Chuck Fadely, a visual journalist at the Miami Herald, has posted on his blog some statements I feel are inaccurate regarding the amount of money one has to spend to “Do it Right”

I have to disagree with Chuck’s assertions - Claudio Van Planta who is a Solo Video Journalist, is shooting for such entities as CNN International and CBC with a SONY A1U and a Macbook. And his work is of a level I personally aspire to attain. The cost of an A1U can be had for under $2200. A Macbook can be had for about the same amount as well. That’s alot less that the $20,000 Chuck states that needs to be spent in order to do it right. If one is going to be doing desktop editing, a Windows XP Pro based machine can do as much for alot less money than a Mac Pro Desktop machine - especially if working with what I feel is the best NLE application out there - SONY Vegas Pro 8.

As a former newspaper shooter, I remember shooting with a couple of bodies and 3 lenses to do 95% of my work - And I sure didn’t spend $10,000 on the gear (FYI - 2 Canon T90 Bodies with high speed 24mm, 85mm and 200mm lenses plus my customized strobe kit - from legendary John Falk specs)

Of course that is old school but the same perspective still applies here for shooting video. I see constant ramblings about all this gear you have to have, and yet, I see outstanding work being created with equipment that costs much less than $10,000 for both shooting and editing - Chuck’s assertions that you need to spend $10,00 on video and audio gear and another $10,000 for a computer and editing software are unrealistic for the majority of newspapers making the transition to shooting video.

When are newspaper shooters going to get out of this mentality (and TV ENG types as well) that you have to spend a lot of money to create and produce quality content?

Maybe I should start a consulting business to address what can be had that can accommodate virtually any newspapers budget.