Bloggers With Video Cameras

Interesting article in WSJ on a phenomena that is changing the landscape of entertainment, news and citizen involvement. 'Regular' people with simple, inexpensive technology, can now produce content in video and audio form as well as text and images. Katrina was far better covered by bloggers and bloggers with video cameras than by the MSM who were too busy with trying to find power for their trucks and interviewing politicians than doing some real reporting.

Recently we purchased on of these cool little Casio cameras($350 at CostCo), and have so far been thrilled with it. Images are fine, and the video/audio, while a bit contrasty, have been exceptionally good. Everything is shot on CF Cards and that makes taking it straight into the Mac or the PC easy. I also have one of these JVC Digital models ($325 at Sam's Club) which is high quality video with 2MP image capture. The zoom is outrageous and the quality is simply amazing. The still images are fine for web use... and with the stability at the unbelievable zoom reach makes taking long tele shots easy.

I have been preparing digital interviews for our PHOTOtool site, our photographicmarketing.com site (I know... we need to update that bad-bay) and some new ventures I am working on with Barry Solberg, a life-coach and consultant for men.

There will be a huge growth in this medium and there will be more applications than can be imagined. I would hope that many photographers would be jumping on this to create wonderful digital content for the web, promote themselves with clips, teach and simply share technique.

WSJ.com - Vlogger (noun): Blogger With Video Camera: "A few years ago, anyone with a new concept in video content would have faced huge hurdles obtaining mass distribution. They would have had to spend millions to develop a new network and even then might not have sold it to satellite and cable operators, whose channel lineups are getting saturated. Today, essentially all someone like Ms. Agnew needs to make a so-called video Web log, or vlog, is a digital camera that can capture moving images and high-speed Internet access.

The new medium, which is attracting thousands of aspiring video producers, is part of a broader trend of do-it-yourself content that's sweeping the television landscape. Videos produced by individuals and tiny production operations also are finding their way to on-demand services offered by cable companies and new networks, like Current, that solicit user content. While most viewers stumble across vlogs while Web surfing, others find them on Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes directory, which lists some vlogs, calling them video podcasts."