Hard working fashionistas recording HD on their DSLRs

More proof of the higher quality and growing dominance of web-based video

See the Ida Sjöstedt show at BON magazine

Backstage and all around the fashion venues at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week you couldn't help but notice the complete absence of TV news cameras. Sure, there were loads of fantastic collections to distract me but being the tech nerd I am, I was into observing the tech kit as well. I won't say there was an absence of television teams, but there was barely a traditional camera front-end to be seen.

I would say 99.9% of the kit on hand was HD recordable DSLR cameras with complementary rigs such as extended view-finders, focus pulling, led area lighting and radio receivers for remote audio. In the fashion industry I would guess that nearly all of the content is aimed at print and web with video being nearly all web (not so much to broadcast). So it may be natural that the DSLR is
the weapon of choice for photographer/videographers in this area but I think it points to a bigger trend. One that Apple maybe has seen and is banking on as they are obviously moving away from the high-end professional market that was Final Cut Studio and onto Final Cut Pro X, which is focusing on a market that is very much more based on video for web publishing and is nowhere close to broadcast or major post-production work flows.

My opinion of FCP-X's place in the market aside, Apple may be right about the market trend. It is clearly a more lucrative market for them to flood a higher end, cheap software into the web video masses that are looking to up their game, than to truly cater to the small percentage in the very high end. And when I see dozens of DSLR photogs running around recording video, pumping memory sticks into card readers and publishing edited video of fashion shows and interview segments to the web in under an hour, Apple's logic seems to fit.

I wonder how quickly the DSLR will shift the balance of influence between print/web desks and the TV news divisions. Will TV news departments start dumping their video cameras for smaller, compact DSLR's and provide stories, stills, and video to their web desks? The shift has begun already. Just a few months ago, USA Today made a drastic restructuring of their newsrooms, eliminating the individual desk editors and building the newsroom around "content rings". Each ring repurposes the content for their electronic platform such as mobile, web, tablets, and so on. Evidence that the customer touch-point has become equally as important as the content itself. And that touch-point is more and more being reached via a connected device rather than traditional media.

While you're pondering that, please enjoy the videos below featuring two of Sweden's best design brands, Tiger of Sweden and Odd Molly. (see all 30 of the designers at BON magazine)

Odd Molly show: from BON magazine

Tiger of Sweden: from BON magazine