Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Wayne Harley (“Harles”) of ABC 4 Corners about the program’s use of video technology, and camcorders specifically.

Until recently, “VJs” for 4 Corners (and that is “video journalists” not some music video oriented disk jockey) had been using Sony Z1 Handycams, however the time had come when it was time to upgrade and a long and thorough selection process decided on the new Canon XF 300 for a variety of reasons.

The interview was actually shot on a Canon XF 305 Auscam managed to get its hands on the day before with the help of Canon’s Anna Kalinowska. In the capable hands of long time video camera operator, Bill Adams (www.mylifestories.com.au) and with the kind assistance of the ABC and their Ultimo headquarters, we managed to get a couple of hours of interview time that ultimately ended up as 30 minutes of footage on a 32GB CF card.

This data will be edited using Sony Vegas, the first editor to accept the MXF format the Canon XF 300/305 produces, and placed on our site as well as Canon’s. The “words” will be transcribed for use in Auscam magazine at a later date.

While I don’t want to pre-empt what Hurles said about the Canon, from our point of view, even though we had a prototype to play with and shoot the interview, we found it a remarkable camera to get used to and operate.

A few niggles were there – the on / off switch and some back panel covers spring to mind – but apart from that, we had no issues whatsoever in setting the camera up with a set of Sennheiser radio mics on a Miller tripod. To help in lighting, the ABC supplied a small battery operated, camera mounted fluoro light.

In a previous article I mentioned the new Canon FX10 was a candidate for camcorder of the year, and a very strong one at that; the XF300/305 has, in our opinion, raised the bar for serious ENG work as performed by 4 Corners. Reportedly, the BBC has also standardised on the XF300/305 for similar work.

It seems that Canon is aggressively attacking this market, and it will be interesting to see how Sony, Panasonic and JVC react.

You can see the full video interview with Wayne Harley here shortly. Keep checking!

By David Hague

David is the owner and publisher of AusCam Online. He has a background in media dating back to 1979 when he first got involved with photojournalism in motorsport, and went from there into technology via a 5 year stint with Tandy Computers. Following that, he ran a software distribution company on the Gold Coast and was one of the first to recognise the potential of Microsoft Windows.

Moving back to WA, David wrote scripts for Computer Television for video training for the just released Windows and Office 95 among others, and was then lured to Sydney to create web sites for the newly commercial Internet in 1995, building hundreds of sites under contract to OzEmail including Coates Hire, Hertz Queensland, John Williamson, the NSW Board of Studies and many, many more.

He went back into full time journalism as the Managing Editor for Channel 7's 'Gadget Guy', Peter Blasina's publications VideoCamera and Pixelmag, before starting Australasian Camcorder magazine when these publications were shelved. He lives at Sydney's Avalon Beaches nearly on the ocean front with dog Budweiser and in his spare time is a nut for motor sport, road safety, fishing, science fiction - especially Dr Who - and technology.

David can be contacted via david@auscamonline.com