The future of photography?

Hi all...

Was just thinking the other day, what with video fast increasing resolution
do you think there will come a time where certain fields of photography will
not be around any more?

E.g Take sports photography. Say video cams in 5 years time has the same
resolution as todays high end digital slrs. At 25fps (PAL) why would you pay
a photographer for his image of a say the exact moment when Juan Pablo
Montoya hits the wall at 180 miles per hour, when you could get the video
editor to go through the footage 2 seconds before and after the crash and
pick the best of 100 images?

The same goes for Tennis, Football and all the other high speed sports.


Will the fly-fishing Cartier-Bresson 'Decisive Moment' model of photographer
be replaced by the John West driftnet fishing model.

Steve Franklin wrote:
Hi all...

Was just thinking the other day, what with video fast increasing
resolution do you think there will come a time where certain fields
of photography will not be around any more?

E.g Take sports photography. Say video cams in 5 years time has the
same resolution as todays high end digital slrs. At 25fps (PAL) why
would you pay a photographer for his image of a say the exact moment
when Juan Pablo Montoya hits the wall at 180 miles per hour, when
you
could get the video editor to go through the footage 2 seconds
before
and after the crash and pick the best of 100 images?

The same goes for Tennis, Football and all the other high speed
sports.

Will the fly-fishing Cartier-Bresson 'Decisive Moment' model of
photographer be replaced by the John West driftnet fishing model.

It already is: plenty of front page stop-the-presses images have been
grabbed off satellite feeds and published as first-available
deadline-makers.

--
Frank ess

"Steve Franklin" writes:

Was just thinking the other day, what with video fast increasing resolution
do you think there will come a time where certain fields of photography will
not be around any more?

E.g Take sports photography. Say video cams in 5 years time has the same
resolution as todays high end digital slrs. At 25fps (PAL) why would you pay
a photographer for his image of a say the exact moment when Juan Pablo
Montoya hits the wall at 180 miles per hour, when you could get the video
editor to go through the footage 2 seconds before and after the crash and
pick the best of 100 images?

Video cams won't have that resolution. They don't need it for
anything, and it's *obscenely* expensive. Think of the data rates
those video cams would have to handle; that's what guarantees they'd
be obscenely expensive.

Besides, what's a good frame as one frame of a video isn't the same
thing as what's a good frame for a still photo. The video frames
*need to* be slightly blurry in the faster-moving areas, to avoid
flickering badly, for one thing.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 23:19:54 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet
wrote:

"Steve Franklin" writes:

Was just thinking the other day, what with video fast increasing resolution
do you think there will come a time where certain fields of photography will
not be around any more?

E.g Take sports photography. Say video cams in 5 years time has the same
resolution as todays high end digital slrs. At 25fps (PAL) why would you pay
a photographer for his image of a say the exact moment when Juan Pablo
Montoya hits the wall at 180 miles per hour, when you could get the video
editor to go through the footage 2 seconds before and after the crash and
pick the best of 100 images?

Video cams won't have that resolution. They don't need it for
anything, and it's *obscenely* expensive. Think of the data rates
those video cams would have to handle; that's what guarantees they'd
be obscenely expensive.

Besides, what's a good frame as one frame of a video isn't the same
thing as what's a good frame for a still photo. The video frames
*need to* be slightly blurry in the faster-moving areas, to avoid
flickering badly, for one thing.

I can only relate this to amateur astronomy, but the most detailed
pictures of the moon and planets are being done by taking the
"footage" from 30fps webcams and combining thousands of shots into
one.
This yields the most detail and sharpest images, after processing.
But, the subjects are "static" enough so that the frames being
combined show no change in the planet's aspect. But, a race car
would be out of the question.
-Rich

snip

Video cams won't have that resolution. They don't need it for
anything, and it's *obscenely* expensive. Think of the data rates
those video cams would have to handle; that's what guarantees they'd
be obscenely expensive.

Besides, what's a good frame as one frame of a video isn't the same
thing as what's a good frame for a still photo. The video frames
*need to* be slightly blurry in the faster-moving areas, to avoid
flickering badly, for one thing.



I have to disagree with you there..

Resolution is an obvious area for improvement and has been the one constant
improvement in video over the years. VHS to video 8 to hi 8 to DV25 to DV50
to Hi definition it keeps on increasing all the time.

As for data rates. When I bought my first computer in 1995 my 2 Gb drive was
incredibly expensive. In 10 years I can buy a drive with more than 200x more
capacity for half the price and it's getting cheaper all the time. At the
same time video editing on that computer was out of the question, now I can
transfer and edit 13Gb per hour of footage as easy as you like.


but I guess only time will tell....

Steve Franklin wrote:
Hi all...

Was just thinking the other day, what with video fast increasing resolution
do you think there will come a time where certain fields of photography will
not be around any more?

1) The resolution of video is nowhere close to a $200 P&S digital, never
mind an SLR at 5 Mpix and more. I'm not even sure if the dynamic range
of video is up to that of the same P&S.

2) For video, the eye is following action and movement. Not the same
experience as photogrphy at all.

3) Star Wars is rendered at something on the order of 1.4 Mpix / frame,
yet gives the audience a very, very rich visual experience (which hasn't
helped the dialog one bit).

4) Photography (still) and videography have different objectives in what
they capture.

5) You can disperse dozens of still photographers with sparse equipment
loads all over a sports event. Video is less flexible, and more BW is
needed to relay the signal to the van. (Each camera can tape too, of
course).

So, no I don't think the 'still' photographer will disappear from
sporting events.



--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.

Frank ess wrote:

Will the fly-fishing Cartier-Bresson 'Decisive Moment' model of
photographer be replaced by the John West driftnet fishing model.


It already is: plenty of front page stop-the-presses images have been
grabbed off satellite feeds and published as first-available
deadline-makers.

And usually look it. But that is news, it's acceptable, even desirable
for fast breaking news to use whatever is available quickest that helps
the story. But real still photography will trump video frame grabs when
available.



--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.

Steve Franklin wrote:
snip

Video cams won't have that resolution. They don't need it for
anything, and it's *obscenely* expensive. Think of the data rates
those video cams would have to handle; that's what guarantees they'd
be obscenely expensive.

Besides, what's a good frame as one frame of a video isn't the same
thing as what's a good frame for a still photo. The video frames
*need to* be slightly blurry in the faster-moving areas, to avoid
flickering badly, for one thing.




I have to disagree with you there..

Resolution is an obvious area for improvement and has been the one constant
improvement in video over the years. VHS to video 8 to hi 8 to DV25 to DV50
to Hi definition it keeps on increasing all the time.

As for data rates. When I bought my first computer in 1995 my 2 Gb drive was
incredibly expensive. In 10 years I can buy a drive with more than 200x more
capacity for half the price and it's getting cheaper all the time. At the
same time video editing on that computer was out of the question, now I can
transfer and edit 13Gb per hour of footage as easy as you like.


but I guess only time will tell....



We are not saying it will never happen but not anytime soon because it
needs thousands of a second to stop a fast motion.

"Steve Franklin" writes:

snip

Video cams won't have that resolution. They don't need it for
anything, and it's *obscenely* expensive. Think of the data rates
those video cams would have to handle; that's what guarantees they'd
be obscenely expensive.

Besides, what's a good frame as one frame of a video isn't the same
thing as what's a good frame for a still photo. The video frames
*need to* be slightly blurry in the faster-moving areas, to avoid
flickering badly, for one thing.



I have to disagree with you there..

Resolution is an obvious area for improvement and has been the one constant
improvement in video over the years. VHS to video 8 to hi 8 to DV25 to DV50
to Hi definition it keeps on increasing all the time.

Sure, it'll improve. But current still cameras have considerably more
resolution than what's needed for theatrical projection, so why bother
with more?

As for data rates. When I bought my first computer in 1995 my 2 Gb
drive was incredibly expensive. In 10 years I can buy a drive with
more than 200x more capacity for half the price and it's getting
cheaper all the time. At the same time video editing on that
computer was out of the question, now I can transfer and edit 13Gb
per hour of footage as easy as you like.

You did notice that you're mostly addressing *capacity*, not *rate*,
right? Capacity has been going up *immensely* faster than rate.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

In message ,
"Steve Franklin" wrote:

At 25fps (PAL) why would you pay
a photographer for his image of a say the exact moment when Juan Pablo
Montoya hits the wall at 180 miles per hour, when you could get the video
editor to go through the footage 2 seconds before and after the crash and
pick the best of 100 images?

1/25 of a second is an epoch in the world of instantaneous action
photography.
--


John P Sheehy