and install the update as shown in the updating procedure.
Bring the camera to a Canon Customer Support Center and have the firmware updated by the center.
If you choose this method, contact a Canon Customer Support Center in your region

You can download the Eos 1DmkIV firmware here
and the Eos 550D/T2i firmware here

Like many video DSLR news shooters I find getting smooth, accurate manual focus with an autofocus 35mm stills lens to be a little tricky at times. Unlike proper Cine or video camera lenses the focussing rings of autofocus lenses often do not rotate very far when going from minimum focus to infinity. In contrast a good ENG camera lens often rotate as much as 180 degrees when going from minimum to infinity focus, whilst a proper Cine lens may rotate almost a full 360 degrees for the same focus travel.

Zeiss CP.2 Cine lenses with long focus travel

To get smoother, more controllable manual focus on a Canon stills lens I’ve found the best solution be to add a follow focus unit like those from Genus, Redrockmicro, Zacuto, Cinevate Chroziel or the budget D-focus. All these follow focus units work in pretty much the same way but with varying degrees of accuracy (backlash) and smoothness. I currently shoot with a Redrockmicro V2 follow focus but I’m testing out newer ones right now so hopefully I can review more of them in the future. One thing I do like about the Redrock and the Genus follow focus is the quick release capability which I regard as essential for news where you may want to re-rig in a hurry.

The Genus Superior Follow Focus with quick release

The new D-Focus V3 budget follow focus

Follow focus units also require some kind of rig to attach them to your camera. Most of these rigs are quite big but for news shooting there are now some quite interesting lightweight options. The two that I own are the Jag35 DSLR cage and the Redrockmicro Captain Stubling rig. Both of these are designed for handheld shooting and can also be put on a tripod as well (The Captain Stubling needs you to purchase additional parts to do this).

Jag35 cage rigged for follow focus from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

One thing all these follow focus units require is a gear to be added to the lens. I find that even when used without a follow focus attached the extra circumference and grip they give to a lens aids accurate focussing a lot.

Redrockmicro follow focus and gears from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Up till recently I’ve been exclusively using the $44.50 Redrockmicro lens gears which come in different sizes and increase the diameter of the lens a fair amount to give greater focus travel. These are fine if you plan to leave one attached to each lens you own but I find them hard to move around between lenses in a hurry on a shoot, they also take up a lot of room in your camera bag when fitted to a lens. If you have a lot of lenses like me then you basically need a whole set of four in sizes A through D, luckily they do a discount on a pack of 3. Really large diameter super telephoto lenses are not catered for with this system. Cinevate has a similar system with a wider gear and a clever add on Durus focus lever option but I’ve not had a chance to test it.

Zacuto Zipgears in action from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Next I moved on to the $68 Zacuto Zipgears which are much lower profile and a nice simple design. I like these as they hardly add any bulk to the lens which is really good on news assignments when trying to pack a bag tight full of gear. They also supply long enough gear strips to fit larger telephoto lenses easily. The downside is that it’s designed to be left on a lens semi permanantly because each gear needs to be cut to size and you can’t change them in a hurry – again if you have a lot of lenses this can be pricey. British company Shoot35 has some similar concept gears but I’ve not had a chance to test these yet either.

Which brings me to the newest lens gear on the market from Genus. This one is $69 and also low profile like the Zacuto except that it is bright blue and the same gear can be moved between many different lenses quickly and attaching using a simple thumbscrew adjustable rack. It is very quick to put it on and take it off. Cut at the right length it turns out I can cover 3 or 4 different lenses with the same gear. It will also accomodate a large telephoto lenses like my big Leica 280mm f2.8 with ease. If you are on a budget or simply don’t want a follow focus gear on your lens the whole time this seems like a good choice. Genus tell me that they will also offer a permanent fixed option in the future.

Genus follow focus gear from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Finally the costliest, most professional and most robust option is to have custom made lens gear made for each lens. These are made either of Aluminium or Delrin and are custom fitted, usually they are not to be removed. They can be made to be reasonably close fitting to the lens barrel but are not as low profile as the Zacuto or Genus gears. Reputable manufacturers of these include Matt Duclos in the US and TLS Services in the UK. I have not had any of these made for myself yet but have seen some in action and was very impressed.

Even with a Follow focus and good gear added manual focussing with an autofocus lens can be tricky. In the next part we’ll look at how to use manual focus still lenses and make them more Cine like.

Gizmag.com just posted a video of a very interesting demonstration of a ‘Wonder Camera’ concept from Canon at the Japanese pavilion of the Shanghai World Expo. It is Canon’s imagining of what a camera will be like around the year 2030, but what is really interesting is that most of the technology they show appears to actually work today. This camera of the future would have a single touch-controlled, image-stabilised megazoom lens going from extreme macro to 5000mm super telephoto and everything would be in focus. One assumes that to get shallow depth of field the camera would apply some kind of computer algorithm and not actually use optical techniques. It would feature a super high definition sensor and only capture video, using the video to generate stills if needed. If you observe carefully, the camera is tethered to a backpack worn by the presenter. One can assume that much of the camera’s electronics are really in a computer in this backpack which may be linked wirelessly or tethered to even more computing power behind the scenes. Even so, I’ld love to take a peek inside and see what makes it tick. At one point they show off multiple faces in the audience being tracked; later, these are turned into individual portraits simply by cropping the high resolution sensor. I assume that what is holding technology like this back is storage capacity and computing power – and given how quickly these are increasing you may not have to wait until 2030 for the chance to buy something like this.

What this all means for professional stills and video is quite interesting. When cameras like this become available will all our current DSLR and filmmaking gear become redundant? Can we throw all our lovely EF lenses away? Will we never need to pull focus again? Will making a TV programme or a film simply be a question of lighting a set, then placing enough of these cameras around that there is enough footage for someone to edit together later on?

These cameras would almost certainly be the death knell for breaking news coverage by professionals, who could never compete with a citizen on the spot with one of these cameras. It would also presumably mean that there would be plenty of work for picture and video editors who would have to sift through all this material attempting to make something watchable out of it.

Anyone who doubts that this is going to happen need only look back to 1995 when Canon launched the DCS3, their first DSLR with a whopping 1.3 million pixel sensor and brick-like appearance – then look how far we have come in the following 15 years. It is also interesting that Canon has chosen this moment to show this to the world. I wonder if they really expect us to ditch all our EF gear much sooner than we might have expected.

Dr DJ Clark is a leading photojournalist and educator, training students across the globe in the use of DSLR video for news reporting. He is also course leader of the new MA International Multimedia Journalism starting this year in Beijing,China run by the University of Bolton (UK). DJ has recently worked with World Press Photo foundation helping cover the news surrounding 2010 FIFA World Cup. He also works with China Daily’s website.

Over the past two years World Press Photo, Free Voice, Africa Media Online and Lokaalmondiaal have been training print, radio and photo journalists to ready themselves for covering the World Cup. The aim has been to provide African media with stories created and edited by African journalists – a counterpoint to the mainstream ‘western’ wire services; an African voice for an African event. Over 120 journalists from 34 different countries trained and of these, 18 were chosen to join a journalistic ‘Dream team’ in South Africa during the World Cup itself.

Award winning photojournalist Jonathan Torgovnik and myself were tasked with the job of choosing the best African multimedia journalists to be part of the project. We held one workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa and another in Lusaka, Zambia, training 20 of them to work on short projects and demonstrated how I used the Canon DSLRs to produce multimedia.

Using the Canon 7D at the Twenty Ten workshop in Johannesburg

During the workshops we concentrated on training the journalists to be able to produce a short form multimedia story in two to three days. Technical skills covered shooting, sound, editing, compression and uploading to the Twenty Ten project website. As the website featured images, audio and text as well as video, each participant needed to supply a package including all these elements from one story so it could be distributed to media outlets. Another key component was to figure out a look and feel for the 2010 multimedia so that the videos could be run as a series as they were produced. This was not easy as there was an equal mix of photographers and TV cameramen – with differing visual styles. It was also the first multimedia workshops run by World Press Photo and they obviously felt the need to ensure that still photography played a part in the final output. In the end we settled on a mix of stills and video and encouraged participants to use focus pulls, natural wipes, timelapse and video portraits to identify the product as something very different to a TV news package.

DJ Clark shows students a basic Canon 5DmkII video kit

Using a Zoom H4n recorder and Sennheiser radio mics for audio

Work from the workshops can be seen on the Road to Twenty Ten website – the standards were very variable. With equipment costing sometimes two or three times more than in developed countries and agonizingly slow internet speeds it was quite a challenge for us to help the entrants produce work of any quality.

Despite this, of the 20 trained, two were selected for the final ‘Dream Team’; Shravan Vidyarthi and Simone Scholtz won the right to cover the tournament for the project. During the World Cup the work of Shravan and Simone can be seen here.

Aside from training in Africa I have also been working with China Daily, which has just published an eight part series titled ‘Reacting to climate change’. You can see it along with some of my other multimedia here.