Will stills from video make photography obsolete?

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owen
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No
I have a friend (sports photographer) who had a Rep from a well known camera manufacture gleefully tell him in hurried excitement that because their camera shoots in 4k video you can just take stills straight out of the feed and they will be print quality. Funnily enough my mate wasn't as impressed with this as the Rep would have expected. His reply was "Congratulation. You've just killed photography!".

I can see application (sports, action, news and possibly landscape) where this approach will unfortunately creep in and perhaps ultimately replace the still photographers for the major outlets like newpaper, tv and news. My hope for stills though still remains. A still photographer has to be present in the moment, waiting and watching, being aware of things through the view finder but also the "head up" glances into the fray and ready for when that fraction of a second is perfect. Video is more of a head down approach. A different skill. Very difficult to shoot well. Video needs to get every second right while stills concentrate on that one frame. I feel stills are more intentional and here in lies it's soul and the art.

This is no disrespect to video. Video is an art too.

It'd be interesting to see where this goes over the next few years and whether stills get sidelined toward the niche markets.

What is the consensus on here?
 
In a word. No

Video is stypically shot at 1/50th shutter speed so stills pulled from a video where you would need a shorter shutter speed than that to freze motion would be somewhat blurry.

I have pulled stills froma video before and the results were ropey. Useable just for what I wanted, but would have been infinately better if I had shot stills.
 
This prediction is as old as 'home video'.
And it's as wrong now as it ever was.

When we're watching video, we excuse all sorts of technical 'imperfections' because our eyes perform their magic tricks on moving images, they refuse to do so on still images. Basically you have to capture what you want to deliver and while you're capturing video it's not usually to stills standards. For many applications, the still from a video is 'good enough' (as is an iPhone snap) which is why we've lost so many news photographers. The first time a TV still illustrated a front page news story, news photography became a luxury.

I was talking to the videographer at a wedding recently, and it's amazing what crap they will just let through, noisy images with cluttered backgrounds and uneven lighting will work ok simply because when you're 'watching' a video, you're focused on the subject as it moves through it's surroundings. A still photo has to be composed well enough to isolate the subject from it's surroundings, we do this by considering light, colour, shape, composition, DoF.

We (photographers) hate clumsy snaps because when everything is sharp and no thought is given to composition, the subject just disappears into the background. The still requires the work putting in.
 
4K video is roughly 8 mega pixels, so no. Please tell your friend, to tell the rep he's talking b****x. And that's assuming everything else in the 4K video stream is up to scratch.. which it won't be, as Phil said above.

...so doubly b****x actually.
 
And the UHDTV spec has higher frame rates than HD for the purpose of reducing blur.
 
this something iv'e thought about recently
at the moment we have 4k video but in the near future this will be 8k so now we have real resolutions that can be used for quite a lot of different applications
the 50 frames a second on fast moving objects is irreverent the shutter speed might be 4000th of a second which will stop movement quite nicely

the skill will be in the composition / lighting i think timing will be a thing of the past it more or less is already with 14fps cameras we already have

if you watch any of the f1 you will see glorious slow motion footage which is gonna be recorded in at least 4k if not 8k resolution at something like 200fps you could choose any moment you like and slap it on the front page of a newspaper with no quality issues what so ever i think still photography would be lost in that world
 
cosmicma said:
this something iv'e thought about recently
at the moment we have 4k video but in the near future this will be 8k so now we have real resolutions that can be used for quite a lot of different applications
the 50 frames a second on fast moving objects is irreverent the shutter speed might be 4000th of a second which will stop movement quite nicely

the skill will be in the composition / lighting i think timing will be a thing of the past it more or less is already with 14fps cameras we already have

if you watch any of the f1 you will see glorious slow motion footage which is gonna be recorded in at least 4k if not 8k resolution at something like 200fps you could choose any moment you like and slap it on the front page of a newspaper with no quality issues what so ever i think still photography would be lost in that world
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The shutter speed of video will never be 1/4000. The shutter speed is chosen as a compromise between motion blur and judder. It's usually 50%, so for 25 fps it would be 1/50.
 
st599 said:
The shutter speed of video will never be 1/4000. The shutter speed is chosen as a compromise between motion blur and judder. It's usually 50%, so for 25 fps it would be 1/50.
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Most of the posters on this topic need to learn a bit more about how video cameras work.
Just because the frame rate is 50 fps that doesn't mean the shutter speed is 1/50th sec.
Video cameras have variable shutters in the same way as still cameras, otherwise you would have very little control over exposure, other than by altering the F-Stop.
The link above posted by cosmicma explains it very well, read and learn.
 
Brian G said:
Most of the posters on this topic need to learn a bit more about how video cameras work.
Just because the frame rate is 50 fps that doesn't mean the shutter speed is 1/50th sec.
Video cameras have variable shutters in the same way as still cameras, otherwise you would have very little control over exposure, other than by altering the F-Stop.
The link above posted by cosmicma explains it very well, read and learn.
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I never said it was fixed. I know perfectly well how a video camera works.

What I said was that a 180 degree shutter (50%) was the norm for video as it was the best compromise between motion blur and strobing.

Moving away from this norm would cause either motion blur or jerky strobing.

In your example you would use a 1/100 th second shutter for 50fps. 1/50 would be very blurry.
 
cosmicma said:
...if you watch any of the f1 you will see glorious slow motion footage which is gonna be recorded in at least 4k if not 8k resolution at something like 200fps you could choose any moment you like and slap it on the front page of a newspaper with no quality issues what so ever i think still photography would be lost in that world
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And for every TV camera angle that's true of there are about 10,000 where you'd never get an acceptable still shot.

As I said earlier, video cameramen can get away with all sorts of crap because of the way our brains process moving images, as soon as you see a still on most (99.9%) footage it looks appalling. Try it and see! (Most people can pause live TV nowadays)

Movie camera's have been capable of 'photographic' quality for years, and they hire people to make stuff look gorgeous in a way TV can't afford, but the movie industry still hire stills photographers, Go figure!
 
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Never say never. If there's a market for it, someone will work out how to do it - eventually.
 
cosmicma said:
this something iv'e thought about recently
at the moment we have 4k video but in the near future this will be 8k so now we have real resolutions that can be used for quite a lot of different applications
the 50 frames a second on fast moving objects is irreverent the shutter speed might be 4000th of a second which will stop movement quite nicely
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Some problems here though.

1. Quality. Video is never as great quality as still, as it's heavily compressed. each frame is only on screen for 1/24th , or 1/30th of a second, so you simply don't notice. However... take a still frame from a 1080P video shot on a D800... then take a photograph from a D800 and resize it Photoshop down to 1920x1080. You'll be HORRIFIED by how poor the quality is in comparison.

2. Format. You'll not be able to have RAW files being shot at 50fps as a result of the above, so you'll lose the ability to manipulate the images. The compression is far more severe than high quality JPEG compression with stills. However.. even it was as good, can you really see everyone being fine with using compressed lossy formats instead of shooting RAW?



cosmicma said:
the skill will be in the composition / lighting i think timing will be a thing of the past it more or less is already with 14fps cameras we already have
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This has always been the case though. You can set your SLR in a program mode now, and let it take care of the exposure, but your photos will still be crap if you haven't got the creativity. Nothing new in this. However, there will always be so much you'll not be able to do by harvesting frames from video. Slow shutter speeds for example. How you gonna use a 30 second shutter speed with video? There's a whole raft of reasons why using video frames sucks as a substitute for shooting stills.



cosmicma said:
if you watch any of the f1 you will see glorious slow motion footage which is gonna be recorded in at least 4k if not 8k resolution at something like 200fps you could choose any moment you like and slap it on the front page of a newspaper with no quality issues what so ever i think still photography would be lost in that world
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great.. if you're shooting at 1/4000th.. but what if you want to blur water, or clouds, or shoot extremely low light stuff... of still life in a studio with very small apertures.. you're effectively screwed.

Yes... still images will be used from 4k, but as you've already surmised, it will be limited to sports and action and news, and won't really effect creative photography one single bit.
 
Pookeyhead said:
Some problems here though.

1. Quality. Video is never as great quality as still, as it's heavily compressed. each frame is only on screen for 1/24th , or 1/30th of a second, so you simply don't notice. However... take a still frame from a 1080P video shot on a D800... then take a photograph from a D800 and resize it Photoshop down to 1920x1080. You'll be HORRIFIED by how poor the quality is in comparison.

2. Format. You'll not be able to have RAW files being shot at 50fps as a result of the above, so you'll lose the ability to manipulate the images. The compression is far more severe than high quality JPEG compression with stills. However.. even it was as good, can you really see everyone being fine with using compressed lossy formats instead of shooting RAW?





This has always been the case though. You can set your SLR in a program mode now, and let it take care of the exposure, but your photos will still be crap if you haven't got the creativity. Nothing new in this. However, there will always be so much you'll not be able to do by harvesting frames from video. Slow shutter speeds for example. How you gonna use a 30 second shutter speed with video? There's a whole raft of reasons why using video frames sucks as a substitute for shooting stills.






great.. if you're shooting at 1/4000th.. but what if you want to blur water, or clouds, or shoot extremely low light stuff... of still life in a studio with very small apertures.. you're effectively screwed.

Yes... still images will be used from 4k, but as you've already surmised, it will be limited to sports and action and news, and won't really effect creative photography one single bit.
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there's quite a few 4k cameras capable of outputting 4k uncompressed raw format take the canon eos c500 for example i don't know if the d800 can output uncompressed 1080p hd through it's hdmi but if it can with the right capture hardware compression isn't an issue
i do agree with the rest of the post though although i still think in certain situations like motor sport still images will be arguably redundant
 
cosmicma said:
there's quite a few 4k cameras capable of outputting 4k uncompressed raw format take the canon eos c500 for example i don't know if the d800 can output uncompressed 1080p hd through it's hdmi but if it can with the right capture hardware compression isn't an issue
i do agree with the rest of the post though although i still think in certain situations like motor sport still images will be arguably redundant
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But for everything as well shot as F1 is, there's 10,000 things that aren't, because they don't have to be.

And whilst there is all that crap video being captured (because capturing good stuff is needlessly expensive) someone is still required to shoot high quality stills. Feel free to carry on ignoring this point though, as it's simply factual and cuts straight through your argument (which is largely theoretical) :)
 
cosmicma said:
there's quite a few 4k cameras capable of outputting 4k uncompressed raw format take the canon eos c500 for example i don't know if the d800 can output uncompressed 1080p hd through it's hdmi but if it can with the right capture hardware compression isn't an issue
i do agree with the rest of the post though although i still think in certain situations like motor sport still images will be arguably redundant
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The D800 can, and it's still nowhere near as good as the still images resized to 1080p

Loads of examples on You Tube.
 
I'm looking at it from the opposite angle - super fast frame rate stills could replace video. Taking the F1 slomos as an example, that's effectively what happens already. Not sure there's anything available YET than can supply enough frames at high enough quality for decent sized prints but it won't be too long before it happens (is it Moore's law that relates to advances in processing [which seems to be the bottleneck at the moment]?)
 
Phil V said:
But for everything as well shot as F1 is, there's 10,000 things that aren't, because they don't have to be.

And whilst there is all that crap video being captured (because capturing good stuff is needlessly expensive) someone is still required to shoot high quality stills. Feel free to carry on ignoring this point though, as it's simply factual and cuts straight through your argument (which is largely theoretical) :)
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but for how long ?
the point is in the OP question it doesn't matter how much crap video is captured every day you could say the same thing about crap stills captured every day the question that is being asked is video technology getting to a stage where still cameras will be come redundant


the question in my mind is will still cameras keep up on the video side we already have the likes of the canon 1dc which is ridiculously expensive for the sake of 4k video
it would be interesting to see how an uncompressed still from it's video footage compares to a single image ( anyone out there who has one willing to do a comparison ? )

for the record i don't think video cameras will make the still camera redundant if i did i wouldn't have invested in a 1dx i would have spent the money on a fancy 4k video recorder instead but i certainly don't think it is something that can be ignored
 
cosmicma said:
but for how long ?
the point is in the OP question it doesn't matter how much crap video is captured every day you could say the same thing about crap stills captured every day the question that is being asked is video technology getting to a stage where still cameras will be come redundant


the question in my mind is will still cameras keep up on the video side we already have the likes of the canon 1dc which is ridiculously expensive for the sake of 4k video
it would be interesting to see how an uncompressed still from it's video footage compares to a single image ( anyone out there who has one willing to do a comparison ? )

for the record i don't think video cameras will make the still camera redundant if i did i wouldn't have invested in a 1dx i would have spent the money on a fancy 4k video recorder instead but i certainly don't think it is something that can be ignored
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When consumer video cameras became available to the masses, this question was posed; but the quality was so far away from consumer stills that the answer was obvious, 3 generations of video tech later and we now understand it isn't even an 'IQ' issue. Not only has the bar been raised, 4k = great, 14 bit RAW from a d800 = superior by miles. But as above, the actual quality of what's captured isn't sufficient.

I can't see why you're ignoring this point, moving pictures don't need the 'production quality' that stills require. Whilst that's not important for Joe Bloggs (it's the killer as far as pros are concerned), the practicalities are important to Joe:
Paying more for a camera to then have to search through hundreds of frames for your 'chosen shot' is a complete kludge compared to 'point-shoot-share', which is what Joe Public wants.

So whilst theoretically the 'image quality' exists, the reality is that it's not even a significant factor in the equation.
 
Phil V said:
Paying more for a camera to then have to search through hundreds of frames for your 'chosen shot' is a complete kludge compared to 'point-shoot-share', which is what Joe Public wants.
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While this is true, searching through hundreds of frames isn't necessary. Watch the video (neatly chaptered) until you know the moment's about to happen then click the button. If you're not sure you've got the perfect moment just go a few frames either side. (Please excuse the snip, Phil.)
 
Nod said:
While this is true, searching through hundreds of frames isn't necessary. Watch the video (neatly chaptered) until you know the moment's about to happen then click the button. If you're not sure you've got the perfect moment just go a few frames either side. (Please excuse the snip, Phil.)
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Who's going to neatly chapter it? That's just more work. You're suggesting the raw footage is edited into chapters before you can even start searching for images?

If you want stills.. shoot stills. Even when there are video cameras that can supply the quality, you still wouldn't shoot video in order to get stills... you'd just use the camera in still mode surely. Why would anyone want to generate tens of thousands of frames to get one image? The only people interested in grabbing frames from video to get a still image are news and sports so far as I'm concerned. There's a real use for that, but I can't imagine why a photographer would want to work like this.. unless they are actually wanting to shot video. What's the point? What's the advantage?
 
Pookeyhead said:
Who's going to neatly chapter it? That's just more work. You're suggesting the raw footage is edited into chapters before you can even start searching for images?

If you want stills.. shoot stills. Even when there are video cameras that can supply the quality, you still wouldn't shoot video in order to get stills... you'd just use the camera in still mode surely. Why would anyone want to generate tens of thousands of frames to get one image? The only people interested in grabbing frames from video to get a still image are news and sports so far as I'm concerned. There's a real use for that, but I can't imagine why a photographer would want to work like this.. unless they are actually wanting to shot video. What's the point? What's the advantage?
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This^
 
I completely agree, just lobbing an option into the discussion! However, even if it's not neatly chaptered, it would be easy enough to interrupt viewing the video by clicking a button (wouldn't even need to interrupt the viewing) then going back to the markers and flicking through a few frames either side to find the best still available.

The obvious advantage is that stills could be extracted from video that's being shot anyway. Personally, I don't use the video capabilities of any but my underwater cameras and then only for my wife to see what's going on down there (she doesn't like having her face underwater!) Another is the high frame rate that I'm sure will eventually (possibly soon) be available, making the "decisive moment" more likely to appear in a frame.

In some ways at least, shooting now with high frame rates (IIRC my AW1 can do 60FPS as stills with focus preset for the first frame) is effectively shooting video.

Just thoughts, not predictions (although I'm sure the technology will be along shortly!) and I'm happy with stills.
 
For me there is one big difference. In a photo you are composing and choosing the scene and sometimes in fact creating it with poses etc. In a video you are simply recording whats happening for the most part so cannot possibly have the same control over composition pose or look of the stills you then pull from it. From a truly documentary aspect you would be able to use shots from video. Further than that I dont see the application. However i am a stills photographer so maybe missing something ?
 
Well, with stills you get a series of stills which might miss the perfect billowing of hair or flow of material in the dress but with a higher frame rate, that moment is more likely to be caught.
 
Andrew Davies Photography said:
In a video you are simply recording whats happening for the most part so cannot possibly have the same control over composition pose or look of the stills you then pull from it.
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I think Steven Spielberg might disagree with you.
 
I am pretty sure even with my limited knowledge that directing a scene in a movie requires something of a different skill set and perspective to that of a still shot. I dont deny you could take a still from video its just that video has its place as does stills and i cant see the two being interchangeable to that extent that one will ever wipe the other out.
 
I suppose, looking back at the question originally posed, it depends on the definition of obsolete. Film is now pretty much obsolete even if some of us still use it, as are dog carts and the like (although they're even rare these days than film shooters!) Also, the future is unfathomable - my father was taught that space travel was a pipe dream and his grandfather would have regarded a car as witchcraft!
 
Stills from cine photography did not replace individual photographs so neither will stills from video.


Steve.
 
StewartR said:
I think Steven Spielberg might disagree with you.
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Not necessarily. A scene in a movie isn't considered the same way a scene in a still is. The details don't have to be considered to much in motion picture. This is why a Crewdson shot is so meticulous, because you've got all day to look at every detail in one frame, whereas with a movie, you've got 1/24th of a second. Plus... movies are shot at 1/48th of a second, so anything moving is blurred... always... press pause on a DVD if you don't believe me.

Can we please put this to bed? Video will not replace still photography. Stop being silly.
 
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