Reuters videographer shoots “stop and frisk” news story with Canon 60D HD-DSLR

 

 

When Reuters senior producer Ayana Morali was asked to do a video piece on a major law enforcement initiative in New York City, rather than reach for her typical camcorder workhorse, the Panasonic HPX-250, she went with something smaller: the Canon EOS 60D HD-DSLR.

The video segment (at the bottom of this post) was on New York City's controversial "stop and frisk" policy, which allows police to pat down suspects. In 2011, the program recovered 780 illegal guns though some find the policy to be an intrusive, invasion of privacy.

"When I was asked to do a piece on a big issue in New York City that was all over the news outlets – stop & frisk – I realized no one had really gone into the neighborhoods and spoken to the citizens who were affected by this policy," Morali writes in a guest post on DSLR News Shooter.

Rather than bring in the bigger and more imposing Panasonic video camera, Morali decided she wanted to give the "man-on-the-street" footage a "more intimate feel," so she used the 18-megapixel, 1080p HD-shooting 60D ($999) and a standard Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens ($107).
 
Though she decided to tweak the footage somewhat, she loved the results. Here is her description of what she did. The Reuters video is below.

"The black and white shots are simply the camera rolling while we were checking mics and setting up the frame. It seemed fitting to throw them in at the top of each comment, so I simply stripped the saturation in post.  A few of the interview shots were slightly over-exposed (it was my first time using this camera as I usually go to our Panasonic HPX-250 for field shoots), so I doubled up the video in FCP and added a 40% composite overlay and the color popped instantly.

Overall, I found it much easier to get around on a field shoot with this smaller piece and since I never shoot AVC-Intra on the Panny 250 anyway, I found it much easier to get a quality picture on the DSLR without any real drawbacks."