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Chicago Sun Times Swaps iPhone Training For Staff Photographers
frdmfghtr notes (via Cult of Mac) that "the reporters of the Chicago Sun-Times are being given training in iPhone photography, to make up for the firing of the photography staff. From the CoM story: 'The move is part of a growing trend towards publications using the iPhone as a replacement for fancy, expensive DSLRs. It's a also a sign of how traditional journalism is being changed by technology like the iPhone and the advent of digital publishing.'"
clues:
- training in iPhone photography
- firing of the photography staff
- iPhone as a replacement for fancy, expensive DSLRs
Who cares what equipment they're using... A piece of crap camera in a skilled photog's hands can still get a great photo.
The real story (and tragedy) is they think that non-pro photographers (writers and amateurs) can do the job. Watch the results - photo quality (content wise, maybe not just technical wise) will plummet. Maybe they think that doesn't matter, who knows. And for things like sports, they'll have to use wire service photos now for sure. You can get great photos from AP/Reuters, but they'll be the same photos as other news outlets.
Sad sad, and short-sighted decision IMHO
Madcow
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Why an iPhone? Why any phone? Why you remove progressional photographers from the equation you'll get amateur quality photography. Next they'll be teaching them how to use photoshop to fix their crap pictures (or even assemble them from stock photos so they don't need to be bothered going out at all).
I propose that the editor be replaced by my second-grade grand-daughter - I mean, she can edit just as well, right? - and the "fancy, expensive" computer that the editor currently uses be replaced by an Etch-A-Sketch. Or Crayons.
"Grammer". You're one to complain.
clues:
- training in iPhone photography
- firing of the photography staff
- iPhone as a replacement for fancy, expensive DSLRs
It's real, there was quite a bit of time dedicated to this story on Chicago Tonight a few days ago. The big joke is the Chicago Sun Times itself...once a respectable newspaper, now transforming itself into little more than an amateur blog. And using iPhones with their subpar optics...in the hands of people who know nothing about photography...the paper will be carrying Facebook quality pictures, or as another mentioned, the same pic as every other outlet via AP/UPI.
Whatever bozo made this decision should be fired...his/her 6-figure salary will probably pay for 2 or 3 decent photographers, and they'll get a whole lot more value out of those photographers than they will the moron who made this decision. But then, I don't think the Chicago Sun Times is long for this world anyway (an end hastened by such collasal mismanagement).
What we're watching is the final deathrows of a dying paper, in an industry on life support.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
When you remove professional photographers from the equation you'll get amateur quality photography.
When you remove subscription paying readers from the equation, you get less money to pay professional photographers.
The move is part of a growing trend towards publications using the iPhone as a replacement for fancy, expensive DSLRs.
No, the move is a trend towards replacing trained skilled professionals (in this case, photojournalists) with cheap, unskilled labor (reporters who might be fine reporters, but don't know shit about photography and photojournalism; or even "user submissions" from Joe Random's cellphone). The cost of a DSLR is nothing compared to wages for a professional. Unfortunately, the *results* from dumping the photojournalists are also nothing compared to using the professional --- and it's not a matter of camera quality. A professional photojournalist with an iPhone would produce better photojournalism than non-experts with a DSLR. The Chicago Sun Times isn't throwing away "pixel quality" so much as "journalism quality" --- no wonder newspapers are dying.
Thom Hogan (Nikon expert) has a very critical take on this here , one which I happen to agree with fully, to quote Thom:
" If you're in the content business, there's one simple rule you have to remember: create the best content for your chosen media. First, you can sell great content to customers (circulation revenue). Second, you can sell your access to a great set of customers to others (advertising revenue). Corollary: if you don't invest in the content, you'll die. First, because you don't attract a large enough audience and can't hold them. Second, because the declining audience will scare advertisers away. Finally, if you just run from your chosen medium to try to dominate another one, you're playing moose to someone else's elephant. Prepare to get stepped on."
And then you lose one more reason for people to subscribe. I think that is the definition of a death spiral.
"You'll get much better shots from an iPhone than you will if you hand over a D4 or a MkIII to a non-photographer."
No, actually, you won't. DSLRs still have "green square mode" which puts the things in automatic. You won't get the results you'd get from the same camera with a decent photographer behind it, but you'll get better results than a camera phone provides.
I'm sorry, sir, but I am afraid I must revoke your geek card. It's "me fail English? That's unpossible!"
Do you have a subscription for the Sun or a similar newspaper? If you do, good for you. But, there are millions who stopped paying for their news. Without this revenue, how exactly are the news outlets supposed to have all these professionals on staff? Magic money tree? The more people get their news from the "internet", the less money will be spent on gathering the news. This is just a natural outcome of the digital age. If it reduces the quality, well.. That's just part of the game.
That's an elitist view. There is no need for any sort of special professional to press a button on a handled camera device, DSLR or not.
The photographs involved needn't be art, it's for a disposable newspaper.
You win the "complete jackass" comment award. Press photographers don't make "art". They record history. Do some research. Fucking idiot.
Actually, it'll only be properly exposed if it's pointing a subject that's 18% gray (within its metering area, ie spot, center, or center weighted).
The meters inside cameras are reflective meters (as opposed to an incident meter you hold in front of the subject and click). So they measure the light reflected off the subject. But different subjects reflect different amounts of light. A white object is more reflective than a black object. So how does the camera know what color the object is that it's pointed at? It doesn't. So it assumes it's medium gray and sets the exposure accordingly. That's fine for an average (by definition) scene, but fails everywhere else. This is why if you've ever pulled out a point and shoot camera, or phone or pro DSLR in green square mode in the snow and taken a picture, you'll notice all your white snow is gray. That's why professionals use manual exposure, or at least exposure compensation in auto modes.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
AP (Chicago transcript by Siri): President Obama's state of the unit address was... I'd rather not say. But the corndog mafia sentopolis and will in the Mideast. I don't know. Maybe the genius bar guys could answer that. But North Korean leader... I'm not allowed to delete reminders. Look... a puppy!
That's an elitist view.
There is no need for any sort of special professional to press a button on a handled camera device, DSLR or not.
It doesn't take any special skill to pull a trigger either. The skill is in identifying what to shoot and in aiming.
Unless set for spot or center, modern AE algorithms are little more sophisticated than "Expose the whole scene for 18% grey." "Matrix" metering has been around for something like 25 years now. Matrix metering tries to recognize what you are trying to accomplish and adjust exposure accordingly. You are correct that it doesn't always get it right, but give them a little credit... I find that when I'm using my modern DSLR, AE gets it perfect most of the time, and produces a usable shot (as in, one salvageable for a website or newsprint) almost all the time.
The reason to get a real camera is that you can get photos in conditions where a phone won't. Also, they last for years and are far less likely to be damaged in the field. I've got a Canon 7D and even with something like an F2.8 28-75, that cost me $400 a decade ago, it still whips the crap out of what you'd get with a phone. In total that would be a $1500 or so set up. Which would likely last many, many years.
As for professional photographers, you get what you paid for. Ultimately, you need somebody else to do the photography, because you can't interview and take photos of whatever happens at the same time. And a professional is much more likely to get the photos that are needed quickly, rather than futzing around trying to figure out how to best capture the scene.
All this BS about how expensive photographers are, is generally by people who have no idea how much it costs to find that you've been at the scene and don't have any usable shots. Might as well outsource the journalists as well and just collate tweets while we're at it..
No woooosh in space.
They should have let the reporters go and kept the photographers. The quality of the reporting would probably have stayed about the same.
Eye-Fi is one manufacturer of the type of SD card the grandparent is talking about. Their cards in particular have a small amount of storage, a Wi-Fi radio, and a tiny client which automatically uploads pictures written to the storage via the SD interface to a designated server via a proprietary protocol apparently based on HTTP.
I shot freelance for a newspaper in Toronto during the 80s and 90s. And although the work was a lot of fun, I think its time is long over. Consider the adage from dead tree papers: If it bleeds it leads. How many different, artistic ways can you shoot the following, that hasn't been done a zillion times in the past: .org.
1) Large or medium-sized structure fire--this was my specialty.
2) Personal injury accident.
3) Victim(s) being transported.
4) Reminder to set clocks ahead/back.
5) Look how Hot/Cold/Snowy/Icy the weather was yesterday!
6) Perp walk or subject under arrest.
7) Politician making a speech on in a media scrum.
8) Drug/weapons seizure evidence on the table.
9) Presentation of a giant cheque to a lottery winner or charitable
10) Devastation after a large natural disaster, governor/official doing official tour
11) Sad kid/parent after a bully stole their lunch money, bicycle or all the toys for Christmas presents at the poor house.
Now. Go fetch today's paper (good doggie!). How many of the above items do you see in the hard news section? Now factor this: If it's a major disaster, fire, accident, etc, the news editor will be fielding calls from hundreds of people with photos of the event. Probably some with pro-sumer levels of kit. If that isn't available they'll buy a wireservice image and run it. Everything else mentioned is shootable with a phonecam or a shirt-pocket cam, and the level of knowledge needed to shoot it is somewhere between "f/8-and-be-there," and "push-here-stupid."
Sports is an entirely different kettle of fish, and I don't know how they're going to handle Bulls/Black Hawks/Bears/Cubs/Sox games. Again, probably just buy freelancers' materials or stuff off the wires.
Gone are the days when a newspaper NEEDS actual photographs. Unless you're living under a rock the audience already knows what the governor looks like, what a perp-walk looks like, a building fire, a traffic accident or the President making a speech. We can get that anywhere. The hard news reporting is what I care about (not that there's all that much of it these days). Pretty pictures I can find online. They made the right call.
Cheers, Peter, W2IRT