Summary:
- UMD journalism lecturer Josh Davidsburg is using Sony FX30 cinema cameras to teach students how to merge traditional reporting with cinematic techniques for social media, digital platforms, and modern documentaries.
- The FX30 offers high-end features—such as low-light capability, advanced autofocus, S-Cinetone color science, and lightweight ergonomics—at a fraction of traditional production costs.
- Journalism students at UMD start on standard ENG-style video cameras to learn core production basics before "graduating" to the FX30 for advanced cinematography and documentary courses
Josh Davidsburg, a documentary filmmaker and principal lecturer at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, is using Sony’s FX30 cinema cameras to help his journalism students at the learn new ways to tell a story. He finds the Sony FX30 is the right camera for the evolving field of “creator” journalism, a unique blend of feature and documentary-style filmmaking suited for social media and digital platforms from YouTube to streaming services.
“Growing up, I was deciding between being a TV journalist like my dad or a movie director because I had a passion for film and cinema,” said Davidsburg. He chose the former, which led to a journalism degree and eventually a teaching position at UMD.
Davidsburg describes modern-era documentaries as a convergence of journalism and cinema, likening them to the pioneering work of 1970s “new journalism” writers like Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Wolfe, who injected literary techniques into their reporting. Newer camera technologies have also dramatically democratized filmmaking, now with high-end capabilities that cost a fraction of the early prices of production cameras, putting them easily in reach of students and reporters at any level.
Currently, UMD has six FX30 cameras and about 40 Sony ENG-style cameras—a mix of the HXR-NX800, HXR-NX5U, and HXR-NX3 models. Journalism students start with the ENG cameras in their first video production course and then “graduate” to the FX30s in cinematography and documentary producing courses.
Davidsburg’s personal filmmaking projects were also responsible for bringing the FX30 to the UMD students. He shot his latest documentary, “A Banner Year” about local, nonprofit newspaper The Baltimore Banner with Sony’s FX3 cinema camera, which he described as a perfect run‑and‑gun camera with the ergonomics and video‑focused controls to match his shooting requirements.
“When you're following newspaper reporters who are often dealing with sensitive topics and confidential sources, you don't want something big and imposing,” Davidsburg said. “I was often filming at night and with the FX3’s low light capabilities, the camera can almost see in the dark.”
Production for “A Banner Year” is complete and his experience with the FX3 led him to choose the FX30 for his coursework. The FX30 offers many of the FX3’s capabilities but at a lower price and with enough features to give students an entry into the cinematic world.
“The FX30’s ergonomics are great,” he said. “Students aren’t complaining about lugging giant cameras everywhere. The leap in quality from the cameras we were using to the FX30s is incredible. They can go out and come back with a beautiful image that inspires them and gets them excited about this type of work.”
Students find the FX30’s autofocus valuable when dealing with the shallow depth of field of cinema shooting. The camera’s color science with the S-Cinetone picture profile combined with its dynamic range elevates everybody's shooting according to Davidsburg. The UMD program is also pairing the FX30s with Sony wireless audio, and the camera-to-editing workflow is straightforward and compatible with UMD’s editing software.
Most importantly, UMD students are getting a head start on their future careers, gaining valuable hands-on experience that they will eventually apply on a set or in a newsroom. “If you're doing documentaries right, you're taking cinematic techniques and journalistic techniques and combining them to do journalistic storytelling," he concluded. "With these cameras, we’re on that track.”
