It seems the company that is the behemoth of all school picture companies has started using DSLR video. Simply get the kid to walk in front of the blue screen, ask them a few silly questions, then let them go on their way. The lab then chooses the perfect frame to print. No more trying to coax the perfect smile out of the kid or judging the moment of decision.
I hear a lot of DSLR photographers saying they don't want video on their cameras. Maybe for portraiture, weddings, fashion, etc. it will soon be the standard capture method. It wasn't long ago before video was unheard of on DSLR, and it may not be long before the quality of capture matches stills.
Red is an amazing camera. I read recently about a magazine cover that was shot using it. The photographer/videographer would shoot for a few seconds at a time and then pic the best frame. The resolution and frame rate are amazing.
If you ask me it is a lot more time consuming to pick a frame from a short video than just take a few shots. Especially for a school portrait, that seems like a lot of video to go and sort through.
Eric, I completely agree...it's kind of like the same affect texting someone 5 questions or so...in reality it would've taken less time to just pick up the phone and call the person. I think to some degree, the portrait photographer is somewhat safe...I may be wrong. It's the sports photographer that is in trouble (if they don't adapt). Which, I think will happen...although, I do think it will eliminate some jobs...while creating new titles for others.
Eric Schwab wrote:
If you ask me it is a lot more time consuming to pick a frame from a short video than just take a few shots. Especially for a school portrait, that seems like a lot of video to go and sort through.
I take your point, but I don't think they'd do it if it wasn't profitable.
Smiles sell, so the more kids you can stop doing the Emo or cool rapper impression, or putting on the ghoulish smile their parent has had them practice, then the more packages you sell and less time you spend on make up days. Plus, you can deskill the process of shooting even further and pay photographers even less. Also, it's a faster process, so you shoot more schools in less time. Post-processing is not much slower as it is aided by software.
One still needs to understand light, composition, DOF, etc. Without it you can machine-gun all you like with video but you're not going to get professional results. It's still going to take a photographer behind the camera, just a little different kind of camera. Although I hope for a really fast computer to wade through all that footage looking for the moment!
The papers around here are buying prosumer cameras now, not even D3 or 1D series bodies... It's going to take one HELL of a price drop for any of them to buy a Red camera to start shooting with. And watching some of these old school guys shoot video for their web pages is pretty funny.
Agilehound wrote:
One still needs to understand light, composition, DOF, etc. Without it you can machine-gun all you like with video but you're not going to get professional results. It's still going to take a photographer behind the camera, just a little different kind of camera. Although I hope for a really fast computer to wade through all that footage looking for the moment!
For school photography Lifetouch (who I'm assuming the OP is talking about) pretty much takes anyone off the street that passes the background check and teaches them the bare minimum needed. They setup the lights according to the roll out mat they have and the computer sets the lighting ratios, white balances, auto focuses and takes a sample shot to automatically clone out the dust spots. But then again, no one ever really LIKES their school photos anyways.
Yeah, Lifetouch (cookie cutter images, high mass, low price) isn't exactly the market most sole proprieter photographers are in biz to compete against. So I'm not too worried if they've found a way to boost their profits through catching better expressions. I'm also thinking that since this technology is new, they have a theory on what parents will spend money on vs. where their money-making point is in the post processing . . . only time will tell whether they get the return on investment.
I was avoiding mentioning their name to prevent this thread coming up with their name attached to it in search engines.
I think the principles apply across the board and technology will continue to improve. My point isn't that you no longer have to be a photographer. My point is that MAYBE the standard for many types of pro photography will be to shoot as video and select out the images.
I'm not saying either that we have to be videographers, because it doesn't make sense to think like a videographer if you want to extract the still image. But, we can all see the advantages it would offer. There isn't a wedding photographer now who doesn't shoot at least 600 images, so with the right technology it may actually be easier.
I clearly remember photographers telling me film would never die.
