Stills + Video - Simultaneously!

[VictorPatterson]

Myself and some news photographer colleagues using pro digital cameras are keen to be able to shoot small clips of video for use on newspaper websites. I have heard a rumour of one small video device that mounts on the hotshoe of a DSLR and is cabled to a bodyworn "blackbox and battery pack". I would appreciate help in sourcing information about the product and how others have tackled this scenario. Regards

[timaylen]

I did this a few months ago when shooting the Larry Birkhead/Ann Nicole story - and got rave reviews and praise from TV shooters who looked on in interest. My setup was basically copied from an idea I saw a paparazzi do (who was captured in a frame with the rig showing) and all I did was mount a digital camcorder to the side of my still cam with an old Metz flash bracket and have it point into the frame slightly. I had the screeen of the camcorder flipped open so I could compose when I had time, but mostly it was just point and shoot. I obviously did pickup the sound of the shutter but that didn't matter for my purposes (TMZ, web etc).

The results were amazing and very useable and becuase of the small rig I was able to get into tight spots other video shooters weren't able to.

The best camcorder suited for this would be, again copied from the pap guy, is the JVC Everio GZMC500 5MP 3CCD 4GB Microdrive Camcorder which is very compact and has a display on the back and not the flip-out kind.

If you want to see the shot of this guy with the rig in action, let me know and I will email.

[Richard_Coyle]

With the rapid advances in HD video recording, and the "live view" offered by the Canon D1 MKIII, it's only a matter of time for these two technologies to merge into one unit, where any video frame will have the quality necessary for a still image use. Can you imagine the number of potential images at 60fps? Or even more?!!

[David_Buzzard]

What you're thinking of is a rig used by the guys who made a documentary on Jim Natchway a few years back called 'War Phototographer'. They had a fiber optic camera mounted on his hot shoe so you could see what he was shooting. It was great because you could see his hands on the camera, and then they'd cut to the photograph he'd just shot.

They are using high resolution digital video cameras at the Dallas Morning Herald, which is working well for them. It's not something I'd like to be involved in, but it's probably the future of newspaper photography. There's a story on it at Sports Shooter.

David Buzzard's Technical Blog