Nikon D4+600mm F4+video camera for stills & video? Did anyone see this at the olympics?

<p><strong>Has anyone used a setup like this? Nikon D4+600mm F4+video camera for stills & video? Did anyone see this at the olympics? It was used at a pro surfing event:</strong><br>

<strong><strong><a title="Nikon D4 with AF-S Nikkor 600mm f/4G ED VR & Video Camera @

Huntington Beach!" href="http://45surf.smugmug.com/Other/Pro-Womens-Surfing-Huntington/24610841_FXvHcv#%21i=2011054284&k=Fh8vJzK&lb=1&s=A"><img title="Nikon D4 with AF-S Nikkor 600mm f/4G ED VR & Video Camera @

Huntington Beach!" src="http://45surf.smugmug.com/Other/Pro-Womens-Surfing-Huntington/i-Fh8vJzK/0/L/76886406564d414081e6o-L.jpg" alt="Nikon D4 with AF-S Nikkor 600mm f/4G ED VR

& Video Camera @ Huntington Beach!" /></a></strong></strong><br>

<strong><br /><br /><br />Shooting Stills & Video with Nikon D4 with AF-S Nikkor 600mm fF4G ED VR <br />& Video Camera @ Huntington Beach!<br /><br /></strong></p>

<p>I didn't see it at the Olympics - albeit my viewing was confined to what NBC showed us - and they really didn't focus (pun intended) on the PJ's that were there. </p>

<p>However, I did see a photographer locally a couple of years ago shooting a Canon 1D whatever with a video camera basically tacked on to the hotshoe. He was handheld - not tripod and I believe he had a Rube Goldberg device to allow him to trigger the video while he was shooting stills (without lowering the camera or blindly reaching for the record button). </p>

<p>The drawback that I saw with his setup was <br>

1) Weight on the hotshoe - I'm guessing that even a smallish camcorder is heavier than a flash. <br>

2) No ability to zoom - you would have to preset the zoom <br>

3) since the camera is so close to the camcorder - the sound of the shutter firing would be picked up by the camcorder's built in mic. </p>

<p>Dave</p>

<p>No one credentialed for the Olympics would go anywhere near something like that. It's pretty-much a guarantee that you'll screw up both the still and the video photography. The composition needs of both are so very different: in still photography you use composition to imply motion, and hunt the decisive moment. That that same composition looks horrid in video because the motion you're trying to imply or accentuate in the still is already there, and as you fix on interesting still moments, you get awkward panning in the video. Things like that are more the realm of Craig's List photographers with $50 event shooting packages. People doing stuff like that don't get repeat business.</p>

<p>Also, when you're dealing with substantial magnification (600mm on FF is essentially 14x magnification, and, as David points out, you need to lock the video camera to a similar magnification) you need sturdiness. That means you need a pretty substantial bracket, not that wobbly bit of metal. It looks like a small flash bracket, being horribly overloaded.</p>

<p>Seriously, avoid stuff like that: if you're shooting professionally, you're doing a great disservice to your clients, and if you're doing it for your own enjoyment, you're gutting all the enjoyment out of both the shooting and the final results. </p>

<p>@Joseph - FYI - the guy I saw with the rig was doing PJ work for a small community paper. He would post video clips of the swim races along with stills. And yes - the video suffered. </p>

<p>Dave</p>

<p>Yeah, that's where you see this sort of thing, situations where you don't have the people resources to do a job right. You would think that even a community paper would have an intern, though. We are talking about a situation where even an untrained high school student, operating a video camera independently of the PJ on the still camera, would get better results than a video camera hanging off a still camera.</p>

<p>Seriously, can you imagine covering a swim race without being able to take some verticals? The still photography would suffer horribly.</p>