The HVX200 was a groundbreaking camera, seizing the moment to shoot HD in multiple formats on removable media, using variable frame rates. This was our first camcorder since an old tape-driven Canon made in the 1990's, and I was issued one to learn, partly because it finally offered removable media (expensive P2 cards) for tapeless shooting. But there were lurking problems with the HVX which made it a big problem with news-gathering while also shooting with a DSLR.
It's size was large enough to make carrying it difficult. Hand-held shooting couldn't be maintained because of the weight factor on the arm and wrist. It had no interchangeable lenses, so there was little we could do to shoot ultra-wide or extremely long. Adding accessories like microphones helped make it even more cumbersome. The depth of field factor was too great for me. Footage still tended to resemble video. It was very expensive. And complicated to operate (for a still photographer). With the downturn in the economy, a $6,000 camera was the last thing that we wanted to continue purchasing.
Which brought us to outfitting everyone with the Sony HDR-SR7 camcorder, a consumer model not really designed for daily news-gathering. And the cameras slowly but surely failed. My camcorder's built-in hard drive seized up when I mounted it onto the cable of a demolition crane. But I didn't dare put the HVX anywhere near that crane. Although I created some nice shots using the slow motion and time lapse, I knew that the days had ended with our attempt at using two completely different camera formats. The HVX might have been a fine camera for second unit shooting for news stations but not for newspapers.
No comments:
Post a Comment