Yup, I fully understand that type of compromize occurs. I wish it didn't. I much prefer trying to do the best you can!
Graeme
Graeme,
Since I come at this from a commercial photographer's point of view (when your a hammer, everything is a nail), I look at the still and motion cameras we have today vs. what was around 7 to 8 years ago and honestly I don't see much difference.
Maybe costs have plummeted on comparable systems like the 5d2 compared to a 1ds3 or a digital back, or the RED vs. what was available with a 35mm cinema camera, but as far as being able to offer up anything to a client that is really different or unique for advertising and marketing we're still pretty much producing, concepting, working and delivering imagery the same way we were 10 years ago.
Right now the economy has put everything into sharp focus as to what works, what doesn't what's needed, what's expendable and now more so today than anytime I can remember, I get this feeling that the advertising world is kind of sitting on their hands waiting for the next big thing, or the next big idea that will drive their clients into spending and clients are sitting on their hands waiting for that something that will drive their customers into opening their wallets.
when I look at real innovation, something like the new Iphone just blows away compared to what we have in professional equipment.
Shoot video, shoot stills, one button click to e-mail them to one person or the world, blog em, web em, comment on them get responses all while you can talk to your boyfriend, check the weather, hell it's such a different mindset compared to the professional equipment side of life.
With our equipment and software, we're still working traditional and nothing cross purposes that well. Sure a 5d2 on manual focus will shoot a video image, a RED with manual focus will produce a still image out of the motion clips good enough for reproduction and though both cameras are quite amazing, they don't really offer 1/2 of the usability of something like the iphone I mentioned and this somewhat stumps me.
Why nikon has a d3 that has amazing focus for stills, shoots 10fps almost for long periods but can't just ramp up and shoot 30 fps kind of confuses me. As somebody that works on the camera design side you probably know the answers to all of this, but how expensive and difficult is it to make take that Nikon or Canon, add another processor, a large buffer and let it rip?
The professional world is still living in this historic past. A 1ds2 nor Nikon D3 looks and works pretty much like a film camera, a RED pretty much like a film camera and even finding common ground on software is almost impossible.
Your much better versed and studied in this than I, but why we can't put a video clip in lightroom and use it's familiar functions and controls to work video as we post process the stills is kind of perplexing that Adobe isn't working day and night to get this out in a week. (maybe they are).
Maybe your next RED will have autofocus, high iso, lenses from 300mm to 10mm, familiar to use post processing software, or even better, easy to use in camera color and tone correction, I don't know, you do, but I do know that if you make the rounds from AD agency creatives, to corporate CEO's even the ones with advertising budget to spend, today aren't really sure where to put it, what will work, what medium will have the most play.
I think all mediums from motion to still, blogging to web, web to print, print to broadcast all shot under one production will be the future, but as slow as most of the equipment makers work, it will be a long time until we have devices that will do this.
JR