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01-11-2009, 07:50 AM   #46
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The point of progress

QuoteOriginally posted by d.bradley Quote
T [snip] are we looking at the end of 'still photography' as we know it?
The art of photography (the act of taking a photograph, the skill required to use currernt technology) as we know it will change - slowly - as carrying a LF camera with a glass plate, then a film sheet has given way to carrying a small light-tight box holding a film strip, then to holding an image sensor.

The art of the photograph will always be the art of the photograph.

The art of something new will emerge from a new technology.

01-11-2009, 08:11 AM   #47
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QuoteOriginally posted by amateur6 Quote
I know I'm dragging this thread out of the dust, but...

Casio Digicam Shoots 1000 Frames Per Second - Video - Wired

I think a lot of us saw this coming, didn't we? Now -- any guesses as to how long until DSLRs have a "time machine" mode? Or will RED incorporate it?

Speculation?

that is perfect. let red incorporate it. nobody can afford a red unit anyhow.
01-11-2009, 10:14 AM   #48
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QuoteOriginally posted by amateur6 Quote
I know I'm dragging this thread out of the dust, but...

Casio Digicam Shoots 1000 Frames Per Second - Video - Wired

I think a lot of us saw this coming, didn't we? Now -- any guesses as to how long until DSLRs have a "time machine" mode? Or will RED incorporate it?

Speculation?
I don't know about speculation, but I know I have my eye on this.
01-11-2009, 10:48 AM   #49
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The one thing that never changes is people griping about change.

From 1901:
QuoteQuote:
"The photographer, in the earlier days, at least, was a man who respected himself and his calling, the amateur was generally a man of some means, and this implies of education properly applied also. It is first the dry plate, then the great simplifying of the processes, the cheapening of the apparatus and finally the vast catastrophe of film that have popularised and wrecked photography, and by so doing have attracted to it hundreds and hunreds of men and youths whose sole mission appears to be to bring discredit on the ranks in which they have enrolled themselves. It is the "fatal facility" of modern photography that has cursed its parents by producing such offspring. A hundred times more difficult and its reputation would stand a thousand times higher. The snapshotting of women in bathing dress, of lovers, of the cat sitting on the top of the wall, or to go what we may call a step higher, the revolting "trick photograph", have contrived to bring the reputation of photography low down indeed.

Photographers, amateur and professional, who eleven months of out of the twelve are pillars of society, churchwardens who wear a black coat and take round the plate, fathers of families and all the rest of it, go on their holidays and forget themselves - some of them. So deeply has the hand-cameraist's want of respect for photography, this wicked poison, penetrated, that lantern slides have been made and exhibited at public meetings of subjects which cannot, in any sense of the word, bring credit to the craft. "Film is so cheap you know. Let us fire them off" they say. "Here's a fellow hugging his sweetheart, they don't see us. Lets take them and show it on the screen"


01-11-2009, 11:11 AM   #50
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QuoteOriginally posted by pingflood Quote
The one thing that never changes is people griping about change.

From 1901:
that's an incredibly interesting insight. thank you for sharing that. I wonder what such photographers would think about photography in the 60's and 70's? much less now? makes you really think about how photography as truly changed and morphed into something completely different from what it apparently was 'supposed' to be. very interesting indeed.

whats really amusing though is how formal and well composed this man's complaining is. such different times.

QuoteQuote:
The snapshotting of women in bathing dress, of lovers, of the cat sitting on the top of the wall, or to go what we may call a step higher, the revolting "trick photograph", have contrived to bring the reputation of photography low down indeed.
I love this. I really do.
01-11-2009, 11:20 AM   #51
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QuoteOriginally posted by pingflood Quote
The one thing that never changes is people griping about change.

From 1901:
Sure we gripe about change, but there are reasons. Photography as we knew it in 1901 has died, and while we're still artists who capture light and turn it into a representation of reality, I can't help but wonder if there is a growing distance between "photography" and "image making"

Will the art of the future "photographer" be in freezing a moment like the photographers of 1901 or will it be in capturing a lot of moments and sorting through and processing them like a film editor?
01-11-2009, 12:19 PM   #52
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I think not, as magazines and papers can't yet display moving images in their paper pages, I still good for a job for a few years yet.

01-11-2009, 01:57 PM   #53
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QuoteOriginally posted by kerrowdown Quote
I think not, as magazines and papers can't yet display moving images in their paper pages, I still good for a job for a few years yet.
Getting close though -- didn't Esquire put out an e-Ink cover?
01-12-2009, 07:45 AM   #54
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QuoteOriginally posted by d.bradley Quote
Sure we gripe about change, but there are reasons. Photography as we knew it in 1901 has died, and while we're still artists who capture light and turn it into a representation of reality, I can't help but wonder if there is a growing distance between "photography" and "image making"

Will the art of the future "photographer" be in freezing a moment like the photographers of 1901 or will it be in capturing a lot of moments and sorting through and processing them like a film editor?
Short answer... NO this is not the end of still photography as we know it...

Long answer... Cinematography (and later - videography) has been around for almost as long as still photography yet still photography survives and will continue to do so for the forseeable future. Until our society does away with simple paper-based reading products the still image will continue to be a common standard.

Further, still photography has gone thru many different types of "media" from tin-type to sheet film to roll film to digital, yet the central act of capturing an instant or period of time in a still frame is virtually unchanged. Much as the "camera" doesn't matter, neither does the "medium" used to store that image.

I don't begrudge or even mind the capabilities of these new cameras. If an artist needs or chooses to use their capabilities more power to them. As for me, I will stick with still photography. I have a perfectly good digital videocamera which gathers dust most of the time because the "moving image" is just not something that holds interest to my artistic vision.

Mike

Last edited by MRRiley; 01-12-2009 at 08:06 AM. Reason: clarification
01-12-2009, 08:18 AM   #55
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QuoteOriginally posted by MRRiley Quote
Short answer... NO this is not the end of still photography as we know it...

Long answer... Cinematography and videography have been around for almost as long as still photography yet still photography survives and will continue to do so for the forseeable future. Until our society does away with simple paper-based reading products the still image will continue to be a common standard.
I think there is a misunderstanding in the difference between the "photography" and "photographs". The argument isn't being made that the need for still photographs will go away...clearly that's not the case. The argument is how we go about capturing and arriving at the still photograph that ends up on a page.

QuoteQuote:
Further, still photography has gone thru many different types of "media" from tin-type to sheet film to roll film to digital, yet the central act of capturing an instant or period of time in a still frame is virtually unchanged. Much as the "camera" doesn't matter, neither does the "medium" used to store that image.
It's only now that we're starting to get the kind of sensor resolution, data processing and storage capabilities to take a single still frame from a series of hundreds and result in a still image that rivals that of traditional still photography. The argument that the fundamental act of capturing the moment is changing, something which goes far beyond a change in medium.
01-12-2009, 09:25 AM   #56
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QuoteOriginally posted by d.bradley Quote
I think there is a misunderstanding in the difference between the "photography" and "photographs". The argument isn't being made that the need for still photographs will go away...clearly that's not the case. The argument is how we go about capturing and arriving at the still photograph that ends up on a page.



It's only now that we're starting to get the kind of sensor resolution, data processing and storage capabilities to take a single still frame from a series of hundreds and result in a still image that rivals that of traditional still photography. The argument that the fundamental act of capturing the moment is changing, something which goes far beyond a change in medium.
I don't know about you but I don't want to look through hundreds or thousands of still video frames to select the still image I wanted to capture. As a photograher it is my job to select that moment on the front-end of the process! Relying on 60fps cameras to capture "the right moment" is just an evolution of the "spray and pray" method used by many sports photographers.

What differentiates still photography from videography is the conscious choice of the exact moment to capture. And I would argue that that fundamental act has not changed. Video has been around for 2 decades and it hasn't killed still photograph yet. People that want still photos use still cameras for the most part. Even as videocameras have improved, you don't see people shooting video with the intent of mining still images. They may mine those images but the intended end-product is a video, not a still or even a group of still photos.

Using a 60fps video camera to capture a range of moments is cinematography, not photography. The two disciplines have different basic philosophies. Again, I have nothing against these new capabilities, but at anything over the frame rate required to produce human-perceptable motion the "photographer" becomes a "cinematographer."

Pulling a still frame out of a 30 second clip is a cinematographic technique, not, IMHO, still photography.
01-12-2009, 09:48 AM   #57
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I can't see video replacing still images anytime soon, in fact ever. The two compliment each other very nicely. I have been looking at some recent video I took at a couple of Rally's this past week and while the Video caught chanting and singing, the images captured pure RAW emotion. Why, because it left me starring at them for a few seconds to a few minutes. Can't do that with video, because you loose your train of thought.

When was the last time you saw a video for headline new instead of an image?
01-12-2009, 10:22 AM   #58
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why should I be concerned with a camera that takes 1000 frames per second. Still photography implies that the subject is , well, .... still. Doesn't it.

whether I need 1 second to take 1000 different shots, or 1 second to take a shot I want does not change this simple fact.

I can see that if someone can have auto focus working frame by frame, and get 1000 frames per second, the sports photographers will love it, although it will take several thousand editors to select the best images

As I have repeated many, many times, until someone comes up with a cable that I can stick in my ear, along with a program (mind read.exe?) so I can use the images my brain thinks I can see, I will still use my SLR
01-12-2009, 12:01 PM   #59
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QuoteOriginally posted by d.bradley Quote
The simple question remains: Will this be the end of still photography as we know it?
It may devalue it a little here and there. The article talks about the bear catching the fish. Hold the button for as long as it takes and then let go when you have what you want, then take the best frame. Getting the shot used to be part luck, part skill. Now it is neither. Well, both, but to a lesser degree. I think the extraordinary will become more ordinary. But it will mostly be in the realm of lomography or its ilk... snapshots. A camera cannot confer "vision."

How will all of this capability take away from that one well composed still photograph that does not rely on timing, but rather relies on the artistic sensibilities of the shooter... that one shot that says... something... whatever... to whomever? It cannot and will not. A buffoon with one of these cameras will still not get great shots any more than (s)he can or will with current equipment.

I can buy a really, really, really fast car. And you know what? It will get me from Munich to Innsbruck really, really, really fast. Yet think of all the beautiful vistas that will be lost to me along the way. Nope. I'll take an average car and make the trip in a week if you don't mind. Thanks!

It will not be the end of still photography as WE know it. It WILL be a distraction however.

woof!
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