Ami Vitale: The Rest of the Story

Don't look now, but the role of the photojournalist is about to change.

A camera like the new Nikon D300S, with its D-Movie HD Video capability, will make it possible for photojournalists to combine high-quality video clips with their still images—and as technology has quite clearly demonstrated, about five minutes after something becomes possible, it becomes procedure.

Of course, the D300S isn't intended solely for photojournalists. The pro-level, 12.3-megapixel DX-format Nikon D-SLR is sure to attract action sports shooters and wedding photographers as well as prosumers and photo enthusiasts, but the combination of the camera's size, weight, up to seven frames-per-second continuous shooting and quick upload of 720p video files is sure to make it ideal for many photojournalists.

Like Ami Vitale. When Nikon asked her to check out the new camera and see how video would fit with the way she works, she was enthusiastic. "I think multi-media is the direction we're all moving," Ami says. "It's another way to tell stories, and for me it's absolutely essential."

Ami took the camera and a selection of NIKKOR lenses to India, which for many years was her base of operations. "I felt that was the obvious choice. I've spent so much of my professional life there—it felt really natural."

It was a location that gave her a chance to show how stills and video could work together to tell a story of contrasts, to portray bustling streets and the empty expanse of the desert, to juxtapose quiet personal moments with the sounds and activity of the marketplace. "There are some times when a still image is what you want," Ami says. "It's going to have more impact. But there are other times when it's just not going to tell the whole story, and I'm realizing that there were so many times in the past when I was actually frustrated because I couldn't really tell everything. Sometimes you need movement, you need to see the transition of still to video. It just adds so much more to the story."