iPhones may not be very good at photographing lunar eclipses, but apparently they�re just fine for television news broadcasts. A local TV news station in Switzerland has ditched standard TV cameras to go 100% iPhone.
Swiss newspaper Le Temps reports that the TV station L�man Bleu made the major switch this past summer when it outfitted each reporter on the field with an iPhone 6 kit for shooting pre-recorded stories and for shooting live shots.
�It�s a search for lightness and responsiveness, but also a way to reduce the costs of producing a newscast,� the station�s news director, Laurent Keller, tells Le Temps.
The station may not even be the first to make this shift: Keller also notes that one Scandinavian news outlet has already gone with an all-iPhone camera roster.
Keller says the new use of iPhone cameras allows reporters to go live from anywhere, both on air and online.
�It�s up to us to reinvent the grammar of the image, to learn to shoot differently,� Keller says. Since the station is only on air for a few hours each day, this move to iPhones will allow reporters to capture and share much more content for online channels.
A similar experiment was conducted in the US by Charlotte�s Fox46 back in 2014, but they pulled the plug due to the quality of the result.
�Plagued by technical problems and relying on journalists with little experience, it had an amateurish quality,� the station reported afterward. �Viewers turned away.�
It�s not just TV news that�s moving toward smartphones: print has been as well. Back in 2013, we reported that the Chicago Sun-Times was planning to train all its editorial employees in �iPhone photography basics.�
So far, however, we haven�t heard of any media company dropping all their high-end still photography cameras in favor of photojournalists shooting solely with iPhones.
<<Print>>