I got into photography after being a photojournalist for several years. I would have thought that my video skills would obviously translate to photography, and in some cases, in many other ways, not. Here’s a video that breaks down exactly why that’s the case.
Kasey Stern of Camera Conspiracies talks about the many emails he receives from photographers offering him advice on cameras and lenses that can work well for video. The problem is that what usually works well for still photographers doesn’t work well for video.
While things like composition and framing can often shift on a regular basis, the fundamentals of image creation do not. As Stern pointed out, when you are photographing wildlife, a fast shutter speed is necessary to freeze your subject for a sharp image. The exact opposite is the case with video, where you need to slow down the shutter speed to get smooth motion.
Another thing that I don’t usually think about is image stabilization and how it is different for videos than for photos. I often talk about how great the image stabilization is on Olympus E-M10, but I mainly think about how it allows me to hold the photo well with my hand. Stern notes that the part that most people don’t think about is how in-body stabilization works with lens-based stabilization and while buying lenses from the same manufacturer as your camera. can often yield good results, buy third party lenses that don’t always work. While a third-party manufacturer must reverse engineer the lens mount specifications, an original lens does not face such challenges or obstacles. This also applies to lens corrections with non-native material objects. Systems are not designed to play well with each other.
Stern goes on to discuss a few more points that photographers don’t often think about, and one of the main ones is autofocus and how the camera handles continuous tracking compared to single-shot mode. If there are still any Panasonic camcorders around, be prepared for this part to be offended. Not to mention his thoughts on the once-popular camera when it comes to video.
There are a number of other reasons why filming and photography skills are so different; Watch the rest of the video for an explanation of Stern’s sometimes slick reasoning. If you have your own experience on the difference between photography and video recording, leave them in the comments section below.
