Still photography and videography are obviously different forms of related media, but after a rocket six months of video adoption, I can honestly say that on the whole, the stills shooter has the easiest road to travel.

Formats;

Shooting in RAW is daunting for some photographers, but seriously, the power so easily at hand is a real gift. I almost never have to worry about miss-cued exposures or white balance in my stills work and with the quality of light meters, even on my lowliest cameras, there are few genuine stuff-ups. To be hinest the dynamic range of an MFT sensor and RAW, I can almost always retrieve something workable.

Video has the dual issues of multiple formats on several levels and for most of us, limited file flexibily. Just to add salt to the wound, different brands all have their own formats, that are actually different in processing response and processing is equally varied and more complicated than stills.

Delivery;

This brings us to delivery, or the end process and what it supplies you or your client (or self). Single images, often single shots taken from sequences or even entire shoot are simply a matter of open minded perseverence, adaptability and practice. Being creative is often just a matter of remembering a different lens, bending down or changing angle and the whole time you are thinking/looking/moving, you are not expected produce work, just the moments you commit.

Video delivery, like formats and processing has multiple options, so choices have to be made. Unlike an still image, not every format plays on every device. On top of that, I cannot upload the huge files, my Dropbox would hate me, so I have to hand deliver them.

Lighting;

Fast glass with fast AF in all but the most extreme circumstances will get any user of any format pu tof trouble. You also have more than enough pixels to shoot wide and stabilisers for single sots are getting better and better. Time it well and even a 1/8th of a second shot of an animate subject can work and of course that may come from a dozen or more images. Flash units are powerful for little outlay, super grunty for a little more. It is possible to overpower the sun with a $100 flash unit and modifiers are all the choices videographers have and many more. The assumption is also that these lights will be daylight balanced unless gelled or modified otherwise.

Video, being constant requires strong, continuous and colour corrected light. Strength is not an issue unless colour is, then the big, cheap flood lights builders use become an issue. Modifying these lights is also harder.

Storage;

I can chew through 5-800 images in a big project, which usually takes up the bulk of a 16gb card and maybe some of another. These cards are often base grade as I do not need more. A series of 20mp RAW images may tax the buffer, but I do not shoot that way.

After editing, I often ditch at least half of these images, storing the better original RAWS for later and putting the submitted ones into the cloud. Even with my relatively slow internet, they go up fast enough. I once lusted after a jpeg work flow, likely to be a Fuji based one as they at time produced jpegs that were close to their RAW images (sometimes better in Adobe), but I could not break the RAW habit.

Video eats up capacity and requires speed. Even 1080 with a reasonable bit rate and colour depth can be taxing. A reviewer of the new GH6 worked out that a full wedding day shoot with two cameras and backups at 900mb 6k would cost him $8500us in cards!

Quality;

20mp does all I need. I have supplied images for a billboard, several 6’ wide signs and a minibus, all from 20mp MFT files and all were cropped to some extent. Quality is not an issue these days. Too much quality can be, but no real risk of falling short in a techncal sense.

Most of us only need 720p for net use or 1080p for better, but the call of 4k and higher is getting stronger. The irony is, video needs less improvement in resolution than stills, but tends to be more obsessed by it. Ironically, we often chase the “cinematic” look, which requires sharpness reducing filters! Good video seems to walk a fine line between realism and objective quality. Too sharp and it is too digiatl video for most people. Too soft and it looks low grade.