Still Photography Days Counted

[wilfredo]

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Most of us had a hard time transitioning to digital. Now according to photojournalist Dirk Halstead, in his book titled: Moments in Time, still photography will be a thing of the past in the next five years. He says it will be replaced by high resolution video cameras that can produce stills. This really took me by surprise. I can follow his logic but still, there is something special about triggering a shutter at the decisive moment when you capture an instance in eternity that running a video camera can't create. I can't see myself giving up the still camera, ever. I suspect this is not welcomed news for Leica fans, but I can see a use for this by media people.

 

Cheers,

Wilfredo

Benitez-Rivera Photography

[johnastovall]

I think Dirk's Playtpus concept (as he has called it) apply more to photojournalism than anything else. The Phojo today is not providing images for printed media but rather the web. It must be mulitmedia to survive in the web. He's already worked with the Dallas Morning News to convert all their photographers to video.

 

To see what this is about go look at his Digital Journalist site.

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[fotografr]

I have a lot of respect for Dirk Halstead, but I hope to hell he's way off base on this prediction. I, for one, have about had it with the "Throw out this system, replace with that system," mentality that the photo-technology revolution has brought us. I can see some benefit for photojournalists and sports shooters who already set their DSLRs to the maximum frames per second and imitate starving woodpeckers every time they hit the shutter, but the vast majority of us don't need to select that one primo frame from a hundred other lookalikes in order to make an image.

 

Imagine editing a 2 or 3 hour shoot. Instead of looking at 300 or so frames, you'd be reviewing the entire 2 or 3 hours over and over looking for the best frames to pull out. It's maddening even to think about.

 

If this is the way of the future, I'll be letting this one pass me by with no regrets.

[BRUCELEE]

Here it is "THE FUTURE"

 

Filmscape Media

 

-m

[wildlightphoto]

I have a lot of respect for Dirk Halstead, but I hope to hell he's way off base on this prediction. I, for one, have about had it with the "Throw out this system, replace with that system," mentality that the photo-technology revolution has brought us. I can see some benefit for photojournalists and sports shooters who already set their DSLRs to the maximum frames per second and imitate starving woodpeckers every time they hit the shutter, but the vast majority of us don't need to select that one primo frame from a hundred other lookalikes in order to make an image.

 

It might be the future but I see no craftsmanship in it. So far I've avoided the machine-gun mentality that replaces last year's x-frames/sec camera with this year's 2x-frames/sec credit-card smasher ad infinitum. I suppose for hobbyists whose credit limits exceed their talent its a boon.

[MrEd]

...almost a year ago Imants posted an article regarding this. Indeed the photojournalist crowd should have jumped on this one a long time ago, but it's taking the up-to-the-minute guys to start playing with these toys a while...

Eventually it will become the main tool for P.J. with out an doubt.

Let's not forget the P.J. are not in it for the art.

 

 

 

.

[MrEd]

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........

 

Imagine editing a 2 or 3 hour shoot. Instead of looking at 300 or so frames, you'd be reviewing the entire 2 or 3 hours over and over looking for the best frames to pull out. It's maddening even to think about.

 

If this is the way of the future, I'll be letting this one pass me by with no regrets.

 

I'm sure they are smart enough not to leave it running the whole time, just the same amount of time that the usual still camera would normally be capturing images. I hope...

 

 

.

[Guest stnami]

I have been using video more than still lately, a video/movie camera is used in a completely different manner than using a DSLR on multi frame, there is no machine gun mentality but one of search or organise content, compose and shoot in a responsive manner.

 

Imagine editing a 2 or 3 hour shoot. Instead of looking at 300 or so frames, you'd be reviewing the entire 2 or 3 hours over and over looking for the best frames to pull out. It's maddening even to think about

.......... not quite true with some video cameras you actually take a still during the shoot. Well I can with mine, so the discretion is still there:)

..things are not that sad and destructive

[Chrizzlie]

I believe it depends what you want to get out of it.

 

As Susan Sontag elaborates in "On Photography", a still is a surrealist fraction of a second frozen into an image that is devoid of temporal context - unless the subject matter provides this context.

 

From an artistic standpoint this will likely hold true for quite a while as photographers want to freeze frame a moment to be extended way beyond its natural duration. At any rate, this is the original creative action (depressing the shutter release at a particular moment in time) as opposed to e.g. painting, where the image is going through something like a "pregnancy" - mentally and by craft of the painter's hands.

 

Technically speaking you can get a still by separating out a single frame from a stream of images captured on film or video (not so excitingly new, by the way).

On a more conceptual or intellectual level you might want to focus stronger to capture the moment desired as a distinct instance of giving "birth" to your image.

 

As much as this holds true for the more artistic side of photography (and with all due respect for video-based work as stnami indicates), there likely will be a good portion of people being attracted by a movie-to-still concept.

 

Firstly I could think of press people who have much less to fear that Mr. Obama has his eyes shut on their otherwise $1000 shot - they now have much more usable material to choose from.

 

Secondly I see the consumer crowd now being able to converge their desire for video and stills into one single device at reasonable quality of results.

 

Thirdly I imagine a distinctive, well thought artistic use that can complement but not replace the classical still photography (for abovementioned reasons).

 

It all lies in what people do photograph (and for what reason) - but that's propably a thread on its own.

 

/ Christian

[Guest stnami]

......... taking stills with a video camera is actually a rewarding experience .......... panning away and then pressing the photo button just as you would with a camera and then you keep on filming. Quite surprising results on both sides,as there is a constant shift of sensibilities ................

[AlanG]

There are many fields of photography where shooting video would be pointless.

[earleygallery]

If it's so, then why hasn't this already happened? We have the technology.

 

So, the M9 may not be FF but it will have movie mode!

[peterv]

Wilfredo,

 

very interesting subject.

 

Having a camera that records sight, sound and motion could indeed be a nice 'all in one" option for journalists. Still the frames have to be edited into images. That's where photographers come in. Like in Immants example, making decicions as to when to push the button, still have to be made, if not at the scene/on the set, than afterwards during the editing phase.

 

There will still (pun intended) be a need for still cameras for all kinds of imagery.

[POKO]

Hi,

 

Two weeks ago I directed a TV spot where the DOP shot with a RED camera. This camera has 5 times the resolution of a HD camera - I seem to remember that it had a 12mp chip??? that was the same size as a standard 35mm film camera frame - 1.33X???

 

The camera itself was fairly small, about the size of a brick. It took standard cine lenses - he used Cooke primes that are crazy sharp lenses. The computer stack that was required to process this info was rather large. 12mp at 30 fps makes for a lot of information.

 

I was shooting the print campaign at the same time, the discussion came up to pull frames from the footage shot to use in the print side. Had the images only been going in to magazines as half page ads, that would have been fine. But, as transit shelters, once cropped into would not have stood up and would have broken down so we shot with my P45.

 

It is coming, there's no question about it. But there is enough difficulty storing a print shoot that ads up to 150gb, the same in moving pictures would be soooo large that memory would be a big issue.

 

Pulling still images from a motion shoot is one thing, shooting on motion to supply a still is another.

 

RED / Index

 

Per

[johnastovall]

I have a lot of respect for Dirk Halstead, but I hope to hell he's way off base on this prediction. I, for one, have about had it with the "Throw out this system, replace with that system," mentality that the photo-technology revolution has brought us. I can see some benefit for photojournalists and sports shooters who already set their DSLRs to the maximum frames per second and imitate starving woodpeckers every time they hit the shutter, but the vast majority of us don't need to select that one primo frame from a hundred other lookalikes in order to make an image.

 

Imagine editing a 2 or 3 hour shoot. Instead of looking at 300 or so frames, you'd be reviewing the entire 2 or 3 hours over and over looking for the best frames to pull out. It's maddening even to think about.

 

If this is the way of the future, I'll be letting this one pass me by with no regrets.

 

The Dallas Morning News just threw out all their dSLR and replaced them with video. They also were trained not to spend 2 or 3 hours shooting and event but think about it as a video and shot to tell the story and then edit down.

[peter_n]

Interesting technology Per, thanks for the link. As an IT person though the last thing I want in my hobby is technology and I'm sure there are quite a few like me. I absolutely understand how streaming video would appeal to a PJ and to editors but I like to choose my own moments in time as they happen and to see prints appearing in the tray.

[wilfredo]

It seems inevitable. We live at a pace unprecedented in human history, and our addiction to speed will not be quenched! I can see why this latest technology will become a powerful tool for the press.

 

Someone mentioned earlier that photojournalists are not artists, yet when we look at award winning news photographs, they are mostly very artistic in their expression and power to convey beyond words. Still (STILL) I think that for most of us, photography remains a way to paint with light. Something magical happens when you trigger the shutter and you sense that you have captured something, a moment frozen in time and eternity that remains alive and dynamic even in its stillness. I won't give that up. I can't keep up with the pace of life in our "brave new world" and frankly, I refuse.

 

Cheers,

Wilfredo

Benitez-Rivera Photography

[fotografr]

......... taking stills with a video camera is actually a rewarding experience .......... panning away and then pressing the photo button just as you would with a camera and then you keep on filming. Quite surprising results on both sides,as there is a constant shift of sensibilities ................

 

Am I correct in assuming these things are not quite as discreet and easy to carry around as the M8? For me this is a major consideration as I don't like being burdened down by my equipment. Something like this seems pretty cumbersome to me:

 

Filmscape Media

[Guest stnami]

The big red is not the only technology on the market, high end small video cameras like what Sony and Canon(HV-30 30fps frame mode) are staring to appear. Along with them will be a improved stills technology, how far the go will be dictated by the market.

For the consumer probably a stills video package beyond their needs. How this will translate into the top end depends on costs and R&D, but there is a market there it just has to be big enough for them to go there,

Sure the better cameras(Canon XHA1)are a bit big at the moment and people perform for them, I do find that the smaller video camera does get ignored, but that depends on the situation as with all cameras.

In the end a discrete camera is one that the subject doesn't see and that includes surveillance cameras.

Once again you are implying that only a m8 is discrete, which is a narrow perspective and this translates into your scepticism about the cine/still combination.

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[devils-advocate]

If the painters aren't switching to video cameras, why should we?

 

For sports and event photojournalism, this is a no-brainer (10fps is already 30% of video). But for most other fields of photography there is little advantage to a streaming image. Why spend hours in front of a monitor looking at throw-away frames instead of just composing properly in-camera and firing the decisive image?

 

DV is very exciting in its own right, but still will always be with us.

 

- N.