Don’t look now but SLR cameras are gaining ground in the professional ranks, delivering off the shelf high definition video and stills for online and on-air.

Newspapers are naturally the early adopters, after all they were already using still cameras to capture images for print. New cameras have allowed for an easier transition for print journalists for online video. No longer is there a need to spend $10 to $20 thousand on high end field cameras.

The Canon cameras are getting a lot of buzz. Canon’s EOS 5D ($2499) and the 7D ($1699) can go head to head in quality with their HD broadcast counterparts. See for yourself in this video. The Canon series camera sports an external mic input, for better audio than a typical in camera mic.

Granted there are concerns with the ability to steady a hand held camera , and limited audio quality. Valid points, but now there is a growing list of new accessories for these cameras, making more sense to put them into the field: camera stabilizers, portable LED lighting, and professional quality microphones.

Here are a couple of new shotgun microphones worth looking at that attach to the camera’s hot shoe, giving a multi-media journalist the broadcast audio quality needed in the field.

Sennheiser MKE 400 Compact Video Camera Shotgun Microphone

• $200
• Integrated Shockmount
• All Metal Construction
• Single AAA Battery Powered

Rode VideoMic Directional Shotgun Microphone

• $149
• Broadcast and studio sound quality
• Rugged reinforced ABS construction
• Intergrated shock mount
• 9 V battery operation

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