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It's Almost Like a Trade Show is Coming
From 100GB CF cards to a 21-megapixel camera that can also shoot 1080p video, there have been a slew of photographic announcements this past week. You would almost imagine that a trade show is coming. Or Christmas. Or massive credit card debt. Or all of the above.
One of the announcements specifically for Aperture users is that a new version, 2.1, of Nik Software's Dfine is available, adding multi-image support (you can work on multiple images easily) and a de-banding feature.
The bigger topic with this year's Photokina is about photographic trends. Nikon and Canon announced digital still cameras also capable of shooting HD-quality video. And an up-and-coming player in the video world, RED, announced that they're building a still camera and completely rethinking their upcoming Scarlet (prosumer/indie filmmaker) camera to address the changing market.
We are starting to see the convergence of video (I am using "video" as shorthand for all things relating to the movie world here for convenience) and still imaging, and both sides are going to win. For example, on the video side, RED's current camera, the One, is a 12-megapixel movie camera that uses a RAW codec (REDCODE). It gives filmmakers the same benefits that RAW still shooters have had for years, rather than baking all of their settings into a more compressed format. You might want to hold onto your 1D, though, as the RED One body alone costs about $17,000.
Furthermore with video, even though the 5D MkII's video formats are limited (e.g. no 24fps mode), people who have seen footage from it are finding that its low-light performance is outstanding. Now there are definitely reasons to buy a dedicated movie camera instead of a 5D MkII or D90 (this video demonstrating a rolling shutter problem has been making the rounds), but just having a great still camera that can shoot perfectly decent HD video is not a bad first generation convergence device.
So how are still photographers, especially Aperture users, going to win? Well, I think we are going to see the best parts of Final Cut Studio make their way into Aperture over time into a combined tool that lets you assemble stories from moving and still imagery and make remarkable adjustments to the raw data (note: I am hypothesizing here and have no idea what Apple's plans are).
Color adjustments are an easy way to see what I mean. Color is critical to a lot of photographers, and Aperture 2 has some really useful color adjustment tools (use the search engine on this blog to find some previous posts and articles about them). But did you ever watch a movie and admire its look? While some of the look depends on the film stock, a process called "color grading" has been part of the filmmaking pipeline for years. During this process, filmmakers will take a shot from bland to beautiful and make it so that a scene has consistent lighting and color, giving the movie its specific look. Apple happens to produce a professional color grading application, called Color. I suggest you watch the demo video to see how Color works. Imagine what Aperture 10 might look like with some of Color's features built right in.
Who knows what else this convergence will bring. Maybe someone will develop an algorithm that uses video recorded simultaneously with a still to remove blur from the still image. Perhaps sports photographers will use RED Ones, compose their shot, shoot a 12MP 30fps sequence, and use Aperture 10 to pull out the perfect still frame. Isn't this an exciting time to be involved with digital imaging?
At the very end you mention someone developing an algorithm that uses video to remove blur from still images. Very recently, there was a paper describing some work that goes in the opposite direction - using still photos to enhance videos (http://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/videoenhancement/videoEnhancement.htm). They have a collection of techniques that allow them to use a couple of still key images to do things like boost resolution of the whole video, increase the dynamic range, and remove objects from the scene. Very cool stuff.
Thanks for the reference--that was actually one of the algorithms I had in the back of my mind and remembered seeing something from SIGGRAPH about it. I just couldn't remember who did it!
Sorry Josh - do you live on another planet?
Photokina is the biggest Photo show in the world and it is running as we speak.
Whilst you guys may not realise it, there is a very big world beyond the US....
Speaking of which, 24fps is meaningless to 98% of all video shooters, so why lament its absence from the camera?
Color is great, but calibration standards in the movie industry are rather a long way from those of the photo industry and so Color is of limited use to photographers without 1500US to spend on gear to calibrate their mac monitor for video - more convergence need to bring a icc workflow to the movie industry...
Apparently my sense of humor falls flat on certain Europeans ;) Yes, I am very aware that Photokina is going on.
I would disagree with you about 24fps being useful to filmmakers--in case you missed it in my post, I am talking about filmmaking in general, not just parents shooting their kids on HDV cameras. But my bigger point is that even though the first generation devices are limited in their options, it's still not a bad start.
Color calibration still has a way to go in places, but as someone who's worked on 6 different feature films already, I can tell you that it's important and color accuracy in Hollywood has already had an impact on the calibration devices you use for photography at home.
And European, just FYI, I did mention Photokina in my post (paragraph 3), and do you not care about PAL or SECAM--neither of which are 30fps?
And do not forget Leica S2... Almost 40MP of Leica greatness an sweetness!
Josh, tell the people who run the site to fix the Captcha. Every time I write the correct letters/numbers in the Captcha it tels me that it is wrong and I have to go back and do it several time until it works. It is getting old.
Did you hear that Kodak designed that Leica sensor? It definitely looks impressive! There's some info here about it.
Just to check, are you using the right capitalization with Captcha? It does get annoying sometimes--I find I get a few of the letters mixed up, depending on where they fall on the background!
Indeed - not used to a sense of humor in our Atlantic cousins ;)
OK, I grant you, you did mention the 'Kina...
Frame rate is a limitation of the device for any Pro work, as is the lack of proper exposure control (think program mode only), proper audio support (at least it does have an audio in, but you need a mixer at half the cost of the camera), BUT we agree on one thing - it is good for a v1.0 convergence product and as various people have proved, the difficulties can be surmounted to give a good looking result
Color accuracy has doubtlessly improved in Hollywood and Pinewood too; it is even possible to calibrate the plasma at home, but reality is the gulf between Video and Still color management. Certain high profile sites are still recommending gamma 1.8 and apple rgb for still images into FCP!!
The only way to cheaply hardware profile a monitor (computer) is with Matrox MXO or to pay stupid money for a video reference display. 'Experts' at high end video gear suppliers cannot bridge the video / stills color gulf, so there are wars to be fought in that direction - Imagine trying to get hollywood to adopt an icc color workflow? With metadata in the footage, it makes sense to go in that direction.
Interesting times for sure, and this is just the first of these devices.