Local news station used an I-Phone

[dumpy]

So I'm watching our local 24/7 news station and I see this package about elephants at the zoo. I start thinking something looks off with the video, first off a lot of the video is pretty hot, that which is not over exposed seems a bit dark and looks like it was getting crushed. Something seems off with the frame rate too. Honestly, I was paying far more attention to the video than the story, which is never a good thing, but I'd classify myself as not your average news viewer.

This station has a lot of one man bands, so I'm thinking the reporter innadvertandly flipped the camera to 24 fps and isn't riding the iris as much as they should have. When they toss back to the anchor, she explains that the whole thing was shot on the new I-Phone as part of their "commitment to stay on the cutting edge of technology". I almost wonder if they were down a camera and this was all they had. It doesn't seem like something you'd shoot an actual story on, but rather do a story about the I-phones video capabilities instead.

Here is a link to the story and a behind the scenes.

Honestly (despite my early WTF is with the video), I was fairly impressed for the quality given the fact that it's a phone, not a video camera. It could definitely use a wind screen though, the audio was decent, but noisy at times.

Anyway, I thought that was interesting. Has anyone seen anything like this in any other markets?

Edit: I just watched it online and it looked much better (or appropriate) online that it did on TV.

[L7]

How much do you think apple paid them for that 'free' advertising? Probably buy that new camera they're down.

[dumpy]

How much do you think apple paid them for that 'free' advertising? Probably buy that new camera they're down.

Thought had crossed my mind. The station is owned by Time Warner, me thinks if that were the case, they'd be doing this at their other stations.

FWIW I've noticed the reporter/pseudo-photog has a tendency to do some real cheeseball fluff. Some of his stuff in the past has bordered on advertising, but it was more local in nature than this.

[springsproject]

The station I work for gives those little flip cameras to all the reporters. Then the reporters always reference some bullshit like, "I shot some video with my flip cam". It's really stupid because half the time I'm standing right next to them with my full size gear thinking, "man I need to go get blazed". No but seriously they're dumb but news directors think that's what the audience wants. You gotta drive the ratings, period. Bottom Line.

In all honesty I like big cameras, but yes stuff like the iphone video will probably be showing up on local newscasts and what not.