Two sessions in a digital age: the innovative tech photographing Beijing’s NPC

Sometimes the tech isn’t pretty, but the pictures they capture are giving viewers something new

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An image created by virtual reality equipment providing 360-degree video.

SCMP Reporters

Published: 11:30pm, 16 Mar 2016Updated: 7:22pm, 6 Jun 2019

New technology is transforming the way in which the media collects and delivers information.

As delegates descended on Beijing for the annual sessions of the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, they were joined by masses of journalists using the latest devices, as well as traditional methods, to capture the deliberations.

Post photographer Simon Song took these images in and around the Great Hall of the People showing digital technology in use.

A camera rig to make virtual reality images stands on a pole.

New images that capture 360 degrees of a scene take special equipment like this one, a collection of Go Pro cameras.

Another style of 360 degree camera takes video, which seems a lot simpler in design than others, at the Great Hall of the People.

More Go Pros on a rig, this time shooting 360 degree video.

Nothing to shy away from, this collection of eight cameras will capture every angle.

And so will this one. A much simpler Ricoh Theta 360 degree camera.

And for the simpler streaming crowd, an iPhone shoots in one direction, and just two dimensions, but aims its microphone towards the speakers at left.