Sony Crap

I am toying with an investment in a new Sony Pro Camcorder.    Sony has some great-looking video products but I am seriously concerned about build quality.

Why?

Because over the last month, I have had two “professional grade”  Sony items break way too easily.  The first was a pair of headphones.  These “pro” headphones had a slider mechanism to allow a user to adjust where the cups sat on the ears.  With too little effort, one of these sliders suddenly stopped locking in place.  Looking more closely at the flimsy plastic casing around the slider mechanism, it was clear to see excessive flexibility in the materials.  I broke the casing open along the seam lines and found a tiny (TINY) piece of bent metal that was, apparently, meant to act as a cam, holding the slider in place when the required adjustment had been made.  This piece of metal, made of material softer than that of a paperclip, was loose and bent beyond its original design.  I tried fixing it, and putting it all back together, but the plastic case was not going to stay back together for any length of time.  Nearly $100 in the trash.

Beware of vulnerable and difficult to repair antennae.

And yesterday, I found that my URX-P1 wireless mic receiver had bent one of its antennae.  Gently trying to bend it back in to position, the post broke.  This is when I found out that the antennae on these units are not easily replaceable.  On previous wireless mic packs I have owned, the antenna could easily be clipped on and off with a twist lock device.  This Sony unit would need a replacement $60 antenna plus soldering.  Pathetic.

So be warned.  Sony is a solid brand name but, as with Toyota’s car recalls, there is no guarantee that brand recognition = sustainable quality.

 

Recommended Reading

On a regular basis, I am asked about resources for those who are entering the field of documentary video/video journalism, including those who are presently involved with photojournalism.

Scanning Amazon.com, you will find that there are many books out there, and it is difficult to be

certain that your choice is actually going to add value to your new career path.  However, there are two books, not directly related with documentary work, that I would highly recommend for those who are serious about learning how to use video equipment effectively and professionally.  I have seen more “terrible” videos out there (including some on DVD from Netflix!!) than good ones.   So please consider these recommendations an essential component of your learning experience:

Digital Moviemaking 3.0 by Scott Billups.  Full of little typos and grammatical errors but, I guess, written word is not Scott’s strong point, whereas visual communication is.  A very worthy, to the point book that everyone should read.

An extract – “The goal of this book is to break through the patina of highly polished bullshit that reflects off the fart bubbles of facts that drift through this industry.”  Love it.

The other recommendation is the latest edition of Video Shooter by Barry Braverman.  Barry gets right to the point on all matters of camera control, lighting, workflow, and audio.  At the time of this writing, the links that he quotes to his web site were not working properly, but the book is valuable enough in itself, and is an easy read.  For those who  have spent years learning how to master digital still photography, this book will make a LOT of sense almost immediately.

If you are serious about buying these books, kindly do so from the embedded links (click on the image and you will be taken to Amazon.com.  All proceeds go to funding documentary projects that directly support humanitarian efforts throughout the world.

Thanks and happy reading!

 

The Creation of a News Segment in 2 minutes

This is from my home country, sorely missed (sometimes).  How to create a 2 minute news segment in 2 minutes – watch and learn!

 

iPad Opinion, for what it is worth…

Apple iPad In Use - Guardian.co.uk

The BIG news of today was the launch of Apple’s long awaited, and very much hyped tablet, the iPad.  In just a few hours, commendations, opinions, and complaints were flooding the web and blogosphere.  The usual set of newsy photographs with the obligatory backdrop of the word “iPad”, the close-up of Jobs, and all the other cliche stuff, was filtered to the wires.  Yawn.

Jobs was off.  OK, he was very sick for quite a while.  He appears thin but better.  But he was off.   The “updates” were delivered with the impact of a damp squib.  There were no tasty little follow-up tid-bits to make us all feel an even stronger connection to Apple and Jobs.  It was corporate data, annual report stuff.  Big numbers, for sure, but what does that all really mean to me?

Now don’t get me wrong.  I am a Mac-addict, no question, just ask my wife.  I have even managed to convince her that Macs are the best computing platform that you can use.  The many, MANY arguments on the internet, and elsewhere, about Mac vs PC, is an area I always try to ignore because I just cannot understand the ignorance of some people…

Back to the iPad.  Apart from Jobs clearly not being at the top of his game today, the iPad itself left me feeling anti-climactic.  OK, nice concept, everything that we would expect from Apple.  But there was nothing else, just everything we would expect from Apple.  Amongst other things, it is a competitor to the Kindle but not much of a game changer.  I think that many of us were hoping for another iPod or iPhone experience, but it just did not happen.

The demo was somewhat drawn out – it felt that the timing of each step was just a split second too slow, and that caused the experience to quickly lose its excitement.

It is also a pity that Apple seems to see the iPad as more of a recreational tool, and less of something with commercial applications.  Hopefully developers will quickly fix this – I would love to be able to use the iPad as a Wacom-type tablet, to be able to use a touch-screen version of Photoshop or Final Cut (Express would be good enough).  Can I plug it in to my video cameras and use it as a monitor?  Doesn’t look that way, but that would have been very cool.

Talking of cameras, there wasn’t one.  An iSight with the resolution to take decent digital photographs would have been awesome.   OK, so it might look a little odd to hold up this big tablet to take a photograph, but I want it anyway.

The USB connection seems to have been taken care of, even though it needs an adaptor, but the lack of an SD card slot is a big disappointment.

There is no handwriting input or recognition.  Somebody mentioned that, at some point, you should be able to write with your finger.  But that is not natural.  I want to be able to write with a stylus.  Unfortunately, the touch screen technology works by emitting a tiny electrical charge that connects with your finger.  You don’t really even have to touch the screen, just hold your finger a hair’s width above it.  Most people just touch the screen.  But this means that a regular stylus will not work.  I believe that there are pen contraptions out there that will work with an iPhone now, and I assume that this will be the case with the iPad, but until handwriting recognition comes along, this is a moot point anyway.

The demo showed the usual stuff – photos, video, web pages (no Flash!!!), a calendar.  All were introduced by Jobs with words but nothing that came across as sincere excitement.  “Oh, and here’s the calendar application…”   There was no spark.  And, sadly, there was no “one more thing.”

One update about Flash compatibility.  When Adobe launches CS5, Flash will be compatible for iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads.  Great for all those apps that are built using Flash CS5 but not so much for all previous versions.

Yes, I will probably buy one at some point, but you will not see me lining up outside an Apple store on day one of iPad availability.  I am more likely to order one from B&H Photovideo at some point.

It will be interesting to see how the iPad gets adopted by users and developers over the next 12 months.  The launch was lame; perhaps the game-changing will occur during the aftermath.

 

Movie Review – Soundtrack for a Revolution

Invited by the San Francisco Film Society to attend this special screening at the Landmark Theater in San Francisco’s Embarcadero One, I was drawn by the premise of black music driving the civil rights movement.

As the story started to unfold, a series of well-captured interviews, with individuals that had direct involvement with the civil rights movement, as well as with Doctor Martin Luther King, were presented, intercut with references to, and examples of, popular songs of the time – “We Shall Overcome,” as an example.  A statement made early in the film was that song was an accepted and practiced form of communications amongst the black communities, particularly in the southern states.

Archival footage, that has been well-aired in the past, was shown alongside some new, rarer film content, that effectively showed the perspective of those facing, and standing up to, segregation and bigotry.  For me, the most poignant aspect of this piece of history was the peaceful response given by the persecuted, to those who were clearly abusing law enforcement privileges.  These were scenes that we readily condemn when we see them in Iran or China.  It is amazing to think that these same actions occurred so recently in our history.

The timeline of the movie aligned approximately to the rise in power of Martin Luther King, to his demise when shot by a sniper.  During this timeline, modern-day musicians played studio-recorded cover versions of civil rights-era songs.  Musicians included Wyclef Jean, Joss Stone and John Legend.

A question and answer sessions followed the movie, a panel being made up of executive producer Danny Glover, the co-directors, and the director of photography.

As the film progressed, I felt that the tie-in to the music, which seemed to be such a significant part of the movie judging by its title, was somewhat tenuous.  The use of old slave songs, and other protest songs and chants that were developed during the civil rights protests, did not seem to be fully explored, providing, instead, a very thin thread of connectivity along the Martin Luther King timeline.  I would have been more drawn to the use of modern music, of the type played on the radio, at that time, as an indicator of how the movement was progressing.  Maybe there was no such thing.

The movie did a good job of drawing me in to the history of this movement but I felt it stopped short.  Glover mentioned that the work of the movement continues to this day, and yet access to more contemporary music such as rap, hip hop, and reggae, that all plays a part, was not brought in to the story.  It would have been fascinating to see the transition of the movement from a dependency on traditional songs and chants, only heard in homes, on streets, and in churches, to musical styles that developed in the last half of the 1900’s, and heavily influenced what many of us listen to today.

Soundtrack for a Revolution is a well produced documentary, reviving the history of the civil rights movement.  The musical tie-in is not all it could have been, and there is little that is really new in this film, compared to previous productions.  I hear that the movie may be nominated for an Oscar – good luck with that.