The fifteenth installment of the One Minute Rant. Each audio is one minute or less and focuses on a very specific topic to engage readers here on the FR to comment and start a dialogue! Just click on the RANT logo to listen.
The fifteenth installment of the One Minute Rant. Each audio is one minute or less and focuses on a very specific topic to engage readers here on the FR to comment and start a dialogue! Just click on the RANT logo to listen.
Figital Revolution 
Agree with you completely: Call video video.
And while we’re at it, I can’t be the only one who’s tired of reading about how the latest person to buy a Canon EOS 5D Mark II is the next Quentin Tarantino.
Because of this, I now call my images “frozen videos”.
Kinda like calling a 30% photoshop job a photo vs. an illustration
Hmm. I think part of the reason they don’t want to call it video is that it’s currently often sub par stuff. (no or limited autofocus, bad sound format compatibility problems etc.)
I know the 5d11 and 7d are getting a lot of use for tv and doc stuff, but that requires a lot of kludgy bolt on stuff to deal with audio focus pulling etc.
For the media world this means even more pressure to consolidate news rooms and reduce staff which is a bad thing, insofar as it leads to more homogeneity and less diversity in the news biz, but I don’t think we can blame camera makers for that. For the art/freelance documentary etc world there are actually some interesting possibilities for still/video hybrid ymmv of course.(full disclosure: Chris Marker is probably my favorite film maker.)
People in the early 1900s probably thought that once the car was invented, nobody would drive a bicycle anymore..
And now they make bikes out of Carbon Fibre and Titanium!
Having said that I have no interest in video, but accept that it will completely change the face of photography – and news photography in particular.
There again, digital has already done that…
Mike
Agreed, video is video – period.
DSLR (equipment) is definitely here to stay (and keep evolving, until it too is superceded and ‘marginalized’ commercially) – which is fine with me. Whether it has video features or built-in GPS units, can recognize faces and alert the operator which side is that particular person’s best etc. it is all good and interesting. I might buy one of these that offer video someday, who knows.
We have seen similar things happen in the past. Manual focus gives ‘way’ to autofocus, people dump gear and move to the latest greatest, at least most of them do. Autofocus gained image stabilization, some gear dumped for the new stuff. Digital is introduced, more gear dumped, lots of it for the new stuff. I am behind in some respects by a few years and in some cases by well over a decade, picking over the proverbial scrap heap of analog, film gear out there. I slowly add pieces to my Pentax 645 kit. I try and decide whether or not to go after that Fujica rangefinder, 6×8 or get the 6×9 (again). I love it.
I think what Canon and Nikon are trying to suggest is that it is a step above video, which it is obviously not. (Seriously, I doubt the compression quality on current DSLRs are any better than your Zi8.) Trying to suggest that these cameras bring you into the digital cinema realm. Digital cinema is along the lines of 2K (about 50% bigger than 1080P) uncompressed or better. They are trying to make us think that these cameras can compete with offerings from Red, Panavision, Arri, etc. They can’t.
The above rant and responses fail to realize the key advances in video due to the 5dmk2 and 7d. They have larger sensors than typical video cameras, making selective focus an available creative tool. This feature takes a big step toward the emulation of (film) movie cameras.
A more interesting rant would be the over-popularization of video as a prestige format. People have forgotten that the still image is a more powerful medium. When you search your memory, you remember still frames more vividly than consecutive events, whether real life or film. When you study a still image, you gain more insight to the subject than a moving picture presents, because the brain is not adept at memorizing trivial nuances.
If web publishers would realize this phenomena, there would be less of a push toward video content.