The Future of Photography is Video?
29 December 2007
I shoot photos on my Canon DSLR cameras in RAW format all the time as it allows me to later adjust exposure and many other settings of the photo unlike a JPEG. The RAW files are larger sized but contain much more data about what the cameras sensor captured hence the name RAW.
I have been thinking, if I can shoot RAW format photos and later adjust my photo shooting environment details why not the what the camera had in view similar to looking at a video segment from my high definition video camcorder and grabbing a still photo from the scene but with more detail. After all video is a series of frames aka images. I have seen high speed HD video cameras like the ones used on the Discovery Channels Living Planet where some scenes where captured at 1000 frames per second in a 3 second loop to capture every single detail and water droplet during a shark attack and the data was relayed by wireless to a computer for processing. Now imagine when more technology is available and combines the best of video cameras and also DSLR along you to shoot a high speed 3 second shot that you can later select what area of a scene and details to export a photo from so you will be able to select that missed or unnoticed perfect frame shot and even enhance it like a RAW photo. I truly think at some point video and photo will be combined and photos will only be a export option of a still image from a captured video scene. Perhaps we will see a video version of RAW (vRAW) in the not too distant future as well. It is just a matter of technology and time as well as hardware iterations as I don't want a video camera hardware but a DSLR body to shoot high end video or photo stills or both in vRAW. Then we can get further down the road to 3D captured video environments or scenes where you can navigate within the image or video in the Z.
OK back to processing many of my my high definition video tapes I have captured over the past year to see what I captured and then archiving them to hard drives. This time of year with a few days off is the only time I get to do much tinkering and video editing as well as reading uninterrupted by hundreds of emails a day.
Cheers,
Shaan