Motion Photos: capturing photos at 24fps

[Tom Hicken]

Well, this is not so much capturing photos but pulling the right frame from a video clip, so to speak.

With the Canon EOS-1D C comes the ability to select any video still and have the equivalent of a 9MP image.

“People should look at 4K motion capture as a new tool in their arsenal,” Joffe continues. “Same as flash, long exposure, high-ISO shooting, and so on. It’s a new tool. There are so many forms of photography and this is a new one that can be used at certain times. I sometimes think that if people saw 4K as a 24fps JPEG burst mode, then there might not be so much controversy about it.”

“Shooting with 4K video simply shifts the point where this moment is found, from the time of shooting to the time of editing.”

This past week I learned the importance of being able to file quickly, and the ability to anticipate and capture key moments at the time rather than sifting through a stack of images in post.

I'm sure this tool has it's uses but not sure where, if any, in our industry. What are people's thoughts?

In the future, will broadcasters shoot events like football or the olympics with 4k video and have editors pull that "micro" moment still for online/print?

http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/technical/abraham_joffe_on_the_eos-1d_c.do

[Lyle Aspinall]

This will never take over from stills, because shutter speeds are too slow in video. You can't stop enough action in most video frames to make worthwhile stills. Video's not intended to freeze frames. In fact, quite the opposite. Cameras with 4k and 8k capability might produce nice stills for portraiture or slow-moving things like weddings, but any movement beyond that won't work.

Why? Because if you shoot video with a DSLR, you know you shouldn't put your shutter speed past about 1/125 or you get choppy video. Video relies on slight motion per frame in order to create the impression of movement when the frames are mashed together into a video. If you stop motion in every frame with too fast a shutter speed, you get choppy video.

If you're shooting 24 fps, your shutter speed is generally 1/50 of a second. If you're shooting 29.97 fps, your shutter speed should be 1/60. If you're shooting 60 fps, your shutter speed should max out at 1/125. None of those shutter speeds are meant for freezing action in a still frame.

If you're shooting at a higher frame rate than that, you have in your hands a special high-speed camera that's specifically designed for super slo-mo footage (not the 1D-C). Then and only then can you begin to consider getting your shutter up to action-freezing speeds.

On the other hand, if you're shooting video at crazy fast shutter speeds with no intention of using it for video and only looking to pull stills, you might be able to make it work, but who really wants to go through that many frames?

Either you shoot video as video's intended to be shot, or you shoot photos as they're intended to be shot. I shoot both every day for work, and they're two different disciplines.

I think it's super cool that 4k and 8k video are giving us crazy new quality levels with video, but I'm under no assumptions that I'll one day stop shooting stills separately from video just because a video's individual frame quality is super high.

Here endeth the rant.

[Warren Toda]

This will never take over from stills, because shutter speeds are too slow in video. You can't stop enough action in most video frames to make worthwhile stills. Video's not intended to freeze frames. In fact, quite the opposite. ...

... Video relies on slight motion per frame in order to create the impression of movement when the frames are mashed together into a video. If you stop motion in every frame with too fast a shutter speed, you get choppy video.

I was sitting with a guy who normally shoots video for a TV network. He was editing a time-lapse project shot with a Canon 5D MKII. I asked why his time-lapse looked so good because most photographers' projects always have the typical "time-lapse" look.

He said that a still photographer approaches a time-lapse like a still photographer (of course) and will set camera exposure as if they were shooting a still image, say 1/250 at F8.

But the secret to a proper time-lapse is to think like a videographer and do the opposite: set the shutter speed to about 1/2 sec. or even 1 sec. in order to intentionally create a tiny bit of blur in each still image. On playback, this blur will help the still frames blend together and make the time-lapse flow as if it was a real video.