Nikon D2Xs, HVX200 iMovie Clip: Stars Over Chincoteague

Post references:
Apple iMovie
Panasonic HVX200
Nikon D2Xs
Manfrotto Bogen Magic Arm
Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8
Refuge Inn of Chincoteague


Because the clips have been severely compressed from high definition, please try viewing in a darkened environment to watch the path of the stars. Thanks!


Stars Over Chincoteague (63 seconds, Google Videos)


I am soooo stoked.

I just "produced" my first project using a combination of time lapse, using (version 3) Apple's iMovie, with some shots I grabbed while on the eastern shore over the weekend on rocket launch that was scrubbed.



Driving down to Chincoteague Island Sunday, my mind swept through with thoughts of how to cover the Minotar rocket that was planned for a pre-dawn launch. Getting to Wallops, VA just as the Sun began setting, out came the HVX200 as I tried grabbing some footage since a rocket launch would only last a couple minutes at best.



Birds flew nearby and I quickly changed my shutter speed on the HVX200 to 1/30th, up one step from 1/15th second, as I had tried letting in more light. The flocks were making their way to bed down for the evening, and I grabbed a short clip of one of the final flocks that passed overhead.



A quick grab of the western horizon, and then a turn of the camera to the dishes within the fenced-in surroundings of Wallops to grab some time lapse footage, set at a frame per second to try gathering some orange-to-blue-to-black of the evening sky. Unfortunately, the camera dropped focus, and what was a nice crisp image of the dishes racked out of focus.



I moved the camera to the illuminated dishes pointing skyward, since they glowed with the sodium vapor lights below. Hoping to get a bite of food and a bit of rest, I packed up the gear, checked in to the Refuge Inn, (I give reference because of the excellent sky views and helpful staff) and became obsessed with finding a room with a view where I could clamp a Nikon D2Xs body and wide angle lens to grab a clear view of the northern sky since I wanted to try shooting some time lapse of the rotation of the ceiling of stars.

My first room was supposed to be 214, but I could hear several women laughing behind the closed door. Not eager to startle them, I returned to the front desk and exchanged the key for room 106, a beautiful room with a view of pine trees. The front desk clerks let me try room 205, but the canopy of an evergreen blocked the view from the room's patio deck. So I walked outside and checked the second floor rooms for their views and wrote the room numbers down. Settling for room 229, out came the gear and batteries, which I started charging. Remembering a recent time lapse experiment with a moonrise, I set my Nikon D2Xs body on a time lapse rate of 45 seconds, and made some test shots to find the correct exposure.

But I still wasn't happy with the view from my deck. While walking through the hotel to check for the locations of the emergency exits, I noticed a sign: "Observation deck. Quiet Zone," next to a door with no keyed doorknob. Opening it revealed a metal spiral starwell to the roof, which had a wooden deck with tables and chairs. Retrieving the camera and a Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 lens, I mounted it to the deck railing with a Manfrotto Bogen Magic Arm, positioning the camera to aim at about a 35 degree angle skyward, just steep enough to see the trees in the lower portion of the frame (for visual reference). Shooting test after test, the final exposure came to 30 seconds at f/4, with the lens zoomed out to 10mm length, and the ISO rating at "HIGH1," which is the same as ISO 1600. The image was shot in normal size and basic setting, which gave plenty of images for a 1-gigabyte card. The rate of time lapse resulted in one frame every 45 seconds, which seemed like a great rate of time lapse, since the stars and Moon creep so slowly across the night sky.



Starting the time lapse session, which would last all night, I piled some lounge chairs and a table behind the clamped camera (like that would stop anyone from stealing a camera) and ran out to grab some Chinese food up the street. Returning with Peking duck and pork egg fu yung (without the onions), I made regular checks of the gear to make certain it was still there, and everything worked.



Somewhere between midnight and 1AM, the camera stopped firing. Such a long process of image-gathering on a cold night can drain a battery, and the rechargeable was DOA. Grabbing another battery from the room, I changed lenses to a Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 and aimed the camera just above a rising Moon. Resuming the time lapse process, I retired to bed for about 1-1/2 hours and came back to the set-up, pausing the camera, replacing the battery with a fresh one, and resuming the shoot.

Awake after setting the alarms on the room clock and my cell phone, I packed my gear, got ready for the 5AM meeting at the NASA Visitors Center, and retrieved the camera, which still fired. Driving the 7 miles to the center, I was told the news: the launch had been scrubbed. Uggh. That meant that I could have slept even longer.

Well, the launch didn't fly, but the footage did. I didn't know what to do with the clips until I decided to try editing it together in iMovie. Dragging the files to each window for the upload, and then pulling each scene around gave me a good idea on how to put together this little clip. It doesn't last long, but I gained some knowledge as my ultimate goal is mastering Final Cut Pro. If Final Cut is anywhere near the structure of iMovie, I think I'm good-to-go.

I was a little miffed that iMovie is based on the boring NTSC television format, which is 4X3, or 640X480 pixels. It made me have to crop the footage from both the HVX200 (which shoots in 16X9 and the 35mm digital format, which is 3X2. While looking at the software, adding some fades and transitions, plus some drone-like background and a clip of birds gave it some added life. Try it without sound, and it gets old, quick. Add some audio tone with a suspenseful sound... does it make you want to experience more?


Stars Over Chincoteague (62 seconds, YouTube Videos)

The Stage is Set

Post content:

Panasonic Lumix FZ30
Focus Enhancements FS-100
Panasonic AG-HVX200
Macintosh G5 Tower
Baltimore Sun
Olympus DS-2 Digital Recorder

It's time for me to get ready to rumble. With multimedia, that is. The new schedule's set, which means the first 3 days of the work week will be spent by starting at around 7AM, gathering footage and producing packages for our website. Thursday and Friday will be spent sleeping in (to start the afternoon shift) and work general assignments, since there is a shortage of late night shooters.

Weekend time will be spent recharging the batteries for the next week. Yesterday was rough. While trying to understand a Focus Enhancements Firestore FS-100 100-gigabyte DTE (direct-to-edit) recorder for our production camcorder HVX200, I had to roll out to Catonsville to document the scene with the still camera where a resident was killed and a state trooper was shot while serving papers early that morning. The father was upset as I entered his home, and the family shared their accounts of what happened.

Grabbing the Lumix FZ30 to capture some footage, he talked to other family at the top of the stairs, showing the large number of bullet holes that tore through the walls, describing the events that he witnessed. The still images were an afterthought as he expressed his account of watching how his son died, and told about his upcoming birthday near the end of December.

The time neared 6:30PM as we wrapped up, and a couple of calls later, someone was ready and waiting in the office to edit and post the captured footage. Attempting to transfer the files into our FTP site, the transfer rate for regular video clips was so slow (even for our high-speed network) that I simply sent the first half of footage into the multimedia folder and grabbed a CD and burned the other 5 files, running them out to the web point-person to edit and post.

The editors seemed rather pleased at the finished package when I reported to work this afternoon. Dudley, Chuck and I talked so I could understand the new schedule and what was expected of my efforts in 2007, and I retreated to one of our Macintosh G5 towers to try mounting that FS-100 onto the desktop so I could extract the 40 gigs of high definition footage I had been capturing over the past several days for a project several of us have been working on.

Listening in to a conversation between Chuck and Lloyd nearby, I heard about a convict who had been released from prison after spending over 30 years in jail for a crime he says he never committed. Lloyd had taken some great images as the family met the released man outside court, and my own creative juices flowed, expressing the regret that we didn't shoot any footage for the web. "That's just what I want you to do," Dudley said. "Look at the daily log for interesting jobs and shoot some packages."

Torn between word of a family party to celebrate the release north of town, and having to shoot the Maryland Terrapins' men's basketball game just a couple hours later in College Park, I called Steve to let him know that I'd try to document the party. Parking nearby, I grabbed the trusty Lumix as well as an Olympus DS-2 digital recorder and small shotgun microphone to back up the audio, since there would be a house filled with loud, happy guests.


Maryland Terrapins' Ekene Ibekwe rejects a shot attempted in Maryland's 101-50 trouncing.

The guest of honor sat at the center of the dining room table as friends, family, and defense attorneys broke bread together, celebrating the end of their terrible nightmare. Lloyd and I tripped over each other once or twice as we captured the event, happy that no one from the television stations were even there. Wrapping up with about 9 minutes of footage, I returned, burned a DVD with the audio and movie files for Steve to edit and post, and then hit the road where I sit in our cubby after Maryland's 101-50 beatdown of Missouri-Kansas City. I put the new Nikon cameras back to work, leaving the HVX back in the office and shooting a couple decent frames with the D2Xs in the first half.

The images from the Catonsville shooting are still at work on the desktop, so be my guest and hop over to the Baltimore Sun online. On this current page, there's multimedia taken with the Lumix of the father after the shooting and soon there will be footage of the wrongly-convicted man released, but get it while it's hot; the site is regularly updated.

Quick Review: Nikon D2Xs

Independent Review References:
Nikon D2Xs
Panasonic AG-HVX200
Sigma 10-20mm f 4-5.6
Nikon D2Hs (preview)
Nikon D2H
Canon EOS 30D
Nikon D200


I'm sure you'll be inundated with the images taken during the daytime of all the fine low-ISO, high-color quality images of this camera. But I'm simply going to add just a little tweak, which is about low-light situations, and color-tweaking your camera.

Speed? What Speed?
The Nikon D2Xs can be your primary camera if you feel confident shooting at a reduced frame rate. With the setting in full frame mode, you aren't going to set any speed records in frame rates. After using the D2H for several years, I would have figured the D2Xs was going to be somewhere near the same frame rate of about 7 frames/second, what with better technology, stiff competition from other camera manufacturers and all. But this body isn't meant to fire off in rapid succession; that's what the D2Hs is for (I'll end up writing something about that one in a future post).

The D2Xs can bang out some pretty good files at a decent fps rate, with the high speed crop set to the ON position. Plus, you get the benefit of a tighter image size than with the crop removed. I was shooting with a 300mm 2.8 lens with the subject at the 50 yard line, and I felt like I was using a 400mm or perhaps longer lens while camped out at behind the end zone. The fps rate was much slower than the sports-minded D2H, but I quickly adjusted my shooting tactics. But you'll be shooting nothing but blue crab and turtle races if you want to keep up with your subject, sitting on the motor with the high speed crop off. I couldn't figure what was going wrong when my first job was shooting high school football. One minute, the running back is full frame; the next frame, it seems like he's knee up; the following image, and he's waist-up, coming at me full speed.

You should tweak your settings immediately. These Nikons are set to fire right out of the box, at point and shoot settings, so if you're clueless in Seattle, try just popping in a fresh battery, slipping on a Nikon AF lens, frame some subjects, and fire away. But you really want to set it yourself, right? The user settings seem much easier to manage than the Panasonic HVX200 camcorder, because of the thumb button settings, and a really cool cheat sheet with a "?" mark revealing whenever further explanation is stored within the menu. Panasonic (and any camera manufacturer that doesn't provide this vital feature in their high-end hardware) needs to rip a page out of this manual and follow suit, unless it's patented. If you don't understand the option in the menu that you sit on, and that question mark has popped up, just push and hold the corresponding button on the camera back and viola, an explanation about what the options mean.

Boring Color Tweaks


Rock taken at sRGB Version I.


Rock taken at sRGB Version II.


Rock taken at sRGB Version III.

Unpacking the new body from its box, the settings were pretty similar to the ones in the D2H. Setting the sensitivity down to ISO 100, I started shooting images of a boulder, in afternoon sunlight. But the images didn't have any pop in saturation. Keeping the settings on low contrast with the light setting on cloudy, a little experiment with the Adobe settings was done to grab similar images under different color profiles (yes, there's a "?" for that as well). For my tastes, I didn't care for the sRGB and kept the camera on Adobe, in color mode III. Do I understand the color profiles, other than what the camera tells me? Definitely, not. But I liked the saturation better with my current settings. Your tastes may differ.

Under the Stars


Stars at moonrise, untoned image, directly from camera, 30 seconds at ISO 1600 (or HIGH1).

Using my settings on high contrast (altho I usually stick with low contrast for wider tonal range), I banged off some test images of some stars that impressed me while camped out in Chincoteague, VA. Putting a Sigma 10-20mm f/ 4-5.6 (a terrific piece of glass!) on the body, I ramped up the setting to ISO HIGH1, which is 1600 equivalent. Why don't they just call it 1600? Adding to that midnight clear night, 30 seconds of exposure, and high speed crop off, to take full advantage of the 10mm size, which has a lens magnification already in place with Nikons. Adding NR (noise reduction) only adds more write time which is a feature I turned back off, since that would lead to battery drain.


Detail at 100%. The largest images are on my Flickr site.

Taking the camera to its limits (remember trying to shoot ANYTHING with a Nikon D1 series at night? If I have any images stored, I'll add them), I also pulled the file size back to small size and basic setting. And I was pretty darned impressed with what I saw, after being used to the loads of noise in previous Nikons (D2H, D2 and D1 series).


Taken in the high-noise days with a D1H at ISO 800 where Lori Piestewa grew up in Tuba City, 2003.

I really wonder if adding NR will help or hurt in the long run. There are post-processing programs of all types out there. Simply dive into your camera's settings and try each one. And do one thing before changing your settings: make an audio recording of what you've done. Whatever is necessary, make sure to add that audio clip. The EXIF data that is like a thumb print of a picture file didn't have the ISO setting that I had used for the sequence I shot with the Sigma.

Firmware Upgrades, Old and New
Nikon has already released the ver. 2.00 D2Hs firmware upgrade, which add some options. It also has a firmware upgrade for the D2X, and people are whispering that the firmware brings the D2X to closely resemble the D2Xs! But if you choose to upgrade, you're on your own. I won't take responsibility if you screw it up. From what Jeff shared, it's worth adding the new firmware upgrades, and they are simple enough for both the Macintosh (you can tether the camera or drag/drop the file into an SD card, as long as it's recognized by the camera). As for Windows/Microsoft? I can't share any observations, since I'm Macintosh.

Nikon's website was simple enough with the information. You'd better keep your doggone camera on during the process, or you might have something like a paperweight, if the process is interrupted. I already did my D2Hs body, and there were 2 files, firmware A and firmware B, which took a couple minutes. Being a fidgeter with a camera in my hands, I was tempted to play with the buttons, but realized the danger and set it down, picking up a remote instead. Matter of fact, I have to download the D2Xs firmware, which is only about 1 megabyte.

Initial Thoughts
With the greater ISO range, bigger file size, and less noise, I'd say that I'm pretty happy with the D2Xs. It's still one loud camera, which makes it impossible to be ignored in a quiet room, unless the subject's way in their own world. And forget about catching the gremlins or Santa Claus; either one will bolt when hearing the clunk of the shutter. As I learn the camera's assets and limitations, I'll keep posting here. If I can find a way to make it a stand-alone section, I'll do that. The fact that there's an option for some double exposures is nice as well. Bring the film camera functions back into the digital age. It's just not nearly as fun doing it in Photoshop than doing it in-camera. Keep your eyes peeled for the D2H (I just got one, and will review that soon, as well) and other consumer-grade cameras (I keep hearing lots about the Nikon D200 and the Canon EOS 30D) that write very nice files with manageable quality in extreme conditions.

Get yourself some larger cards. Unless you'll be shooting a single frame of a rocket launch, you'll see how quickly a now-old 512 MB card can fill up with the camera settings on high file size and quality, let alone trying to shoot in RAW or TIFF. Try that in a 256 or 512 MB card, and your once-formidable CF card becomes tinky winky. If your card size isn't ready for the camera, set it temporarily until you get at least a 1GB, and perhaps a 2GB or larger card. That way, you can take advantage of the best image quality, instead of scaling it back, which then starts defeating the point of getting such a camera, in the first place.

But again, see where this is heading? The CD burn for storing files is way obsolete. Remember, CD's have now been used since the early 1980's. Their capacity was fine for the early computers. Just as we've outlived them, we're outliving the usefulness of CD data storage. At this stage, you'll start filling up 4.4GB DVD data disks, if you're shooting high resolution NEF and TIFF files, or if you're shooting several jobs in one day. So a nearby option may still be to start considering a now-expensive high-capacity disk burner and disks (BlueRay, HD DVD), or at the very least, a double-layer DVD burner. The 9GB disks are still pretty expensive, and their use will be temporary, since high definition media will be available for the masses when people start capturing video on HDTV cameras.

Lumix FZ30 Shoot: Hybrid Movie Clip From Video, Still Files

Software info:
iSquint
Apple Quicktime
iMovie
Hardware Review:
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30
Also, check out my own review here.

It's about time to start the "trial and error" phase of joining still images, movie clips and audio!

Writing from Glen Burnie, I'm trying something else with the Lumix FZ30. I shot some low-resolution images and I'm currently pasting the images together and then splicing the movie files for a walk-around of my albino Honda sea turtle.

Getting bored with driving up and down Route 2, trying to find one of those fake trees for the holiday (NOT for me; for my best friend and my godchildren), I gave up on the effort and turned to learning the cut and paste process. Hopping out of the albino, I grabbed the Lumix and started shooting some stills in the "∞" (unlimited shooting) setting. Dropping the camera's resolution rate back to the smallest "EZ" setting and switching the jpeg size to the smallest available, I began by making a movie file in-camera.

Holding my position, I turned the camera to "shutter priority," which was set on 1/25th second, the closest shutter speed that matches the movie camera frame rate (1/24th second). Grabbing a bunch of images as I started moving my position, I walked to the side of the car, stooped shooting stills, and switched again to shoot a small movie clip. The process of shooting still images (at about 2 frames/second or so), switching to a movie clip, and back to stills continued for the walk-around, until I was behind my car, with a trickle of battery power to spare. Adding a short bit of footage to finish, I burrowed back in the Panera Bread, which has wi-fi for free, for a little web-surfing at cable speed.


Opening the finder and clicking on the still images, each image size was 2048 pixels wide, while my movie rate is 640 pixels wide! So, there will be several layers of post-production to make the still movies and movie clips all the same pixel size.

Being a still photographer for my whole adult life and still learning about things like iMovie and Quicktime Pro, here's the method I went through (and my processor is still cranking out down-conversion while I write):

• Copy the files to the desktop.
• Mark the movie clips to visually exclude them.
• Create folders and drag all the sequenced still images into each one.
• Using Quicktime Pro, make image sequences out of images in each folder.
• Using iSquint, resize the movie file from current size (2048x1536) to 640x480, the same size of the movie clips.
• Since the new files are .mp4 (for iPod video), open in Quicktime and save as .mov files.
• Drop all the smaller clips in iMovie and place them in order.
• Export all the sequences into one movie.

Desktop screenshot of the file size of a Quicktime movie, shot as a movie file with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30. Dimension size for the movie clip is NTSC standard, 640x480, and the clip length is only 19 seconds while the size of the clip is 22.7 MB.

The final file size was 78.2 megs and 2'00", so I optimized the file for posting online, by running it back through iSquint for Macintosh OS X. The desktop screenshot of the file size of a Quicktime movie, joined through the iSquint proggie, using still images and movie clips. Original file size, once at over 200 MB, is dropped to 14MB for 2 minutes of footage. I've been using it more and more as a movie clip resizing tool since I also have a video iPod, and the quality of the resized clips are decent enough, while the program is very stable:



Yup, that's a lot of steps, and I haven't even gotten to the audio portion yet! As I learn Final Cut and Macromedia Flash, PostProd is certain (hopefully) to be streamlined. The next thing to learn is adding audio to the still-image movie files. So far, I haven't gotten any royalty-free music, but I tried adding some of the iMovie sound effects (like the revving engine) and haven't figured that out. And I'm getting frustrated tonight, so I'm ready to shut this down. With more work in post, you can bet that audio like cool music will be added, as I begin mastering multimedia production.

Lumix FZ30 Shoot: First Video Embed; Frame Stills & Still Photo

These stills are frames from digital movie clips with the Panasonic FZ30. At the bottom is a comparison between the footage and an HQ still image, shot with the same camera.


Short Clip shot with the Lumix DMC-FZ30

As I wait for the accessories to start coming in for the HVX200, I'm training myself to learn how to creatively shoot digital film clips with the Lumix FZ30. It's actually a terrific starter camera for those considering video, considering it was around $500 new. It should be less, now that the FZ50 has been introduced. By allowing the user to switch between digital still and movie, an interesting process can be exploited.


Mac drives as the camera shoots from the dashboard.

I decided to record a subject who plans to design an ethanol plant, which forced me to work around a rather constricting location: his pickup truck. Mac drove his Dodge through the wind and rain of a strong nor'easter as we headed south towards Pocomoke City on the southeastern corner of Maryland. In that time, I shot about 25 minutes of footage while Mac shared the plans and vision of the plant.


The portability of the FZ30, working in the footwell.

But I also didn't want to conduct the interview outside for several reasons. First, it was a soaking, cold rain outside, and I had already begun feeling that tingly sensation in my throat, showing that I'm getting ill. I'm also using a camera with no external microphone, whose mic is built onto the upper left portion of the camera body, facing up.


A little hand detail captured while Mac speaks.

Remembering an important tip given by Brian Storm, I chose to let Mac speak about the ethanol process from inside the cabin of his truck, which is actually a truly great location to conduct an audio recording. The closed doors seal out much unwanted noise, and the interior creates a sound dampening room as the voice is absorbed, rather than reflected. The interior of such a tight space can be a challenge for someone who wants to express a creative side, but practicing the effort can yield better composition, creating visually appealing scenes by looking beyond the obvious.


A tight shot as Mac focuses on his destination.

The obvious scenes are capturing your subject from the position of the passenger. Shoot that way for more than a couple minutes, and the viewer will get pretty bored, because that turns the subject into nothing more than a talking head. They may as well stand behind a podium. Capturing such a perspective exclusively constricts your own vision, blinding you to other opportunities that can make the package fresh and appealing. Give your viewers angles that they haven't seen. Adding those unusual perspectives can heighten your audiences' interest, making them want to see what angle might fill the next scene.


Rain pelts the window while the FZ30 gathers audio.

What I love about a hybrid camera like the Lumix is that you can see composition by shooting digital stills. The FZ30 has the option to shoot still images in 3 formats: 4x3, 3x2, and 16x9. These are all formats currently in use in standard television, widescreen HDTV, commercial movie cinema, and 35mm film.


Mac, framed in his rear view, rides to destination.

Switch between the 3 still formats and see how your composition changes. It's a mind-altering experience, because you now have a scene-capturing camera that acts as 4 different cameras at the switch of a preference or a dial. You'll see how composition really matters, depending on the format. If you don't adjust between format sizes, you will wind up wasting vital space (I'll try to remember writing about cropping in a later blog).


A frame from the short, 7-second clip above.

By shooting footage, you may even be inspired to shooting some stills, switching your camera over to take some pictures, which happened to me, when we headed up to a farm that was purchased for the plant. I recorded him the first time we drove towards the farm, but wanted some still images, because the visual style I honed in on while shooting footage gave me some ideas to shoot the stills I needed.


Mac explains the proposed site, outside.

The majority of the footage was inside his truck, and Mac apologized for the bad weather, thinking it wouldn't make for a good camera day. But my opinion was that the situation presented itself well for a successful shoot, even though only a minute or so was spent physically on the property, outside his truck. After writing a caption for my Flickr page, I see now why the frame fits the subject.


Frame still from footage while driving to the site...


...yields this portrait, which makes people look more.



The image captures a different-style portrait of Mac, a traveling man who was given the assignment to find a viable site for an ethanol plant. Photographing him outside made him look more like the owner of the place. Seeing this image and analyzing it, Mac is separated from the site by glass, sitting where he's best known to be: always on the go. As his task winds down, he plans to tow the portable trailer that he's lived in, back to Richmond.

Has it Been That Long Since My Last Blog??

One week after our multimedia summit, and I'm still trying to figure everything out.

Dave returned the 120GB recordable drive today (it wouldn't record), and we're looking into getting a different hard drive to record on. I had hoped that I'd be shooting in large format by this time, but sadly, this setback is just another stumbling block as I try to manage shooting video, before I forget all that was discussed at the 3-day boot camp in Allentown.

My reaction now is to delay my attempt to shoot my dream project. There are so many things going on in Baltimore. The city center is expanding. The large vacant hotel building near the Basilica is being demolished. The city plans on vacating and razing hundreds of vacant and abandoned row homes and structures in order to extend the revitalization of the city so that what's been gained won't be for naught with good neighborhoods bordering decaying communities.

Yet I'm still trying to work this out and get shooting.

Oh well.... I'm stoked about what we learned in the Allentown boot camp. Brian Storm was an incredible speaker, and he chatted about merging multiple formats to create one seamless and new style of clip. Storm (his website is mediastorm.org) prefaced that newspapers are dinosaurs; they're on the endangered species list. People are getting their information on the web, and they don't believe what the media force-feeds them, for the most part. Even local TV is being shredded by lack of interest. The growth is in the web, and the interest is still in videos and images. Take a look at Myspace, or Youtube. Even the most quirky vids can generate millions of hits. So, how will journalists feed this appetite?

Storm says we should give 'em what they want. But shooting stills or standard video just won't cut it. Producing a story may. Feel free to shoot images, but enhance the experience by capturing good audio and video, and 1/10th of your work is done. The other 9/10ths is completed in post production, since he estimates that 10 minutes of work are needed for every minute of work recorded, whether it's video or audio. Wow. Just a hint, start being more economical, instead of thinking that "it's only disk space."

He suggests that we have a part of our sites to shed light on our creativity. We need someplace to sing. We must have one corner where we can do what we want, without getting an approving editor's blessing, in which we can let our creative juices flow. Only then can we grow and learn. We have to take ownership of our space and of our own projects. Having this in place will let us experiment and develop a style in this generally-uncharted environment.

With regards to the amount of working sites on the web, very few people have tapped into the new style. Hell, we don't even know what to call ourselves. Even the structure of news-gathering and contest submissions haven't caught up. So many traditional journalists are thinking old-school. It's going to be like NPR meets VH-1. Photography has been around for 150 years. Moving film has been captured since the turn of the century, to the 1900's. Newspapers have churned out editions for 200 years. And this is a nation on ADD (attention deficit). Makes sense to shake things up a bit, huh?

D2H Shoot: Is Opening an Umbrella Inside Bad Luck?

This doesn't have a thing to do with the Panasonic camera, for ther most part. But I'll add a line that does chat about it.

I come in to work, armed with my water-resistant Olympics (Athens, 2004) rain jacket and a pocket "Rainkist," one of those miniature portable, take-it-with-you-anywhere umbrellas, ready to cover Ernesto, whose leading edge began spritzing the Baltimore area in the morning. The only thing on the platter: look for flooding, rain, wind damage, and anything else that might make a front page image.

Already, I had no intentions of using the HVX-200.

With no rain gear for the camcorder (and, frankly, none for my Nikon D2H bodies), I figured it would be better risking 2-year-old still cameras than new gear that cost us $6,000 (and it's uninsured). One reporter chatted with me as I emptied my pockets at the assignment desk. "Are you ready for the big flood?" she kidded. Of course, I said, and I started unveiling my Rainkist umbrella. "Don't open that in here!" she replied, as the 6-inch portable telescoped to about 2 feet in length.

"Are you superstitious?" asked Chuck, our assignment editor. Pausing for a split second, I became unfazed, popping it open. Boy, did I get ribbing.

"What kind of umbrella is THAT?!" she scoffed. "It looks like it's for a girl. It looks like a purse!" Laughing, she continued yet I maintained, in defiance of her questioning my manhood. "I don't care what you think, and that shows that I'm self-confident. What, am I supposed to impress you with the size of my umbrella? Anyone uncomfortable with what your slinging has more to worry about than I do," I said with a smirk on my face.

Cut to 2 hours later, as I went from street to street, looking for weather art of people dealing with the storm. With my car parked on a side street, I walked along Lombard Street, trying to capture a good shot of people battling the wind as it caught their umbrellas. Walking west from Calvert Street, I paused to shoot some photos of the north side at Light Street, as commuters holding umbrellas stood among bright images of people smiling, which adorned a pharmacy at Light Street.

Still unimpressed with my images, I started heading for the USF&G building. Seeing that the "walk" sign burned for me to cross, I started into the street. The driver of a Ford Explorer yielded for me from the first lane of 3, and the amber "don't walk" hand began flashing. Knowing that I had time to cross, I continued, watching out the corner of my eye for traffic turning left. But I noticed a blue Saab, whose driver had her view of me blocked by the SUV. I was already in her lane, but she didn't slow down.

"What the--" I said, as I backpedaled, watching her bumper aim for my kneecaps. In a split second, I thought of my family and being thrown onto the hood of her car, my legs breaking at the impact, and laying up in a hospital, unable to move my legs. At that moment, as I scrambled backwards, she noticed in time, and her wet tires groaned for a moment as the car stopped a foot from my legs.

I shook my head as I completed crossing Light Street, my heart still pulsing with adrenaline from the experience. I did NOT want to become a news event while covering an event that wasn't news-worthy! Only moments later, I captured a nice moment as a woman, heading for the shops at Harborplace, grabbed at her umbrella which was blown backwards in a gust of wind while she stood beside me at Light and Pratt Streets. Only after I told her of my experience did she relent and give me her name (and permission to use the image in the paper).

As I headed back to my car, I recalled the talk about whether opening an umbrella is bad luck. If that was the worst of the luck I had today, I'm glad I opened it.

HVX200 Observations: Merging Technologies, Merging Jobs...

It's bound to happen.

These HD cameras will jump to 4K and higher definition, bringing the image quality on-par with the current crop of digital 35mm cameras. With this blurring of technology, you know that the job description will blur as well.


Ultimately, that will result in a loss of many jobs in the journalism field. Newspapers and local television will merge. If the FCC doesn't allow it, they most certainly will relax their regulations to allow such things to happen. The weight of power is on the side of the large business, not the individual. As newpapers work feverishly to generate some kind of revenue to offset what they have yielded, they would look to getting into true multimedia, by purchasing radio and local stations. If they don't have the money, television will look at this as an option, and the merger will slowly mean the merging of office space, editors (although, there will be some distinction between online, newspaper, TV and radio eds), and field workers.

Reporters will have to know how to work in front of the camera, as well as write stroies for TV and radio. Television camera operators will be merged with photographers. The camera operator of tomorrow will be able to grab high resolution frames, capable of being enlarged ten-fold and more, and then edit the footage for broadcast use.

And the upper management will make more money, while finding more ways to trim their bottom line and save more money. Streamlining, they call it. The only problem is that the stream is already too shallow. If this is the way the future will shape up in the 21st century digital age of news-gathering, they should get some seasoned talent and round the newsroom with some promising raw employees, and give them a good working environment, free of pressure-deadlines that encumber the media workplace.

These HD cameras are simply stepping stones to the 2K, 4K, and higher rez cameras. But they can only be used effectively with people who have an eye for color and composition. Those who make for effective story-telling further enhance the story by knowing how to piece it together to create a story, whether it's one with an ending or not.

Grab a camera and start shooting, people. Learn your craft well, because the time will come when you have to truly put up some well-shot and edited stories for your portfolio. Those shooting Canons and Nikons? Our days as still photojournalists are numbered. It won't be within the next year or two. But in a number of years -- perhaps within the next 5-7 years -- the mergers will start and soon sweep over the lay of the land of media.

No one expected that LP's would become antiques, but they are. Audio tapes, sold just a few years ago, and supported with automobile head units (aka radios) and home audio decks, now gather dust. But now, the CD is an elderly medium, and DVD's will follow suit in a few years, as HD-DVDs and Blu Ray disks expand the storage space. They really are opening the doorway to the UHD formats.

Ultra High definition. And we haven't even formally switched to the HD format, which is a couple years off. Even the HD_DVD's and BluRay disks are a temporary format, as the holographic DVD is being developed, to burn a multitude of layers onto a disk. These are said to hold 1.6 terabytes per disk, which equals 1600 gigabytes. See how the format is actually keeping pace with the storage media? You'll need a 1.6TB disk to hold footage from a 4K camcorder.

Learn your craft now. Hone your skills, and stay ahead of the curve, still shooters and indie videomakers. The ones who have little imagination won't last. Stand-up grab-shots won't cut it. Not with these UHD cameras. The HVX200 is only a mule. It's a playtoy compared to what's about to emerge in digital filming technology, in my honest opinion.

HVX200 Tip: Crush Big Black

I'm not sure if I'll be posting before sometime next week, but I've read about a little tweak inside the camera that can give you a richer black level, and that will be first priority for my next shoot.

The setting is the Master Ped, which is another way to set the black levels for shooting. I've always shot my stuff with MP at zero, but I have read that a better yield for richer tones (beyond setting some good color settings including white balance) would result if you notch the MP level down to around "minus one" or -2. I would have wanted to shoot some footage today, but I needed to shoot the first of a recurring project on a basketball player. Since I want to be able to shoot video and grab frames at the same time, I will want to wait until we get that 100GB writeable drive, otherwise my HD shooting in 1080 or even 720 will yield me only around 8 minutes shoot time.

I've also created a cheat sheet, because I've been setting my camera on different resolutions that wind up resulting in some jaggies (those frames that look like they've been shot with a video camera). The blur looks like a bunch of jagged lines, not simple motion blur. I will keep it right near the front seat so that I can quickly thumb through and see which settings yield film-like qualities (those settings are highlighted green) and which ones yield the jaggies (they're in red).

If someone wants me to post the color cheat sheet, or simply rewrite the info down, I'll try to get to it next week. Right now, I need a haircut, and I'm exhausted. I normally am sleeping at 8am, not shooting, like I did this morning!

HVX200 Shoots: Baltimuda Triangle (sports and features)

It's been a couple weeks, and I've been farting around with the HVX200 (not really ... I've really been working like a mutha mutha) in my attempt to find the right settings for the camera to use it as a still camera. I've not been shooting film stories lately; there's simply not enough space to do it effectively, until we order a 100-GB Firestore drive. So far, the Panasonic has blessed the front page as well as section fronts for the local section and inside of sports. I'm working on the sports and features section fronts as well, and I may have shot just what I needed today.

My first shoot was in Washington, covering Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (is "The" in caps or not??), who made an appearance for the local media for an upcoming feature film, Gridiron Gang. I was pressed for time since I had to run to Annapolis for another shoot, at the Naval Academy. The problem: Any time you have to travel the route between Baltimore, Washington, and Annapolis, you're flirting with possible failure. I call it the Baltimuda Triangle, because somewhere along the line, you're gonna sink. Either the timing between shoots will be off, or you'll get nailed with the traffic issue somewhere along the way.

I did get to the hotel in plenty of time, but the PR flaks said that we wouldn't get to have Rock until 2:40pm. And the Navy PR said they wanted me to be in Annapolis by 3:30pm. You ain't gonna get to Annapolis from DC in anywhere less than an hour or so, and I started the protest. Finally, the Rock crew relented and gave me a couple minutes with Rock, so they hustled me to a room and told me to ready it for him. Opening a shade for the main light, I moved two room lamps a little to get some warmth as a key light and give the room some ambiance. After sitting an assistant down for a test shoot, I was ready.

We had to leave so Rock could come in, and then we were called back in. Asking one of his assistants to sit across from Rock to chat with him, I started shooting some horizontal and vertical stuff as he listened to the lady talk about how she fell and hurt herself. I only shot perhaps 3 minutes worth of 1080i-HD clips, shot at 1/30th second, with a wide open f-stop. I will post a couple shots of it, once the shots run. The color rendition looked great!

The PR guy waited for me to arrive at 4pm in Annapolis (after I misplaced my phone), and escorted me to the practice field to capture some stuff of the players. One camera operator for WBAL-TV told me that I couldn't shoot video after the 6th period (they were in the 8th period), but I scoffed at the notion, saying that it didn't apply to still shooters. Hey, we aren't gonna post video on the net of this, anyway.

Two frames in particular interested me: one of a player who was backlit like crazy - His sweat just jumped in the frame I shot. The other was of a cornerback busting through the offensive line - I opened the video screen, holding the camera low and stood near the two players during the drill. The angle looked somewhat unusual, one shot you rarely see during game action. I'll post these once they get published, as well, which should be within the next several days, I hope. Most of the shoot of the practice was around f/2.8 @ 1/1000th second, using the built-in ND filter.

I saw a shot I lifted from a clip of James Kinstle, who did a piece about Shakespeare downtown. The shot, which ran 2 columns, below a photo shot with a digital still Nikon, held up so well, you simply couldn't tell which one was a still frame and which one was a movie frame! It's posted in the pictures section. I may start posting some video once I learn about downsizing to post here, as well.

HVX200 Shoot: Another Section Front for the HD Camcorder

Well, it's done again. The local section front for the paper now has an HD movie frame from the HVX200. Here it is, children taking part in a clown school. Yes, I had my doubts, but I got what I needed. I shot strictly with the Panasonic, only using the Nikon camera to shoot still images for ID's of the children I captured on the Panasonic. Bob needed the images for the section because he had nothing else to run. Between this job and the one of the football field being dedicated, I wanted to shoot everything with the movie stills. Only the ultra-wide angle of the Nikon was enough for me to use the digital 35mm for the field dedication, but the secondary image of the players' legs standing on the turf (thanks for the shooting idea, Chris Detrick) completed the publishing of the images inside sports.

I didn't even check to see whether any other images were used of the clown school; I wound up going crazy when I scrambled to shoot the rowhouse fire that destroyed a dozen beautiful homes in East Baltimore. And I was ANGRY. I have been waiting to get the 100gb Citidisk HD recording drive to mount on the camera, which shoots HD files at 1 gig per minute, but with my clown stuff already filling the 2- 4gb P2 disks, I'd have to wait for around 16 minutes while the files transferred from the drives to the slow laptop of mine.

I called Dudley and left an angry message: "I need that hard drive NOW. I have a spot news assignment and my disks are filled. This needs to be changed!" I yelled on his voice mail as I booted up my PowerBook to transfer the first 4gb drive. I wound up not even shooting with the camera, but it highlights the need to have a large drive to write on.

I took the HVX200 to the Orioles game this evening, and another batch of journalists -- this time, the photographers -- stared at my new gear. And Bill, with the Orioles PR, was shocked. He simply didn't know what to say, so I told him that this is the future of the still photographer. And I agreed that we couldn't use any of the footage online. The photographers shook their heads, and some of them are clearly upset about the new equipment, saying that there will be lost jobs because of the merging of formats.

Honestly, I see this on the horizon. The downsizing will come into the field visual journalist as it has in other aspects of reportage. There will perhaps be mergers between papers and TV stations, if that's okay by law, and there could be double duty for the photographer to shoot for the local TV station. People will be canned to make way for another wave of journalistic streamlining. And another realm of pure local journalism may very well be hurt.

HVX200 Musings: From Bottom of Barrel to Next Generation

Walking into work today, and I can't believe my eyes. There it is, just like that, on the front page. An image of a man squrting water onto the rubble as a bucket scoops out debris from demolished homes for removal in front of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Opening up the paper, I see 3 more images that I shot with the Panasonic, all printed in color. This was the milestone.

We're now only one of a handful of papers working with HD cameras to do double duty, shooting video and still with one camera. Here we are, with a 30fps (or, 60fps, in slow motion) camera that can capture images up to 4 megapixels for print use, and also use the footage for web or broadcast use.

Only an hour after I made it to work, and my boss Dudley calls me from home. "Is that your still camera, or the video camera?" he asks. It's the video camera. I decided to ramp back the sharpness and shoot all video files, grabbing HD-1080 frames and setting them as Photoshop images, dropping them into the system with a tagline of "HD MOVIE FRAME," instead of "DIGITAL IMAGE," which we tag onto digital still photos. The file number now reads, "000HRC.mov," instead of "DSC0182.jpg."

The picture ran 4 columns wide, and Dudley was ecstatic, like I was last week, when I thought I had my first front page high definition frame. "The only reason I asked was because I knew you'd be gunning for a front page photo," Dudley said, adding, "You'd better grab some extra copies, because we've moved to the next level."

So, it's now official, that we've gone to the next generation of news-gathering. It's time to start considering whether to dump your stills for the high definition camera, and as the newer generations are released with 2K and 4K capabilities, you'll be able to shoot raw images and project them onto a movie theater screen. It's coming. It will soon be here.

HVX200 Musings: Run and Gun

I couldn't sleep. Even though I knew it would be a cloudy morning, I still wanted to take the camera out and shoot some morning scenes on my day off. My first stop would be the courthouse, where I recalled months ago that a homeless man would spend the night at the front doorsteps, sleeping. Walking along Calvert Street, I saw him. Wrapped in a greenish blanket with empty cups of McDonald's drinks and a water bottle around him, he lay outstretched in the still morning air. His shoes sat on the step beneath him, beside some newspapers folded next to them.

My camera was set on B.Press (deep black gamma), with it on Low, for more tonal range. Shooting 1920x720 (HD, 720p) at 60 FPS (called super slow motion, double the frame rate of film cameras), I set my tripod across the street and waited for some gusts of wind to blow the newsprint up. People walked by as he rested, never checking to see what his condition was. But don't judge; would you check on a stranger when you can't see what's in his hands?

I drove out to south Baltimore, setting up beneath a statue to capture some time lapse, at 1 frame per second. Ran out to Tide Point and did some more time lapse, stoked at the way the clouds floated above.

Then I stopped on Charles Street to capture a traffic light and a street lamp. There weren't enough people to shoot street scenes like I had wanted. I even rolled up to the mirror building to shoot some time lapse there. I had only gotten 2 hours sleep, but I just wanted to shoot some footage as the clouds mingled with the sun and sky. And I resized them to post in the images here.

The shots have no post-production toning to them at all, they are raw frames from the shoots I did. I plan on shooting perhaps everything in 720p, since you can't do time lapse or slow motion in 1080, I think. 720p has the most wide ranging shooting styles one can manage.Soon, I'll have to really fart around with the sharpness.

HVX200/D2H Shoot: Ouch, That Hurts.

My first shot at posting a photo for the front of the newspaper. And I'm ready for it, I think.

The job: Grab a shot of the Bromo-Seltzer Tower, which was requested by the managing editor, since we hadn't had any recent images of the building.
The story: Apartment lofts are being created inside the tower, which was built in the early 1900's, which is part of the big rebirth of Baltimore.
The image: A scene of the tower from the eastern side as the sun sets.
The feeling: Elation and pressure. It's got to be done right. It's for show on page one of the largest newspaper in Maryland. The image must be captured at dusk (after 8pm) and dropped into the live system (by 9pm).

Off I go with the HVX200 and my Nikon D2H, for back-up. When you're about to shoot a job in which you're learning your camera's limitations, you don't want mistakes. I reach the inner harbor area right around 8pm, but the sun isn't quite at the right location, since the tower is still too back-lit. So I move about the area on Lombard Street, looking for a clean image where I can capture traffic, the downtown area, and the tower, with room on the left side so the editors can drop some copy.

Finding my spot on Light Street, I wait for the right moment, which comes within the next few minutes. My camera's set on 1920x1080 (1080i), and I wait for Lombard's light to go red, so I can get into the street and shoot. My camera's hoisted on the monopod in the vertical setting, to preserve as much of the resolution as I can. The image looks more saturated as each red light hits, and I start backing up my shots with my D2H.

With my images written on disks, I head back to the photo department and grab frames off the Panasonic. The image looks stellar. And I'm just tickling inside, anticipating a nice display on A-1. Dropping the images into the live system, I walk over to the production desk, where Julie is readying the images for the page front. And she likes what she sees.

"Great job," she says, as does Swag. I feel tremendously confident as I walk back to the photo department. I can see myself driving into work, past newspaper boxes, glancing at box after box with the image that has officially taken us into the next format of camera.

Barely able to control my elation, I answer the in-house phone. "We have a problem," Swag says. "Can you drop the image from your still camera, instead?"

Oh... my... God.... What's wrong? "There's some kind of halo around the buildings, and it's noticeable on the page printer," I'm told. I simply got the backup shot into the system, since we had our backs to the wall for deadline. There was a sinking feeling. A sense of defeat. What the F---? Curse words coursed through my head and out my mouth as I opened the Photoshop files, searching for the halo effect.

I returned to the production desk, and Julie and Swag both apologized, knowing that I had my heart set on the image running. I looked at the page print, and I saw it. A clean, barely-noticeable but definite white edge around the tower. Swag asked what it could have been, and my mind set my sights on the sharpness, which I had cranked up to 7 throughout the camera's settings. Once you set it inside, you can't undo the sharpness.

So, the moment was gone. Talk about depression. If only I could have gone back there, but it's too late. If only I hadn't cranked up the sharpness as much as I had done. The images look so terrific on the Apple monitors. The blue sky, turning to orange closer to the horizon, with the city street bustling beneath the Bromo tower. It would never be used, this time. And I felt responsible.

Austin, TX's HVX Bootcamp? Hot as Blazes!

I can only be brief, as I'm being called out early on assignment, to shoot some footage of the long lines at BWI/Thurgood Marshall Airport, since the U.S. has ramped up the security alert to code red...

The camp was hot on the first day (A/C was broken!) as temps outside flirted around 100 degrees. But I didn't absorb the info as much as I typed away, pounding on my PowerBook as information I thought was worthwhile transferred into a TextEdit file. The second day was better than the first, as I grabbed my camera and shot some footage in time lapse and slow motion. I'm learning how to tweak the settings as well, in exposing the shots.

A BIG important factor in getting good footage is having a good subject. That means, the TOD (time of day) and lighting should be prime. Good clips are watched more when the viewer is mesmerized. Watch for saturated scenes, and you might want to try shooting more at the "golden hour," which is late afternoon/early morning. When that light hits from the front/side/back of a subject, it can make for a prime setting. I like afternoon, because the built-up haze in the atmosphere makes for a great warming filter as the Sun hits the thick part of the atmosphere while setting. Early morning's okay, but you tend to see clouds that block the sunrise in the morning. If you don't, the air tends to be cleaner, resulting in sterile light. Just too white for my tastes.

Anyway, I think I got my first clip for the budding personal film project! It was a shot between two buildings downtown... several people at work were transfixed at the screen as I reviewed my footage. Promising!

Oh, I want to get AppleCare ($99), as that gets the user a 52-week course in whatever Macintosh software they choose to want to learn. Can we say, "Final Cut Pro, please?" That FCP software is powerful, and I have alot to learn.

Ready to Go!

Dudley hands his cellphone to me. A woman who is helping prepare for the HVX200 class in Austin wants to speak with me.

And she keeps asking me what equipment I want. I think, "She must be trying to sell us something, so I'd better make the list very short, since we're watching our budget." Even Dudley told me just days before, "The only thing you're gonna have is a monopod."

So I only ask for a few important things. I want an external writeable drive, a 35mm lens adapter, and an wireless mic system, I said. "Do you want a matte box? Lighting kit? Anything else?" she asks in an eager voice. I wish I could ask for more, but we have a wire-thin budget. I'd love to talk about the stabilizing system, fluidhead tripod, and other goodies, but I want to be realistic. Yet I feel excited that she seems to want to be my advocate, since I can't get anymore vital gear.

Dudley finds me, and I know he needs his phone, so I give her my cell number and she promises to call me right back. But she doesn't.

Dudley asks what I requested, and he seems receptive to the short list. Are we actually getting the gear? No, he says, it's all loaner equipment that I can bring back to use when I complete the seminar. Doh! And that's when I plead for Dudley to call her back, so I can give her the WHOLE list!

I plan to fly into San Antonio instead of Austin. For whatever reason, prices for car rentals and airfare are jacked up in Austin, so always look for alternative cities to fly into. For instance, a subcompact rental for 3 days would cost $230 in Austin, while renting a midsize in San Antonio (75 miles away) would total $94. And gas doesn't cost so much that it would figure into making a difference. Yet.

I'm All but There

I've been given the OK to travel to Austin, TX for the 2-day seminar on using the HVX200 and Final Cut! Dudley called me in his office, giving me information about where to stay, so I will travel south on the day after our family reunion, and then sit in on 2 days of intensive training.

There are no other seminars about this camera, which is potentially catching the attention of many people in the web and news publishing fields. The event will cost around $500, but everyone's saying it's worth every penny. Part of my travel gear will be carrying the rig with me, plus a couple rechargeable batteries. And my brain.

So, the countdown starts, to July 30!

Ready for Training

I've given up. Well, not really. But I've thrown my arms up, because trying to learn Final Cut Pro while shooting with a new commercial-grade camcorder is simply driving me nuts.

I went online to hunt for training seminars, and the only one open in the near future is a seminar in austin, TX. It's a 2-day event, and will cost around $500, but it will immerse users in the ins and outs of shooting with the HVX200.

Meanwhile, I gave all my raw files to the editing Gods, so they can piece my first shoot together. I simply don't have the time to learn it, by the time it has to be polished for web presentation. With my clips and B-roll files, they can piece it all together, with the audio I recorded, and put together a decent clip.

For now, I'm ready to get away from yet another computer screen, so I can grab a bite to eat and look at life outside an office.

From Digital Stills to Digifilm...

I've been racking my brain with the prospect of putting down my still cameras and picking up a high definition camcorder. I never really thought about it so much as I did when I faced the possibility of hanging up my stills, and I didn't like how it felt.

An old boss complained once, "You're taking away my photo soul," a number of years ago, when he was told that management shouldn't do the work of union workers. In a way, I felt like my photo soul was dying, as well.

But then, I came upon a PDN (Photo District News) article about high def camcorders being used as the still shooter's primary camera. At least two photographers have apparently been knocking out frame grabs (still frames saved as photo files from movie clips) and using the jpegs on newsprint. Even the Dallas Morning News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo staff has at least one shooter doing just that, the article said.

I couldn't sleep after reading the article, because I was wound up with a fresh excitement of being one of the first to trailblaze high definition video by cross-platforming to photos. I had asked my boss about using frame grabs for the paper from the video I shot, but he nixed the idea. Now, it has viable credibility. And it's a no-brainer. Pulling me off the streets as a shooter would leave a hole in staffing. And I can shoot video and be able to use frames that can be run perhaps 10 inches in news print.

I like the idea.

But my boss is off for the week, and I have to wait to bring the suggestion to him. I've already left a copy of the article in his mail slot. Some people feel that shooting video cheapens the photographer as a way of making them look like video people with no concept of capturing images. Some feel that the art form would be removed. "I shoot for a newspaper, not a TV station," someone said once.

I understand the concerns, and I've grappled with them to understand and accept the fact that the movement to high def video frame grabs is INEVITABLE. The trend is there and will gain momentum as newspaper editors want photographers to capture two different media - photos for news print and movies for the web - as the years add up while circulation does down. Television is scrambling the same way as newspapers are, as both see their numbers dip, while online surfing explodes.

Newspapers are facing an extinction of sorts. They are morphing into something. Whatever they become, they won't ever be what they once were.

A battle exists if the news-gatherers don't want to adapt. We can adapt only if we concur that the change will take place. It's been happening for years, and we can't turn the clock back. It's simply called, "progress."

News artists were forced out as the primary eyes of history when the still photograph was finally incorporated into news print. Although the first photo was apparently printed in 1880, the consistent use of still photography took place with the launching of the New York Illustrated Daily News, according to the Library of Congress.

The cameras were huge for decades, and finally, a much lighter medium format camera was developed, making press cameras (the old speed graphics) obsolete (except for an alleged sighting of a large format camera at a Donald Rumsfeld press conference... in 2003).

After some time with the 2-1/4 format, the 35mm SLR came into play. For a while, 35mm, 2-1/4, and 4X5 cameras worked side by side, depending on the assignment. The medium format camera became the format for some as they wanted a faster and more compact alternative as photojournalism transformed into a more intimate form.

Meanwhile, telephoto Speed Graphics, known as "Big Bertha" cameras, had been used to capture sports from photo boxes after sports organizations began banning photographers from being on the playing field. The veteran Speed Graphic users squawked that the motorized 35mm camera removed the skill from the photographer. For a while, some veterans likened the young newcomers as "button pushers." (Even my father, years ago, used that exact phrase that when I told him about my decision to become a newspaper photographer.)

Another 2 decades, and the digital still camera broke ground, signalling the death of the 35mm film camera for news gathering. Those who resisted discovered the necessity to shoot digitally on September 11, 2001, when digital cameras wound up transmitting images of the terrorist attacks all over the world. Those still shooting with spools of Ilford or Kodak couldn't find an open processing lab to develop their film.

And now, high definition video has scored a direct hit right into the center of the market. This is the new wave of news-gathering around the world. The lines have been blurred between television and print, but it's now as clear as ever. When you have to option of shooting a camera at 30 frames per second, and you can shoot for two mediums in one clip, it's going to get done. Resist, and that photogrpaher may as well search for a new job. Editors want to hit print and web. They want to give people images and video to view what's unfolding in the world.

The thought was that I should shoot alongside the still shooter to capture digifilm as the photographer shoots the stills. But how long will that last in an era where companies look to streamline their workforces? I am no longer viewing myself as a photojournalist. I'm a multimedia journalist.

The interesting concept about shooting digital film is that it's easy to capture clips that look terrible.

So many videographers are out there on a daily basis, shooting video for television. But have you watched what footage they capture? It's less-than-inspiring. The problem with many local tv shooters (and a decent number of network camera operators) is that they can't think on their own. They have editors or producers speaking into their headphones, and even reporters they work with, telling the videographer how to frame the shot. That simply leaves little room for creativity, which harms the profession and the professional.

But photojournalists will capture some wonderful footage and still images through creative framing. You know, many still shooters scoff at the camcorder as something that cheapens the profession. But the challenge is actually greater to capture images and footage that is well-lit, thoughtfully composed, and creatively executed to let the viewer or reader feel as though he has been an actual eyewitness to an event or subject.

The HD camcorder is now another tool in news-gathering, just like the laptop, cellphone, pen, and paper. Anyone can be issued the gear, but the memorable images and digital film are captured by the ones who have the passion to exploit their gear to their limits.

We all have similar equipment, but only certain shooters seem to get the telling shot on a consistent basis. It has nothing to do with the equipment. It's all up to the one who uses the gear. Anyone can buy the most advanced cameras on the market, but a great photographer can make a quality image from a point -n- shoot. Many photographers blast the gear, but why don't they simply depend more on their talent? One person said they felt dirty by pulling frame grabs off a movie clip, as though it were a form of cheating. But if you shoot something in the right light and frame it, isn't it your shot? Why, then, should you feel "dirty"? Only feel dirty if you're cheating. Cheating is only done when you stage something, or when you claim something that isn't yours. Ultimately, however, our job as news gatherers is to capture images that tell the story fairly. If we are provided with HD cameras or Polaroid instant cameras, the core of our job never has changed.

I think that photographers are intimidated by high def cameras. Honestly, I am, as well. It will be a terrific challenge to capture images and movies that yield that intimate feeling like still cameras can yield. But in thinking back, the switch to digital cameras made it difficult to capture the subtle images and textures when they first were introduced. It took months for me to adjust and understand the new technology enough that I could finally master it.

I won't be able to do it overnight. But I'm learning, and I will master it some day.

The Gee Dee MXF Files!

Lots to say for now.

My first foray into shooting slow motion video with the HVX200 was so anticipated; The first day I got my sweaty hands on the camera, I shot water dripping from my father's storm gutter. Just last Friday, I stayed into the early evening, capturing clips of people enjoying carnival rides at the Havre de Grace fair. Yet I couldn't figure out how to watch what I was shooting. Dave had downloaded Final Cut Express HD onto my laptop, since we tried saving alot of money by staying away from Final Cut Pro 5, which was the native software for the camera's "MXF" files.

My storage cards had all of zero minutes remaining, so I took the camera and PowerBook home and tried all different ways to Sunday to get the software to recognize the camera. But, no luck.

I gave up (how many curse words did I fling? That gee dee camera. That effing P2 system. The maw faw software!) and figured that I would come in to work on my day off and see whether the camera would be recognized by FCP5, which is on our Macintosh G5 desktop. And that puppy has so much more power than my PowerBook. Dave was here, but by that time, I realized that FCEHD doesn't recognize MXF files! Only FCP does. I plugged the Firewire cable in, cranked on the camera, and scrolled to "Import P2 files..." and there they all were. Yay!!

But, what's this? I imported the files and eagerly viewed the files that I shot at 60 frames per second. Yet they didn't look like slow motion. What gives?

Perhaps a little more reading of the user manual might be in order. I did read it when I got it, but didn't touch the camera until we got P2-capable software to edit the files. I only know that I did it all the wrong way. All that salivating I did, trying to catch tight close-ups of faces straining under the horizontal g-force of the ride, the Scrambler, was for nothing.

Online, I found a site that explained how to overcrank and undercrank video. If only the manuals showed such concise information. Just skip over to this site:

http://www.studiodaily.com/studiomonthly/tutorials/trainup/5993.html

which will give the complete scoop on making your shoots look like slow motion film or Charlie Chaplin movies.Play with Synchro Scan and move it up or down by the default 180.0d. My experiment worked, but I hate having to use myself as a subject for camera testing. But where else can you go to shoot slow motion at 1:30am Monday? At least I don't have to go to work until 2:30pm. So, make certain that you DO NOT purchase FCEHD, it will waste your money. Get FCS4 or FCS5. I think version 5 has the software that directly recognizes P2 cards, and our version did that flawlessly.

So now, I was told that I have to shoot video of a commuter on the eastern shore Thursday. I have no idea what to do, so I may bring out both the HVX200 and the Lumix DMC-FZ30, which also shoots video. The lens quality is in no way near approaching that of the HVX200.

This camera is soooo complicated. It has menus like a Windows computer. Some nerd came up with all the functions and weird menus in an awkward position beneath the handle of the camera (the buttons share that of the video preview, which I despise). And you have to run between menus to update between film and video, frame rate, and shutter speed. Somehow, they'll come up with a better, more streamlined approach. But I won't trade this camera in for any other, no matter how easy they are. This bad puppy rocks, and I see how it will be there even years later (as long as it doesn't break). It has more than a hundred different configurations, and can shoot anamorphic video, standard NTSC (your regular TV size), and high definition widescreen.

You can make the videos look all different ways, from basic video with the jaggies, to film-quality. As the next couple weeks go by, I should be shooting mainly video, if not all video. It will be difficult to switch between still photography and moving shots. Maybe the next entry I will write might touch on the bit of sadness I feel about switching. It should be fun, like going from Dell to Macintosh. But I don't know... and I'll try to write an entry about it soon.