Video Killed The Radio Star
I’m a commercial and editorial photographer and to date I’ve been apprehensive about jumping on the video bandwagon. My thought was always, why should I start shooting motion just because a stills camera now shoots high def video. If I wanted to do motion I could have been doing it all along with traditional motion cameras.
Well, I’ve finally decided that I do want to start playing around with video so I went ahead and purchased my first motion camera, the Canon 5D MarkII. What will I do with it… I have no idea just yet. That’s what I’m trying to figure out now that I have this video capable camera starting me in the face. For now, as I think about what I want to do with video, I’m laying the educational and technological ground work. Because, as anyone who’s shot video can tell you, just because you have the camera doesn’t mean you’re ready to get out there and do something with it. Video is a bit more complicated that stills. With stills I could walk out and shoot great pictures with a $20 plastic camera and a roll of film. Video is a little more tricky… you can still go out with just the camera and get good footage but there is a lot more to it if you want to do something that doesn’t look like your dad shooting home movies in the back yard.
I’m starting this blog as an off-shoot to my regular photography blog. Here I’m going to post about everything I’m learning about shooting video from the creative to the technological side: Videos, gear, software, computer technology, product reviews and more. Since I don’t know much about video you’ll get to see the what it takes as a photographer to get up and running with video and learn from my successes and failures. I hope it will be a good resource for other photographers who are just getting started or thinking about getting into motion. And hopefully an expert or two will drop by now and again to let me know if I’m doing something completely bat sh*t crazy.
So hopefully you’ll enjoy the new blog and get some use out of it. But, if nobody ever reads it, well then it will at least be a resource for me to think about what I’m doing. You can subscribe to the RSS feed here and follow my motion specific Twitter feed here.
Please forgive the bare appearance of the blog. Obviously I’m just getting things started. I’ll be making some changes to the design and layout as I go along. So if you’re reading this soon after it was posted the site probably isn’t much to look at just yet.
Visit my photography website here and please re-tweet if you found this not totally useless:
Tweet
No related posts.
3 Comments
Leave a Reply
About Me
I'm a San Francisco commercial and editorial photographer who's getting started with video.
Connect
Welcome to the party. I have seen many photographers make the transition and it is pretty exciting times with the HDSLR cameras on the market and the in the pipeline. I am very inspired by photographers like Greg Williams who have bridged the gap between stills and motion. Good luck and looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
I have mixed feelings about professional stills photographers getting into motion just because of the new Canon cameras. The greatest thing about this technological revolution for filmmaking is that it lowers the barrier to entry for those who have always dreamed of making films but weren’t able to. I don’t think stills photographers should bother unless they always wanted to be filmmakers. Motion is very different from stills.
I couldn’t agree more. If you wanted to be a cinematographer you would have been a cinematographer. You shouldn’t do it just because your camera now shoots video. If you WANT to do it, great. But just shooting video because everyone else is shooting video isn’t a good idea. The lack of interest will likely show up in your work.
I actually WANT to try motion. Of course, after getting into it I may decide I don’t like it. Maybe I’m more suited to stills. Only time will tell.