A fine camera for reporters

Strong pictures to illustrate a story are now in reach of reporter two-way folk.

The line separating reporters and photographers is becoming blurred. When a good camera kit with a big selection of lenses cost a small fortune, it was impossible to offer reporters the toys given photographers at the same newspaper. This is no longer true.

The news shooters may have faster lenses but there is no longer any reason for reporters acting as two-way folk to be given a complete losing hand when it comes to camera gear. I would highly advise any paper to give super zoom cameras like the Fuji FinePix HS10 serious consideration.

These cameras may not capture the ultimate in image quality but then newspapers don't require such high quality. My Fuji shoots images that would look just fine printed on newsprint with an 80 line halftone screen.

Reporters are bright people and many are very image literate. With a good super zoom these talented reporters could report both verbally and pictorially and they could do so easily and quickly.

Last night I had to post a response to a feature that ran in my local paper. I made a loop through the suburban area that was discussed, quickly took a lot of pictures to illustrate my points, and within hours of deciding to write my piece I had it online, complete with art.

See: Rockin' On: the blog --- 21st Century Suburbia. You don't have to read the piece, this isn't trolling. Just check out the images taken with the lens on my HS10 set anywhere from 24mm to 720mm. The exposures were set by the camera and saved as simple jpegs. I did nothing fancy. I did nothing that a reporter could not be expected to master.

For another example of what a reporter could do with simple equipment and enthusiasm, see:
Canoeing the Thames (in Ontario). Reporters could do this. They are quite bright people. Honest.

Now, about photographers also writing articles . . .