Jon Joshua wrote:
For shooting a posed scene? I don't think so. The click of the shutter represents a moment that's frozen in time forever. You lose that concept when you shoot continuously and pick the moment at a later time.


What if we pick the wrong frame to freeze in time? It's kind of hard to argue against 24fps from which to pick the best frame from. I think it'll take humility on the part of photographers to accept.

Just as desktop publishing decimated the ranks of commercial photographers, I think we'll see this type of motion/still blend and higher computing in P&S cameras, making it possible for "everyone" to pull great stills with little or no skill or equipment, other than a computer and diligence.

Gunzorro wrote:
Just as desktop publishing decimated the ranks of commercial photographers, I think we'll see this type of motion/still blend and higher computing in P&S cameras, making it possible for "everyone" to pull great stills with little or no skill or equipment, other than a computer and diligence.

For sure it will. As technology gets better/cheaper in the near future, any soccer mom with any bit of skill will be able to grab frames that 1DX's are capturing today.

Is it photography? Technically speaking, yes.

Is it the skilled practice we're all involved in? A serendipitous 'art'? No. It's crap.

It seems a very 'art school' way to make something. Haven't the skill? Then let's find a way.

i'm not sure how the means matters if you get to the same end.

if two wonderful landscape photographs are exactly the same, one taken on a tripod by a photographer who waited all night for just the right light, and the other snapped casually by a person who just happened to be walking by, does one image have more value than the other?

Paul Mo wrote:
Is it photography? Technically speaking, yes.

Is it the skilled practice we're all involved in? A serendipitous 'art'? No. It's crap.

It seems a very 'art school' way to make something. Haven't the skill? Then let's find a way.

Thus spaketh the Wheelwright to Mr. Firestone.

Very interesting video, thanks for the link.
Though very expensive right now, 4K video in DSLRs will probably be standard in what - 5 years? 4K RAW in a couple more, etc.

I don't think it will replace what we know of as photography - the workflow will be very tiresome for some sequences (a 5 minute sequence has 7200 frames to choose from!), lightning from strobes will not be possible in the same way, processing will take longer time etc. - but it will definitely be a viable and very interesting supplement in the coming years for some photographers.

Will Patterson wrote:
You'd only be able to do that with a 1DC or another camera that captures 4K video because with other SLR's shooting at 1080p the photos are only 1920x1080 pixels. Pretty low res and good enough for about a 5x7 I guess maybe? So if you drop what, $12k on a 1DC, then I guess you sort of have a right


The GoPro Hero3 shoots 4K at 12fps for $399.

Somewhere between $399 and $12K there will soon be more choices balancing the price and quality of 4K frames. For me it's important to add the advantage of my existing interchangeable lenses.

The elephant in this room is what we are all afraid of and what will eventually have to happen. No more dedicated still photography (except for the traditionalist die-hards). Maybe similar to what has happened to film photography gradually over the years.

clarence3 wrote:
Will Patterson wrote:
You'd only be able to do that with a 1DC or another camera that captures 4K video because with other SLR's shooting at 1080p the photos are only 1920x1080 pixels. Pretty low res and good enough for about a 5x7 I guess maybe? So if you drop what, $12k on a 1DC, then I guess you sort of have a right


The GoPro Hero3 shoots 4K at 12fps for $399.

Somewhere between $399 and $12K there will soon be more choices balancing the price and quality of 4K frames. For me it's important to add the advantage of my existing interchangeable lenses.




While the gopro is capable of 4k video, it's at a pretty dismal frame rate and the optics just aren't close to being the same.

marko1953 wrote: The elephant in this room is what we are all afraid of and what will eventually have to happen. No more dedicated still photography (except for the traditionalist die-hards). Maybe similar to what has happened to film photography gradually over the years.

Nonsense. That was said about painting when photography came in. And about the "paperless office" when computers came in.

But at least still photography and painting have one thing in common. The image can be comprehended at a glance. Video consumes vast quantities of time, something ill-understood by those enamored of youtube tutorials and the like.

So there will always be a high demand for still photos, whether they are portraits on walls or illustrations on web pages.

If the means of production becomes efficient to shoot a couple of seconds (48-50 frames) of 4K video to extract a single frame, so be it. But I really don't think it is efficient:

Not even the photographer has time to sift through thousands of pictures to find the one good one. It is bad enough when photographing models and making 50 stills to choose three. Often, for a multitude of reasons, one needs to make 250 shots. Shooting video does not reduce the need because of things like posing and stray hair and expression and tight control of lighting as the model strikes poses.

So you would end up with 50 x 50 = 2500 or 50 x 250 = 12,500 frames to sift through.

Needles in a haystack. What a waste of time.

Yes, it will be useful for things like portrait photographers who have five (5) minutes to photograph a Very Important Person. So yes, they will shoot a ton of frames around each "shot" so they can be sure that the perfect expression is not ruined by a blink.

But expect Very Important People to insist on contracts that forbid video because they don't want or need high definition video floating around the world of them blowing their nose and other such indignities. If they can't relax a little while having their portrait made, they won't make great portraits.

Also, continuous lighting has many problems not associated with flash -- and some advantages.

So the outlook is a mixed bag and not a complete overthrow. But you can continue being afraid. I'm not.

Monito wrote:
Not even the photographer has time to sift through thousands of pictures to find the one good one. It is bad enough when photographing models and making 50 stills to choose three. Often, for a multitude of reasons, one needs to make 250 shots. Shooting video does not reduce the need because of things like posing and stray hair and expression and tight control of lighting as the model strikes poses.

So you would end up with 50 x 50 = 2500 or 50 x 250 = 12,500 frames to sift through.

Needles in a haystack. What a waste of time.


Until someone writes software that evaluates all those frames and spits out a few recommendations based on some smart perceptual algorithms (particularly for portraits) and specified criteria. Sounds pie in the sky but so did CGI some time ago.

Gunzorro wrote:
Just as desktop publishing decimated the ranks of commercial photographers, I think we'll see this type of motion/still blend and higher computing in P&S cameras, making it possible for "everyone" to pull great stills with little or no skill or equipment, other than a computer and diligence.

The question is how good will the stills be and how reliably will the person be able to get good shots. If they were crap photographers before, they will be crap even with advanced video/auto blending cameras.

Currently the biggest difference between pro and amateur photographers is how reliably they can get the great shots. At a sports venue you might have some parents who fluke a great shot every few games. The pro will get great shots every game regardless of the conditions. You still need to know where to be in order to get the good shot, understand the flow of the sport. If you're taking landscapes you still need to understand composition and lighting, when and where to be to get the shot. Posing a model to show them in their best angles is still an art. Having advanced video capabilities won't correct any lack of skill or knowledge. It will mean that 'anyone' can fluke a great picture once in a while.

Monito wrote:
So the outlook is a mixed bag and not a complete overthrow. But you can continue being afraid. I'm not.

I seriously doubt that still photography will go away any time soon but it's not hard to see it on a downward trend either as video capabilities become more and more advanced and feature rich. Everything around video is going to advance as well. It may seem daunting now to go through all those frames but processing power will increase and processing intelligence will get better as well. Automation of a lot of things we do today may well be commonplace in the furture.

I am a crap photographer, like really bad. Probably the worst you've ever seen. But you know what? I have a high res. video camera and from the footage I can make stills. It's great! I post them to flickr and facebook and you should see the comments; 'Wow! That's incredible!'. 'Talk about decisive moment!' 'Buddy, you're a legend!' My ego has never been so happy!

Gunzorro wrote:
Paul Mo wrote:
Is it photography? Technically speaking, yes.

Is it the skilled practice we're all involved in? A serendipitous 'art'? No. It's crap.

It seems a very 'art school' way to make something. Haven't the skill? Then let's find a way.

Thus spaketh the Wheelwright to Mr. Firestone.


How so?

goosemang wrote:
i've been thinking about this after looking at the work of doug rickard:

http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2011/newphotography/doug-rickard/

i mean is this guy a photographer if he doesn't go out and actually take the photograph?

honestly, i think so. in a way all we are is editors: we make selections from reality and freeze them, choosing what we like and what we don't like. maybe doug rickard isn't a good "photographer" in that he might not be good at freezing particular moments with a camera, but he's a good editor because he can select little rectangles of reality in a way that produces a compelling result.

in the end i'm not sure if anybody ever cares how you GOT an image, only that you have chosen to freeze a slice of reality that speaks to them in some way.

I wonder about that, can you really just strip away google insignia? Legal?? It could be an art to flip it to the angle you like and process it in a certain way though.

Paul Mo wrote:
I am a crap photographer, like really bad. Probably the worst you've ever seen. But you know what? I have a high res. video camera and from the footage I can make stills. It's great! I post them to flickr and facebook and you should see the comments; 'Wow! That's incredible!'. 'Talk about decisive moment!' 'Buddy, you're a legend!' My ego has never been so happy!

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. People love to complain about something being 'too easy' while completely ignoring the fact that they're holding a five thousand dollar camera/lens and making images with the push of a button. What they're basically saying is "my 10fps is super hard work and your 30fps is totally cheating!!!". Frames per second is not the definition of a good photographer.

shutter_bug wrote:
Article here:

micro-expression-exploring-motion-image-photography

What do you think? Way of the future just to capture the 'moment'?

No, it would just be a shitty video.

Not the least concerned.

If you have no talent you will just end up with 30 shots per second of crap. and you end up with a big turd taking up lots of gigabytes on your hard drive. No money in the world can change the facts.

corndog wrote:
Paul Mo wrote:
I am a crap photographer, like really bad. Probably the worst you've ever seen. But you know what? I have a high res. video camera and from the footage I can make stills. It's great! I post them to flickr and facebook and you should see the comments; 'Wow! That's incredible!'. 'Talk about decisive moment!' 'Buddy, you're a legend!' My ego has never been so happy!

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. People love to complain about something being 'too easy' while completely ignoring the fact that they're holding a five thousand dollar camera/lens and making images with the push of a button. What they're basically saying is "my 10fps is super hard work and your 30fps is totally cheating!!!". Frames per second is not the definition of a good photographer.



I am not arguing that. But our practice is photography, not shuffling through footage in Premiere to find the best frame.

So, Mr. Photographer (not you personally), why not buy a RED, start picking out frames and make a mint on stock sites?

If you (not you personally) thinks that's cool and the way to go you have no place here.