The other day a European client of ours wanted to know if we could still shoot in standard definition on tape.  We hauled the old Sony BetaCam SP out of mothballs to have a look at it and even found a box of unused tape, so we were good to go.  What struck us was how heavy the camera was.  It seemed like it was from a different era, when videographers all had back problems.  This was a camera we used steadily up until about 2009, one of the last times being the 2010 G20 conference in Toronto for Bloomberg News.  It seemed like it was from a bygone era, being made predominantly of metal, and more importantly, minimal menus.  Most of the things that one would adjust had dedicated buttons, which were metal as well.  This was all in stark contrast to our newer Sony HD video camera whose specs are light years ahead of the BetaCam, but menu driven and about fifty percent plastic, hardly the heavy and sturdy beast its predecessor is.

Using plastic is more understandable today and it seems to make sense given that the shelf life of the newer cameras is maybe 8 years before they become obsolete.  It’s a well know fact that almost as soon as it’s made, technology becomes obsolete.  When people ask us, “Have you seen the new FS100 (or whatever shiny new camera is on the market)” we say yes, but if it’s only 5% better than what we have now, we put it out of our minds.  But we remember it wasn’t long ago that industry people said, “Have you seen the new EX-3?  It’s the new camera everyone’s talking about.”  We did see it, bought it, and still love it.  We figure it will be another 5 years or so before we put it in mothballs.  You can’t stop technology.