I have been around still photography long enough to see several transitions.
From black and white to colour (not the beginning, the later ascendancy-not that old), manual to auto focus, film to digital, stills to hybrid.
Through all of that, there has been a common thread of old hands adapting, sharing tricks and growing or falling away and a new generation moving through. The transition has been relatively seamless and each new crop of image makers has had a wealth of support and even healthy competition.
Video has been different.
Most capable videographers were at the top tier, highly specialised, because most other video was shoot and use, not shoot to a higher standard, process to that standard and make a movie or similar. It was too hard, too expensive and most importantly, irrelevant to most end users.
Ironically, stills were harder to take, but easy to use, movies were easy to take, hard to use.
This has meant with the massive growth in this area from entry level through to more serious practitioners, new adopters have basically been left to make their own rules.
The reason I say this is, it is very obvious to me coming in late, that this is the case.
When researching stills gear, techniques and processes, most of the faces I see are close to my own.There are plenty of younger shooters, some suffering from “terminology mis-alignment*”, but on the whole, the pread of photography “experts” spans all generations evenly and all bring something to the game.
When looking to current videographers for information and inspiration, only a very few and these are aligned to more serious presentation formats like “In Depth Cine” or “Studio Binder”, are in my age bracket.
As a rule I am in the hands of those younger than I and often even half my age.
Got no problem with that, as long as they get their facts straight*.
My point is more one of wonderment, that a whole generation of videographers/content creators/Hybrid-ographers are effectively learning their trade at the same time they are creating its shape.
Sony has benefitted from this the most, being the right one at the right time. Nikon has suffered and Canon has teetered on the balance point. Panasonic is the great under-achiever, with similar street cred as Canon in video and plenty of respect, but only now getting it together and Fuji can do as they wish, playing well here or not it seems.
This would not have happened in a purely stills landscape, because as Nikon have proven decade after decade, their stills loyalty base has managed to weather several mis-steps, but in video, they barely rate a mention.
For me personally, it has been fun learning new stuff, but also a little perplexing.
On one hand, the masters ply their trade skilfully and the many watchers analyse what they do.
For me this is the ideal. The shape, orientation, subject and choice of monotone (sharp and contrasty) are perfect. To many, this is the opposite end to their wish list.
On the other, the whole “Junior brigade” effortlessly produce “reels”, master the art of creative editing and push the old rules past breaking point, then come back and do it all again.
I have always felt that in stills and video, some things are timeless and content trumps tricks, but I am also aware that vertical format, short, attention grabbing clips with little or no real content are a thing and I have to adapt.
I am happy to learn, really, but I am also glad I have some background and history to draw on, because it gives me a more solid base to grow from.
Ironically, the stills shooters coming through are still intrigued but the timeless nature of film and mono imaging.
*Some bad habits are creeping in like the mis-pronunciation and poor understanding of the term Bokeh (Bone-Kettle, not Bowkerr) and the persistent and confusing use of wide/small/larger/deeper/lesser etc when talking apertures are also not helpful.
Bokeh is not just more blur, but the transition between blur and sharp at any aperture in any image.
Deeper is more depth is a bigger number is closing down to a smaller aperture. Wider is shallower depth (more blur) is opening up the aperture is a smaller number which is a wider aperture. Confusing enough without getting all wrong. These things are not suggestions but rules and even casual mis-use of them is confusing to those trying to get a handle on a difficult subject. Terms like “a bigger of a depth of field” from a major influencer, apart from meaning nothing, are misleading when talking about wide apertures. This just pisses me off!