Casio EX-F1 Review

[russell a]

Michael's review offers a thoughtful perspective on "Things to Come".  Photographers will soon have an identity crisis.  On the down side, the article was poorly edited and contains many typos and errors of usage.  Take a little more time, Michael.

[Peter McLennan]

Michael clearly identifies the gulf that separates the still photographer from the "moving-image-capturer" (for lack of a better term).  I think this rule applies to our tools as well as our skill sets, and the Casio is a good example.

While there is significant commonality between the two types of photography, the 'film' camera operator has far the more complex task.  Motion-media capture requires far more of the camera operator than still image capture, for cameramen must be directors, too.  In fact, a cameraman's skill set is much like a writer's, while a still photographer works more like a painter. (Add to that the now-common responsibility for sound as well as picture and you have a difficult task indeed.)

Michael writes that the Casio's failing is its attempt to do too much at once.  Even without using it, I'm inclined to agree.  The demands of the two jobs are far too divergent for one camera to satisfy them all.  "Horses for courses", as they say.

[James R Russell]

Michael clearly identifies the gulf that separates the still photographer from the "moving-image-capturer" (for lack of a better term).  I think this rule applies to our tools as well as our skill sets, and the Casio is a good example.

While there is significant commonality between the two types of photography, the 'film' camera operator has far the more complex task.  Motion-media capture requires far more of the camera operator than still image capture, for cameramen must be directors, too.  In fact, a cameraman's skill set is much like a writer's, while a still photographer works more like a painter. (Add to that the now-common responsibility for sound as well as picture and you have a difficult task indeed.)

Michael writes that the Casio's failing is its attempt to do too much at once.  Even without using it, I'm inclined to agree.  The demands of the two jobs are far too divergent for one camera to satisfy them all.  "Horses for courses", as they say.
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Without using the term "good enough" quality images really depends on the use and genre.

A photographer shooting a news event for a large daily newspaper can and will use some type of fast frame camera to capture the event and as the quality improves, the speed and post processing improve soon the word hybrid will no longer be part of the designation.

This opens up possibilities and also obstacles.  Right now press credentials for a football game in Lyon only allows for still photography, because the broadcast and video rights and under contract, but how can anyone know, or  stop you from using this casio or the next bigger better version that we all know is coming.

The same holds true for all events, sports and news.  What keeps Getty's contracted photographers from mounting a high frame rate camera at the finish line of the 400k at Beijing and once again who will know if the Nikon D6x is set on continues play or still play?

Take this to the level of commerce.  What keeps a television camera from capturing 5k stills as well as video for a pharmaceutical campaign?  What client wouldn't want to see that type of money savings of a combined project and better yet who is going to be the first to offer this, a still photographer or a film/video production company?

In so many ways, digital and cinema have converged and obviously a 30mpx back with dedicated flash will produce a superior still image to any video grab and just as obvious a 35mm arrifllex shot on large dolly's, cranes and stands will produce more professional motion capture than any ramped up casio, but the lines get closer daily.

A DiVinci 2k color editor is not that big of a leap from the "basic" learning curve of lightroom.  Editing video and the basic controls in final cut pro, really isn't that huge of a difference than editing down stills in a browser and purposing the files for multiple use.

In fact, before I send a project in for color timing, I take screen grabs of the footage, color them in lightroom or photoshop, print out hard copy and deliver it to the colorists as a base guideline to go from.  This has saved us many hours and many thousands of dollars in back and forth corrections.

Now how good would it be if the time I spend on photoshop correcting the screen grabs could just be moved over to the entire video clip?

Of course on a professional level all of these processes take time to learn and a money investment but once in the digital domain the basic learning curve, at least in broad strokes, is very close.

JR

[Peter McLennan]

>soon the word hybrid will no longer be part of the designation.
<snip>
This opens up possibilities and also obstacles. 

Good points. Cameras like the Casio will probably create new niches of photography, rather than doing everything we now do, better.  Certainly frame grabs from a 4K progressive scan camera operating at 60 FPS are going to be valuable somewhere.


>What keeps Getty's contracted photographers from mounting a high frame rate camera at the finish line of the 400k at Beijing and once again who will know if the Nikon D6x is set on continues play or still play?

Nothing, of course.  Technology continually forces re-evaluations of "The Rules".  This, if nothing else, keeps the lawyers happy.




A DiVinci 2k color editor is not that big of a leap from the "basic" learning curve of lightroom.

True, but this is not "editing" in the cinema sense.




>Editing video and the basic controls in final cut pro, really isn't that huge of a difference than editing down stills in a browser and purposing the files for multiple use.

I fear that you demean the efforts of the "film editor".   

Editing in the still-image sense implies the selection of the good from the bad and the polishing of the good to maximize some set of values.  Editing in the motion picture sense merely begins there. 

>Of course on a professional level all of these processes take time to learn and a money investment but once in the digital domain the basic learning curve, at least in broad strokes, is very close.

The digital domain has affected story-telling editing without doubt, improving speed, flexibility, versatility and removing many barriers to entry. However, the learning curve for cinema editors is and remains lengthy.  Image ordering, sequencing is what cinema editors do, and editing as a story-telling skill is infinitely complex, quite different from and arguably as important as the imagery being edited.

PM (who doesn't know how to interleave a quoted post)


JR
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[dalethorn]

That video and stills require different skills is logical, but that they require two cameras or operators is not. I want a camera with two shutter buttons - one for stills and one for video. Each would know its own settings, and I wouldn't have to manipulate a "mode" dial. That would solve my problems, and a lot of other folks' too.

[barryfitzgerald]

I can't read it!

Both firefox and IE hang when clicking on that link...have to shut them down. Anyone else get this??

[Kenneth Sky]

I think we're all missing Michael's point. Once again technology is getting ahead of creative thinking. It will take a new kind of photographer/videographer to use this new type of capture that will blend stills and "movies" into a single art form. The creative possibilities of this crossover class of capture are unlimited.

[joedevico]

I can't read it!

Both firefox and IE hang when clicking on that link...have to shut them down. Anyone else get this??
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Did you wait long enough? Mine hang until the all the clips are loaded (it's a quiktime thing) and then the page shows up and is scrollable. It's about a minute or so on a medium speed connection.

joe

[James R Russell]

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[/quote]


There is no thought in my mind that if you can work lightroom you can become a 35mm colorists in a day, or if you know your way around Photoshop you can edit a masterpiece with FCP in a week.

The basic principles are in place and even though the production and post production tools get more advanced and complicated, once everything is in the digital domain a great deal of the functions are quite similar, even the terminology.

Knowledge is power and the talent it takes to shoot and edit a still story is very close to the same aesthetics of a moving story.  The buttons and skill sets may be different but the mediums are much closer together today than they were even a few years ago.

I learned fcp, after effects just like I learned photoshop, light room and C-1 and though I now outsource 90% of our editing and color correction for video, this has allowed me to be more direct and deliberate in how I work with editors and colorists.

This doesn't demean or diminish the value any professional brings to a project but the more you know the better director you become.

There seems to be a hesitancy that new technology will make our jobs as creative image makers redundant or easier, but it's usually the opposite as the learning curve gets steeper.



JR

[jjj]

Take this to the level of commerce.  What keeps a television camera from capturing 5k stills as well as video for a pharmaceutical campaign?

The different shutter speeds used if you want to do it simultaneously!

In fact, before I send a project in for color timing, I take screen grabs of the footage, color them in lightroom or photoshop, print out hard copy and deliver it to the colorists as a base guideline to go from.  This has saved us many hours and many thousands of dollars in back and forth corrections.

Now how good would it be if the time I spend on photoshop correcting the screen grabs could just be moved over to the entire video clip?

Have you not played with Photoshop Extended, as that's exactly what it can do?

[jjj]

[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=191460\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]There is no thought in my mind that if you can work lightroom you can become a 35mm colorists in a day, or if you know your way around Photoshop you can edit a masterpiece with FCP in a week.

Is that like when if know where the buttons are on a camera you are the next Ansel Adams? And how does using PS, help you with teling a story, which is what editing is and they are very, very different skills?
This response assumes you meant 'doubt' and not 'thought' in above quoted sentence as that seems to make far more sense in the context of what you have written overall.

Knowledge is power and the talent it takes to shoot and edit a still story is very close to the same aesthetics of a moving story.

Very similar, but very few photographers do that, as they take stills, individual stills. They rarely tell stories.

 

The buttons and skill sets may be different but the mediums are much closer together today than they were even a few years ago.

They've always been close and there's always been lots of crossover. Lots of people on film sets were stills photographers once.
Plus ça change.

I learned fcp, after effects just like I learned photoshop, light room and C-1 and though I now outsource 90% of our editing and color correction for video, this has allowed me to be more direct and deliberate in how I work with editors and colorists.

This doesn't demean or diminish the value any professional brings to a project but the more you know the better director you become.

To be able to direct well, you have to  know and understand editing. And always have done. As editing is the essence of movie making. Editing in the splicing/omitting sense that is.
The more you know as a director or producer about what each department does and how they do it, the easier is is to capture what you want. Again, that's always ben the case.

There seems to be a hesitancy that new technology will make our jobs as creative image makers redundant or easier, but it's usually the opposite as the learning curve gets steeper.
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I think a major problem with things like photography becoming so very technical is that those people who are visually talented but techophobic, are put off by the sheer amount of techy crap one now has to deal with, whereas that was not really an issue before.

[James R Russell]

Very similar, but very few photographers do that, as they take stills, individual stills. They rarely tell stories.

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I don't think this is accurate.  All photographs are a story sometimes in sequence, sometimes in a single frame, but the story is there, or at least attempted.

JR

[BrianSmith]

Michael clearly identifies the gulf that separates the still photographer from the "moving-image-capturer" (for lack of a better term).

Aren't we all after "Moving Images"?