Nikon D300s: Advanced shooting techniques – Low Light Video (without the graininess)

Boost your low light capabilities with a fast lens and the D300s set in aperature mode at f4 or less.

This is typically what you’ll see at aperatures of f5.6 or higher, poor lighting and lots of grain.

This is what you’re going for—more evenly lit picture with little to no grain.

Monitor the image quality properly by boosting the screen contrast. Do this by pushing the playback button and the up arrow.

I’ve gotten some great response to my advanced shooting techniques posts about the D300s lately, so I thought I’d take the time to post some more useful techniques I’ve picked up shooting video on my favorite Nikon. This time it’s “gain” control on the D300s for shooting HD video in extremely low light conditions. When you’ve pushed the D300s iris control to it’s lowest setting, here are some tips for squeezing out just a little more visibility from your camera without getting too much grain or color loss.

Aperture is everything

The way you boost your low light viability with the Nikon series of HD video DSLRs is by manipulating the aperture, so the faster the lens, the better. Of course, you’ll run into depth of field issues if you go too low, so be aware of this when setting up your scene. Do not bother changing the ISO, keep it set on something reasonable like 200 or 400 so when you go back to shooting stills, you’re shooting at a standard ISO. I’ve found that manual ISO changes do not translate into real changes in the video capture mode. (It does seem, however, that the ISO adjusts automatically as graininess becomes a factor in low light conditions, whereas in regular lighting conditions there is no graininess.)

So, first, select aperture control mode (or manual if you prefer) and shoot in this mode so you can control the aperture. If you’re not able to push your aperture below f5.6, you’re sure to get a grainy picture. So, try to use lenses that allow you to go to something like f1.8, f2, etc.

Be sure to exit “Live View” mode after making any aperture changes or they won’t take effect. I’ve even found it useful to turn the camera on/off to make sure the changes take effect.

Monitor the video

Lastly, you’ll want to properly monitor the video image you’re capturing to make sure you’re not getting a grainy picture. I find that boosting the screen contrast temporarily while shooting video helps you accurately read the picture.

And, that’s it. Hope this helps.

HUMOR: How to do a TV-style news report

Poking fun at those TV journalists is too much fun! This courtesy of Charlie Brooker. Funny stuff!

Digital Quill focuses on photographers

This month’s issue of the Society of Professional Journalists magazine, Quill, is all about the changes affecting news photographers in the digital age. I also happen to have a column in this month’s issue.

The column in which I make my Quill editorial debut is the digital media toolbox, a spot available to the committee members on SPJ’s National Digital Media Committee. (Lucky us) Each issue, we try to share tips, tricks and tidbits about multimedia journalism. (You can also read a plethora of these tips and tricks on our blog—NetWorked)

When asked to draft up something for this issue, I wanted to address newspaper photographers who have yet to make a foray into news videography with those fancy new DSLRs that shoot HD video. I was also asked to create a tutorial video to accompany the online version of the magazine. You can check out the article here and watch the video above.

If you’re a news photographer, be sure to check out Digital Quill online.

MNA presentation: Online news video on a budget

I enjoyed presenting a session at the Jan. 27-28 Minnesota Newspaper Association annual convention in Bloomington, Minn. on news web video. The discussion was broad and I appreciated the interaction from attendees. There seems to be a lot of experimentation going on at smaller community newspapers in Minnesota in regards to video. However, there’s still quite a bit of skepticism and curiosity about what really works. I laid out the main types of news web videos that I generally see:

New Job – Interactive Media Strategist

I apologize for the long break between posts. I’m sure you all experienced busy holidays too. Well, to top off the holidays, I also transitioned into a new job!

The bad news is I’ve left professional journalism, but the great news is I’m still doing lots of multimedia work and am excited about this new position in the nonprofit sector. My new job title is “interactive media strategist” and I’m working for two nonprofit community foundations: Minnesota Community Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation. The thing about community foundations is they do lots of exciting work that’s hard to sum up in one paragraph. Essentially, community foundations are:

…independent registered philanthropic institutions serving geographically defined territory, typically a city or administrative area (county, region and the like). The six main characteristics of the CFs are:

• Act as grant-making foundations – e.g. give grants to support development projects
• Their mission broadly defined (e.g. to improve quality of life in a community)
• Serve geographically defined communities – a city, state, region, district or province
• Are supported by a broad range of private as well as public donors and seek philanthropic contributions primarily from inside the community
• Are governed by multi-sectoral local boards reflecting the community
• Build capital endowment, which is an important element of sustainability

(Source: Wikipedia)

I’ll be guiding the two Foundations social media efforts, managing its newsletter and other print publication projects, and producing videos for them.

I’ll also be working for an offshoot of the Minnesota Community Foundation called GiveMN.org.

GiveMN.org has a very cool story. (Read the Minneapolis Star Tribune story here). Essentially, the Minnesota Community Foundation decided to forge new territory in the nonprofit world and create this online philanthropic web site where nonprofits from around Minnesota could set up a home page, take donations and connect with donors. Individual donors can now visit one web site to do all their local giving. In a special promotion shortly after the site launched, GiveMN.org raised over $14 million for local nonprofits on “Give to the Max Day” Nov. 17. You can read about it here.

So, basically, I’m working for some really cool folks with a great mission. Here are some of the main bullet points of my job description:

• Produce testimonials about extraordinary nonprofit organizations to feature on the Foundations’ website.
• Promote the featured nonprofits through social media and other strategies.
• Identify high-performing nonprofit and public sector leaders who are having transformative impact in their communities and create profiles to feature on the Foundations’ website.
• Serve as the primary social media voice and manage the Foundations’ presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and other social media outlets.
• Track key on-line communications in Foundation interest areas and ensure we are participating appropriately.
• Manage content and production for the Foundations’ MNSights and Grant-a-Wish publications.
• Manage contracting for and relationships with outside communications suppliers and vendors.
• Work with the Executive Director of GiveMN.org to provide strategic and operational leadership for GiveMN to launch and grow into the best place-based giving platform in the country.
• Build and manage all content partnerships for GiveMN portal.
• Manage production of issue spotlights, working with partners to develop and disseminate great analysis of critical issues facing Minnesota.
• Work with corporate and other sponsors to plan and execute giving promotions such as matching days, challenge grants to individual organizations, and giveaways.
• Lead media strategies and outreach for GiveMN.
• Develop a GiveMN YouTube channel with donor-generated video content integrated into the GiveMN site.

The cool part is I really feel I’m in one of those “jobs of the future”. I mean, this has got to be one of the newest job descriptions out there. In a way, it’s kind of like a metamorphasis from a traditional communication professional job description. No longer is marketing, public relations or journalism about writing for a given medium. Today, any given communication team, be they part of a newsroom or a PR firm, needs to have a social media and video strategy. Online video and social networks have grown in popularity and participation to the point that organizations must employ folks with a grasp of the new online interaction reality. (How I stumbled into this expertise area, I’m not quite sure, but I feel like one of the lucky ones…)

Over the holiday break I read a post by Adam Westbrook (10 Trends in journalism in 2010), a British multimedia journalist and blogger [I love how the Brits say "mobile'], that hit home. His #2 prediction for trends in journalism for 2010 was that journalists will move to the NGO market, or Non-governmental Organization market. (Read nonprofits). Cool, I’m living that prediction!

But seriously, the nonprofit sector seems a great refuge for multimedia journalists who may want to “wait out” all the turbulent changes in the journalism industry. Since journalism is replete with lay-offs, pay cuts and freezes, and a reputation for poor salaries, many high-mined, idealists in the field may find themselves a great fit for nonprofits who wish to share their stories. I certainly hope to make my contributions at the Minnesota Community Foundation, The Saint Paul Foundation and GiveMN.org.

Turning phones into e-readers and newspapers into history

The evolution of new media continues and implications for journalism abound.

I found this web site a few months back when judging some college newspaper web sites. It’s called Issuu.com and was being used, at least on the journalism sites, to post widgets on the news sites of the .pdf, page-turnable document versions of their college publications. I’ve since uploaded a few .pdfs of my own and found the process an easy and efficient way to publish your print publications. Readers can easily read the documents online, embed them on their own sites or print the .pdfs out and read them in paper form. And, did I mention? Issuu.com is free.

Now, Issuu.com is launching apps for the Google Android and Apple iPhone/iTouch phones. Again, technology is enhancing the reading experience for any digital publication on a hand-held device in a way that should make the distributors of the Amazon Kindle (and other e-reader devices) nervous. It should also serve as yet another red flag to newspaper publishers that their days of pushing out news on dead trees are numbered. Anyone holding on hopelessly to the idea that newspapers will be around in 10 years is dreaming.

The good news is publishers, editors, copy desks and reporters will have jobs (at least of few of us will) in this new media ecosystem. Take a look at the pagination of some of these digital editions and you’ll see that page design, typography, editing and quality reporting and writing are going to be necessary and valued skills in the years to come.

Business models aside, new organizational structures a must for newsrooms

Newsrooms of the future will have to restructure to address the realities of news production and dissemination.

Besides the hover chairs, teleportation pads, interactive video walls and augmented reality work stations, the newsroom of the future will operate much differently than the ones we have come to know and loath over the length of our careers. I have a vision of the future newsroom.

The future newsroom, and we can debate just how far into the future this will be, won’t be “converged”. No, it’ll just be multiplatform. Converged is a term for those of us who still seperate ourselves into a medium of choice, a luxury we can no longer afford BTW.

Broadcast, radio or newspapers will no longer be stand alone operations (no surprise there, right?). The future newsroom will be one seamless operation that will produce, curate and distribute it’s news content for multiple platforms.

Job titles such as social media editor, user-generated content editor and multimediographer will be the standard. Reporters will all be multimedia and social media literate without exception.

Future newsroom work flows will grow to accommodate the integration of user-generated content (YouTube Direct and Flickr are good examples of what I’m talking about here.) Future newsrooms will be well served to appoint an editor to solicit, curate and filter the valuable resources that can often be mined from the public.

Social media editors, a job popping up in a number of public and corporate institutions, will be a no brainer for the newsroom of the future. In some major news organizations, like BusinessWeek and NPR, this job is already a reality. It will be important for newsrooms to keep a finger on the pulse of real-time news, information and discourse on social media networks like Twitter. It will also fall on the social media editor to market new content to potential readers and engage them in discussions about the news. There may even be room for a little of the newsroom culture to seep out into the public via social media, similar to what Zappos.com has done. Zappos.com, an online shoe retailer, has made their Facebook page a place to interact with Zappos employees on completely off topic subject matter. Think that engaging consumers about their favorite Christmas song is a waste? Well, they’ve got the responses to prove that Facebook is a great place to generate public affection for their company and their retail operation. Newsrooms would be smart to examine this dynamic in action and adopt a similar strategy.

How we’ll be pubishing our newspapers/magazines in the future

I was checkin’ out Multimedia Shooter’s blog post about 10 Sports Related Multimedia Projects and found this. The Wonderfactory and Time, Inc. have come up with this demo of Sport Illustrated. Check it out and you’ll see what I think is the future of publishing. This is where multimedia reporting all comes together. I can’t imagine a reporter who doesn’t know how to shoot and edit video/photos working for future publications.

The Videographer/Photographer’s Gift Guide

Here’s my picks for the most excellent videography/photography toys out there this holiday season. If you’ve got a videographer or photographer on your Christmas list, check out these groovy gadgets:

1. Bose Around-Ear Headphones     $125.95
   These headphone wear like a dream and close you off from the world around. Whether your photographer or videographer is editing audio for a video project or just lost in a song, they’ll love this ear candy that only Bose can deliver.
   
   

   Headphones by Bose.

2. Cinemin Swivel mini projector    $299.99
   This portable mini projector will help your photographer or videographer show off his or her photos and videos anytime, anywhere. Hooks up easily to iPods, portable media devices and computers.
   
3. X-Rite Eye-One Display LT for Monitor Calibration   $119.95
   A proper color calibration device is a must for any photographer or videographer. You can’t edit video or photos and get the right color if your monitor color isn’t properly calibrated. Make sure your photographer or videographer has this piece of equipment.
   

   Eye-One Display LT by X-Rite.

4. SanDisk High Capacity/High Speed Compact Flash Cards     $145.99 (8GB)
   This is the flash card your photographer/videographer would buy for themselves if they got to pick it out. That’s because SanDisk’s capacity is exceeded by its write speed. That’s the speed at which the data writes to the card, important when snapping hundreds of photos in short periods of time. It’s also key in writing HD video efficiently, a feature of many new DSLR cameras. 8GB capacity with 30 megabytes per second write speed is FAST!
   

   SanDisk® Extreme® CompactFlash® Card.

5. 4GB Storm Trooper USB Drive   $34.99
   Okay, this one is just plain geeky gadget guy fun! Great for Star Wars fans who need to take their digitals photos and files with them on the go.
   

   4GB Storm Trooper USB Drive by Funko.

6. LaCie Portable Rugged Hard Disk   $84.99 (250GB)
   Nowadays it’s not a bad idea to have your data portable and LaCie makes a rugged little hard drive to meet the demanding needs of any photographer or videographer.
   

   LaCie Rugged Hard Disk, Design by Neil Poulton.

7. Gorillapod SLR-Zoom  $49.95
   Your photographer/videographer needs a good portable tripod for those adventurous hikes into the wilderness, be it the back woods or concrete jungle. Gorillapod for SLR-Zoom is a great tool to help them hold that shot steady when lugging around a proper tripod just won’t do.
   

   Gorillapod SLR-Zoom by Joby.

8. An Online Camera Store Gift Card (Adorama & B & H are my trusted online photo stores!)
   If you’re not sure what they’ve already got in their photography or video tool kit, you can’t go wrong with gift cards to Adorama Camera or B & H Photo Video online. Trusted, quality stores with excellent customer service.
   
9. Apple’s Magic Mouse wireless touch technology mouse  $69.99
   If your photographer or videographer is a Mac guy or gal, then they need the Apple Magic Mouse. It has the same touch technology as the iPhone or iPod Touch and allows you to trace your finger over the entire surface to scroll, swipe, etc. And, it’s wireless. Less desktop clutter!
   

   Magic Mouse by Apple.

10. PHOTOGRAPHY BOOK: Complete Guide to High Dynamic Range Digital Photography by Ferrell McCollough   $24.95
    There are a gazillion photography books I could recommend, but I’ll just mention this one. High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography is a new trend in photography. Why not give your old photographer a new trick!? Check out this guide to a new way of looking at photography.
    

    Complete Guide to High Dynamic Range Digital Photography by Ferrell McCollough.

Online editor acquiesced

Photo by Jeff Achen

Well, the frustrating reality of dismal online advertising revenue has forced my newspaper to eliminate its online editor job description. That means me.

Fortunately, it’s not a layoff, but a simple shift in job title. I’ll be integrated back into the print news operation to cover one of my community newspaper’s various beats. Most likely that means coverage of a community similar to my job description two years ago before being promoted to online editor.

The back story

I’ve always tried to push the multimedia envelope in my reporting, ever since starting as the Apple Valley editor/reporter at Thisweek Newspapers in 2005. We had no online editor at our paper in that time. But, I demonstrated a talent and interest in video and online in particular and in Jan. 2008 the then-president of my publishing company created an online editor position along with an online sales position as a sort of “experiement” to see if this new dynamic online duo could create multimedia content and related multimedia ad products to boost online revenue. It was an exciting time. We took our very lame web site and revamped it, adding more video, interactivity and improved design. Within the first year the sales person’s duties shifted, eventually to include some print advertising sales (sucked back in…) and before the year was up the sales position was eliminated. I continued to work on adding content to Thisweeklive.com, including the addition of audio podcasts in Spanish, Sports podcast, and TV show/Video podcast. I also pumped out at least one feature news video per week and worked to update the web site’s home page daily, something that was woefully lacking prior to me becoming online editor. I also lead a social media campaign to get our news out through Twitter (@Thisweekmn) and Facebook. I like to think my biggest contribution was simply being the point man for Thisweeklive.com. I think newspaper web sites need a point man (or woman) the same as any print edition has an editor. It’s someone to watch out for the paper, take ownership and make it his or her baby. Thisweeklive.com was my baby.

A teaser I created for the launch of Thisweeklive.com
in April 2008. Oh, I was so young, so full of hope…

It’s been a good run

Over the past two years, I’ve enjoyed the innovation and creative enterprise my superiors have allowed me. I’ve always been treated like a professional and nurtured in all my efforts. But, alas, the amount of money we make online remains the same as the day we started this “experiment” and the company president who appointed me has moved on. How long could I continue to goof off in my online office, creating videos and podcasts, posting daily stories and frequently asking for new cameras, software or audio recorders before they realized the online office was only producing news and not $$$? Well, they realized it and it’s a luxury this community newspaper has decided it cannot afford. Instead, we’ll beef up our coverage of business and try to spread the multimedia production out among the rest of the staff.

Though I won’t be online editor anymore, Thisweeklive.com remains committed to multimedia coverage of our communities and timely updates to our news web site. In fact, look for a redesign to debut this spring. I will also continue to host the TV show/video podcast. We’ll also maintain our Twitter and Facebook accounts. We hope our online audience will not see a difference in the online offerings with me “back in the newsroom” so to speak.

Lucky fellow

I’m lucky to still have my job and fortunate to be able to continue experimenting with multimedia. But, somehow this all feels like a hit to online journalism. My supervisors will tell me not to think of it that way. Maybe they’re right.

What do you think? Will online revenue ever support online journalism?