Canon 7D
Canon 24-105mm L f.4
Sennheiser MKE 400
Thanks, Colin. The one-day turnaround thing can be tricky, but my editor let me devote the whole day to it. It's just a matter of a tight workflow and staying organized once I get back to the office. I made a typo in the FtF description: this was shot in 2011, not 2008. Oops!
As for the mic, I try to use my Zoom h4n and its on-board mic as much as possible, but the MKE 400 is a good tool for this situation. I find outdoors on the 7D and the 5D it sounds fine if you get close to the subject, so I'm doing the interviews at 24mm on the 7D. I use the 7D mainly so there is a little less lens distortion when doing that, and so I can get a little more reach for detail shots using the 24-105.
I've been hand-holding the camera with the IS on, and recently I've changed my posture a bit to get less shakiness. As for the viewfinder, I actually stop recording and refocus using the live-view mode zoomed into 5x, re-focus, and start recording again.
Andrew, nice job on this news video. You told the story in the right amount of time and I felt it was fair and balanced with multiple voices shaping the story. It is good to see a one-day turn news video on FtF. I know a lot of journalists are shooting it--most of it not so good. Your clean edit and good journalism made this video very watchable and informative.