Should Stills photographers shoot video as well – a few conclusions

Well ….. It conjured some strong debate and opinions – Personally I feel there are a number of issues at play firstly: The technical – The reality is different kit is required … Assuming that the stills photographer is going to be shooting with his video enabled DSLR then immediately there are extra bits required here – A Tripod or monopod, ancillary microphone, follow focus? – So I   would argue that in order to juggle this extra kit successfully and efficiently then one would require an assistant at least. – Just so much gear on the go!! Alternatively one could have a dedicated video camera – Then that is directly just taking on some else’s job. The dilemma emerges immediately do pick up the stills camera or the video camera?. However… The most persuasive argument must be the creative confusion that is looking for definitive single images that define a production and then trying to get your head around the narrative of shooting moving images  – I am totally of the opinion this is not possible to do at the same time with out compromise. I defy any one person to do this to the best of their ability in either discipline if concentrating on one area only.  Another factor also worth chucking into the equation is Artist co-operation!! Certainly at the ‘A’ list level actors are very conscious if video opposed to stills is being shot – There are certainly place’s I can go and many times when I can shoot when the EPK – crews can not – Actors often do not like the intrusion that video brings. So my conclusion – We might be asked but my answer is a resounding NO thank you or rather it tells me about your production- If you are cutting corners that hard then your not for me!! Thanks for joining in.

Illustrated Radio

There is a term used in the film business that movies are illustrated radio. What this is emphasising is the importance of the sound track on a movie, and that doesn’t just mean the obvious spoken words on camera but all the Layers of sound that make up the sound track. Like so many aspects of the film making process it is complex. So when, as I do, read so many articles about photographers becoming film makers and that it is the ‘next big thing’ as reported in two of my favourites magazines this week one of which announced that this could be the end of the still image……. It really makes me angry……….. Right let’s get a few things straight now…….. Pointing an HD enabled camera at a subject and shooting a few minutes of VIDEO is absolutely not film making. Its just posh video guys!!

To make a film you need:

A story, Actors, great lighting, camera and focus work, an excellent sound track oh and let’s not forget the edit where a film is won or lost…… that’s FILM MAKING…… Now to do this one can use super 8, 16mm, 35mm, 70mm film, video cameras or HD enabled SLRS. The point being just because high end stills cameras have become video enabled it does not mean the person holding it is a film maker!

The fact is the photography market is demand lead and the demand now dictates that in some circumstances live footage is required in addition to Still images mainly for web content….. Understandable…….. Very good, another market to cater for and all the opportunity that it should bring.

From the photographic illustrations in the articles I have read I do not see film makers I see photographers holding DSLR cameras with a movie function. They squat being or in front of the action with their DSLR stretched out in front recording a performance, desperately trying to focus as they struggle to compose and focus the image on the wobbly screen. Yes another problem, there is no way round it you mainly need to shoot of a tripod with a fluid head whatever size the camera is, sure you can go hand held for a while but the novelty soon wears off. Basically if you are not shooting fast moving action then you need to be on a tripod, other wise it looks like Auntie’s home movie, not a professional product and sorry mister technical DSLR guys there is no way round it, Tripod mode, Hand held mode little or no difference. OK so while we are on the technical lets sort out a few other MAJOR issues with DSLR video enabled cameras. Firstly you can only view the image through the view finder on the screen on the back. Why? Because the shutter needs to be open to record the image, this makes composition and Focus very hard of the screen at the back. This is overcome with real movie cameras as the viewfinder splits the image between viewfinder and film plane for exposure. So the operator can compose the action and follow it while checking focus, nice and tightly in a professional well composed frame.  So the DSLR answer to this, and I read again in one of my magazines, that there are lots of exciting products coming onto the market for HD DSLR… Yeah right loads of products adapted from the film business…… Lightweight stedicam for video enabled DSLR bought from the big boys shooting movies.  OK let’s now move on to another major creative technical issue. If you are film maker or for that matter a proper photographer one thing you really want to control will be your exposure….. You know??? Exposing for highlight and lowlights for creative effect, or in this new wonderful DSLR video world that doesn’t matter??….. Well for the time being it better not matter. Cos that’s right believe it or not in video mode all DSLRS are automatic exposure…… No control…… You can buy a video camera for a third of the price that gives you control of shutter and aperture for creative effect and Manual focus for that matter, I have one a Panasonic, exposure control, manual focus and a eye piece to shoot through. But, not on the present breed of HIGH end DSLRS do you have that control. I read on many blogs about weird and wonderful ways of controlling or rather tricking the camera to get control of the exposure of DSLR’s, none of it sounds very Hi-Tech to me.

And to finish of this technical attack lets go back to where we started. The sound, There is just no way round it if you want to make a film you need high quality sound and there is NO other answer other than off camera stereo sound recording on at least 4 tracks. SO you can mix sound and back ground noise and get a descent voice track. Or you could ask all your performers never to turn their heads speak at one level and directly into the microphone on top of the DSLR.

So let’s recap on our ‘film making’ DSLR cameras

1. Focus by the screen on back impossible for tight sustainable composition and as for focus, fingers crossed.
2. Choose wobbly cam or get a fluid head tripod, just like real filmmakers, you just can not hold a camera still hand held for any length of time, no way round it.
3. Forget creative control over exposure for the time being.
4. License plenty of elevator music cos you are going to need it for your sound tracks, because if you are talking quality sound you will never get it from an on camera microphone, Trust me.

Now, before I get off my soap box let me tackle one last issue. How does it go oh yes the death of the still image in favour of  moving footage, like black and white, Polaroid and film photography?  Why oh why is it necessary to predict the death of image making mediums, surely we should open our minds and embrace new formats of expressing our selves visually. Let’s think of ways to integrate new ideas, perhaps combining still and moving images creatively and develop new platforms.

I am in a very ironic situation I work in an industry that produces a moving image and yet relies on me heavily to promote that product using a still image. There has been no mention of my job coming to an end in fact it seems to be a growth area with more people requiring quality stills to promote their films and videos, so how is that for an irony?

The discipline of shooting a still image is very different from that of telling a story in moving images, and, I know that for sure because I have worked in the film industry for twenty years producing some of the defining stills for movie posters that never appeared as a moving sequence. I have had time to consider in detail this concept and see the powers to be relying more and more on photographs to promote their moving product. The printed image is not dead nor is the end near, sure press is changing. People are relying more and more for their news bites off the internet and turning to periodicals for their more contemplative observation.

I can not imagine a world with no bill boards posters or magazines, Currently I am in Berlin where there is a huge cultural and artistic revolution, there is a massive free press created and read by the under 35’s, full of images photography is well and truly alive and vibrant in Europe.

Yes, there are film makers I know using HD DSLR, but they are using them very much in the same way they use 35mm movie film cameras – off fluid head tripods with follow focus and a separate dedicated sound engineer. The advantage to them is the range of lenses and the film look they get from a DSLR on a much cheaper budget, but they are all struggling with the creative control of exposure.

To conclude I see the HD DSLR like a new kid in the play ground desperately running around trying to make friends. The fact is it has an identity crisis, I am sorry but pointing a DSLR at a subject is not FILMMAKING you’re just recording it. I accept entirely there is a real and growing demand for video and photographers are well placed to fill that demand only there is a lot to learn for photographers about telling a story in moving images as well as editing and sound recording which all require different skills that photographers will need to learn. Please let’s forget the filmmaker title and perhaps start using a more appropriate one like video short maker – work in progress.

Follow Focus for moving stills camera

The ARRI MFF-1 is a new compact follow focus design which can be easily attached to lightweight 15mm rods without removing other gear and will handle a wide array of lens sizes. Importantly, it features a reversible gear permitting stills lenses to be controlled by reversing the direction of turn, thus correcting Nikon lenses whose focus rings runs converse to conventional motion picture lenses. The unit has two adjustment points for a variety of positioning options. It is the natural choice to use for compact stills lenses like Nikon, Canon and Zeiss stills lenses.

 

David Kilpatrick – Future Trends – from BJP article 11/11/09

On the subject of Videography a great article I came a cross in the BJP 11/11/09 makes for very thought provoking reading – nice one David…………………

David Kilpatrick finds camera makers trying to cram in video capture and ever more advanced in-camera features into smaller, lighter bodies. So why is he harking back to his five-year-old bridge camera for answers? Convergence is the key word if you’re talking about DSLR development. The old 35mm format converges with digital medium format backs in resolution; medium format begins to acquire wider lens choices and more 35mm-like ergonomic; stills get high quality video functions; video rigs become able to shoot still frames. It can only be a matter of time before a rollfilm format back appears offering eight million pixel video, tomorrow’s equivalent of IMAX 70mm, and someone shoots a movie using a vintage Hasselblad. Might be a long time, though …Meanwhile, Nikon has discovered that using its Motion-JPEG encoding does (as I observed when comparing earlier Nikon and Canon video clips) produce a much sharper frame by frame rendering. As long as the shutter speed has been kept fast enough to freeze action and the ISO is not boosted to an extreme, Nikon video footage can be used to make half-page tabloid pictures. It’s the sharpest and most detailed freeze-frame video on the market, and with the new full-frame D3s it is exploiting this advantage. Traditional video wisdom says that fast shutter speeds are bad. They create jerky action, where slightly blurry movement at around 1/60s or so looks more natural. The press will not heed traditional wisdom; they want every frame of the video to be like a good still shot. Canon has followed by enabling total control of aperture, shutter and ISO settings in video modes in the EOS 7D. The compression is stronger than Nikon’s and the MPEG-4 frames do not have anything like the crisp look, but they are bigger at 1920×1080 pixels and they too will print perfectly well at half page size.

Both makers are clearly heading to convergence of still and video in a future DSLR generation. One day your TV will output sharp A4s from video frames on its built-in printer. An Ethernet link is already turning many new TV sets into a web browser and multimedia player, and the need to print out follows from that. You won’t even have to upload media files. Just put the camera down near the TV, pick up the remote control, and view anything you have shot – still or video. Today you can do it with a USB cable. Tomorrow, it’s going to be wireless.

 Read the rest of this excellent article at: http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=870857