How Will You Shoot Quality Stills and Video at the Same Time?
Words and Photos by
Dr. Elliot McGucken
Just as the world’s
greatest surfer, Kelly Slater, reinvented himself by mastering aerials, today’s
visual artists must remain competitive by keeping themselves atop the latest
technological waves. And today’s dawn patrol is reporting that the waves are
ideal for gnarly acrobatics
once thought impossible: shooting high-quality stills and video simultaneously.
Two-page Red EPIC
advertisements in photography publications and major glossies recently read, “Shoot
a feature and the poster for it at the same time,” while stills pulled from 4K and
5K Red video footage regularly grace the covers of high-end magazines.
Award-winning New York
Times photographer
Doug Mills mounted one DSLR atop another, calling his novel apparatus the
“Double-Shot.” USA Today sports photographer Robert
Hanashiro mounts an HD GoPro camera on a lens hood to capture video while
shooting stills, writing on his site, “Obviously the best way to shoot a video
gig is dedicating yourself to shooting just video. But in the ‘real world’ of
newspaper photographers we’re having to multitask more and more.” NikonUSA.com presents various strategies for
capturing HD-sized stills on a page appropriately titled, “What to do
When you Need Stills while Shooting HD Video.”
Press the shutter
button while shooting video on a typical DSLR, and some will halt the video to
record a full-resolution still (albeit at less-than-optimum rates), while others
will record both video and a smallish 2-mp, HD-sized still at the same time.
You’ve likely seen, thought about, or even tried other strategies for capturing
simultaneous stills and video. For the past three years I have been
“45surfing”—shooting simultaneous full-size RAW stills while surfing 1080 HD
video with either a dedicated video camera bracketed to a Nikon D4 and 600mm F4
Prime lens in a tripod-mounted configuration for pro surfing events, or a
handheld rig consisting of a camcorder bracketed to a Nikon D800E and 70-200mm
VR2 lens when shooting swimsuit models. Here’s a rundown of the philosophy and various
approaches.
Surfing Moore’s Law: Waste
the Abundant and Conserve The Precious and Rare.
The fundamental
philosophy driving the simultaneous capture of stills and video is driven by
Moore's Law—the same principle governing the exponential advancement of the Internet
and digital media technologies which have afforded us inexpensive cameras
alongside free and immediate global distribution. As the power of cameras and
computers augments while their prices decline, so too does the power of storage
media—hard drives and memory cards—plummet as their power increases. Feature
films and TV shows are being shot on $2,000 cameras, while footage from the
$200 GoPro HD Hero is being used in major movies and Madison Avenue
advertisements alike. Run the numbers, and with time as scarce as ever and the
importance of video in a world where YouTube is the second-largest search
engine, it makes sense to set up one or several HD cameras for a shoot,
mounting one on the stills-dedicated DSLR for the unique “first-person-shooter”
perspective. “Shoot it all first,” as it costs the same, and “edit it down later”
suggest a new philosophy for visual artists. And as weddings, sunset swimsuit
shoots, and sporting events happen but once, you cannot return to shoot the
video. You can’t ask the bride to walk down the aisle again, or ask Kelly
Slater to re-land an aerial off a wave that is now gone forever. All of this calls us to adventure—to
develop a strategy for capturing stills and video at the same time.
Stills and Video Require
Different Approaches, Shutter Speeds, Etc.
A salient fact that
one must honor while capturing simultaneous stills and video is that the two
mediums generally require different shutter speeds for optimum quality. This is
especially important when motion is present—either at the camera’s end, such as
with a handheld rig, or when the subject is moving. When I was shooting Kelly
Slater’s journey to victory at the Hurley Pro, exposure times for the Nikon D4 stills
were generally between 1/2000s to 1/5000s, thereby freezing his action in
mid-air, while the exposure for the video was around 1/60s to 1/120s—well over
a magnitude of order difference!
A touch of motion
blur in video frames is more pleasing to the eye, while sharpness is generally
sought in photographic stills. For this reason, the Red cameras are limited,
even with their 4K and 5K image sizes. If you optimizes the shutter speed for
sharpness with speeds of 1/2000s or just 1/1000s, the video will appear
“stuttery,” like those old black and white WWII film clips. Should you optimize
the shutter speed for video at around
1/60s to 1/120s, motion blur will creep into the stills, showing up in handheld
shots or when the subject is moving. When photographer Kevin Arnold used a
$65,000 Red EPIC rig (now around $40,000) to shoot skiers at Whistler Mountain,
he concluded, “The EPIC’s sensor, while amazing for video, just isn’t on par
with top-end DSLRs and certainly not even close to medium format digital
cameras when it comes to still images. The bigger challenge—especially when
shooting fast moving lifestyle or sports action—is achieving fast shutter
speeds. The great majority of the frames we shot were soft due to either camera
movement or subject motion blur. This is the single biggest issue with pulling
stills from video.”
Red EPIC vs. Hasselblad with
Headshot Master Peter Hurley.
In the Fstoppers’
piece “Will Video Cameras Kill Still Photography?
Red EPIC vs. Hasselblad,”
Peter Hurley shot headshots with both a Red and an older Hasselblad. It was
generally agreed that while the Epic was impressive, the Hasselblad produced
better results. But when one factors in the costs of the ~ $40,000 Red system
vs. the ~ $10,000 Hasselblad, pulling stills from even the best 5K video leaves
much to be desired for portraitists. Peter utilized continuous lighting for his
test, and while a Red can be used with strobes, there are far more
tried-and-true flash options for standard DSLR and medium format cameras.
However, needless to say, if one also wants 5K video of the shoot, the Red
wins
The
New York Times’
Doug Mills’ “Double-Shot.”
While Doug’s method
of mounting one DSLR in the hot shoe of another generated some buzz in the
summer of 2011, it seems that he has not been employing the method as of late.
Drawbacks include the occupied flash shoe, the lack of video stabilization, and
the fact that two DSLRS can feel quite heavy after a short while. As he was
using Canons, both cameras would had to have been manually focused when
following a subject, which could lead to missed shots, while being awkward and
unwieldy at best.
My lighter-than-a-DSLR,
high-quality Panasonic or Canon camcorders I attach underneath my DSLR come
with amazing video stabilization—a feature also lacking on Doug’s setup. The
Sony A65 and A77 DSLRs, which I also use, come with both image-stabilization
and auto-tracking focus which follows and focuses on moving objects, separating
them from the background. I have experimented with mounting a video-dedicated
Sony A77 underneath a Nikon D800E, and while it’s heavier than the camcorders
and the image stabilization isn’t quite as good, it is capable of a shallower
depth-of-field, for that coveted cinematic look and feel.
Capturing Video with the HD
GoPro while Shooting Stills.
USA
Today sports
photographer Robert Hanashiro writes on sportsshooter.com, his blog, “I have a
GoPro mount stuck onto the end of a lens hood for my Nikkor 24-70mm, and if
you’re a ‘one-man band’ like I am, shooting assignments for stills and video,
this can sometimes be a nice solution.” On YouTube, you can find photographers
wearing the GoPRo during shoots, but with its fixed wide-angle lens, the lens
of the stills camera is often present in the shot. Additionally, subjects
appear a bit further away than you might like, and suffer some wide-angle
distortion when they are close. The camcorders I use offer simple zoom
controls, suited to shooting pro surfers a hundred yards offshore with a 23x
stabilized zoom, or a model fifteen feet in front of me.
Tomorrow’s Cameras Will All
Record Stills and Video Simultaneously.
The iPhone 5 can take full-resolution (8 mp) jpgs while shooting video, as can some compact cameras such as the Nikon 1 V2 (14 mp). However, the capture rate of stills is relatively slow, and RAW stills yet elude the photographer in video mode on such devices. Both the small-sensor iPhone and comparable Android smartphones lack zooms and that coveted shallow-depth-of-field film look.
DSLRs such as the Canon 7D can acquire full-sized RAW
photos while shooting video, but the video is interrupted. And on other DSLRs,
when they do not interrupt the video, the photos are limited to the HD frame’s
2mp size, falling far short of their 22-36mp full-frame capabilities. Needless
to say, we do not pay top-dollar to purchase 36mp DSLRs to end up with puny 2mp
jpg stills captured in video mode.
Soon the processing
power to shoot both full-sized RAW stills and RAW video will arrive across the
board, as it exists today in the Red systems. In a couple years, 4K video,
which is about 4 times the size of HD video (more than enough for feature films
at your local multiplex), will replace HD as the standard, and even our
smartphones will be shooting 4K video. But as aforementioned, while stills
pulled from a 4K video will be large enough for print magazines and billboards,
their exposure times will not always be optimum, especially in hand-held
scenarios or when shooting motion. If you increase the shutter speed for
sharper images, the video will suffer. Thus two cameras—one dedicated to stills
and one to video—will continue to have advantages, as optimum stills and video
generally require different exposure times. Also, this allows you to capture
different fields of view in the stills and video, with different depths of
fields, and, as we have seen, different shutter speeds; all of which suggests
the use of a dual-camera system.
Some Advantages of the 45Surfer
System.
I constructed a table
comparing the 45surfer to the Red EPIC, Hanashiro’s HD GoPro, general DSLRS, iPhones/Droids/smartphones,
and other approaches. By no means is this list complete, nor is it the final word, and we would love to hear about your
innovative takes on capturing stills and video at the same time, and the
reasons for your preferred methods and means.
Note
to designer: INSERT TABLE HERE
Sooner than later, a
manufacturer will release a small, light, mirror-less compact camera system,
such as the Sony NEX-7, with high-quality image-stabilization, tracking
auto-focus, and the coveted shallow depth-of-field. Bracket two of these
cameras together—one for stills and one for video—and the rig will weigh less
than a single typical DSLR and lens. I am currently working on an app, which
will be capable of matching the two cameras’ settings, such fields of view,
zoom, and other selected attributes, so that when you zoom in with the
stills-dedicated camera with a shutter optimized for stills, the
video-dedicated camera follows suit, zooming with its shutter optimized for
video, while correcting for parallax.
Just as
once-impossible aerials are now part of all the world’s leading surfers’
standard repertoires, what was once inconceivable—shooting quality stills and
video at the same time—is becoming a standard part of the modern visual
artists’ repertoire. And remember that in the arts, as in business and life,
the classic surfing maxim holds true: “The surfer having the most fun wins!”
About the Author: Dr. Elliot McGucken
studied physics at Princeton University and UNC Chapel Hill. His award-winning
physics Ph.D. dissertation on an artificial retina for the blind and enhanced
CMOS photosensors, which was funded by the NSF and which appeared in Popular Science and numerous scientific publications, is now
affording the blind sight. As a SoCal surfer and photographer/videographer, Dr.
McGucken continues to work with CMOS photosensors in his Nikons as his 45Surf “Hero’s
Journey Mythology” photography collection has grown to attract over 75 million
views on Flickr and SmugMug, while he researches new techniques for shooting
stills and video at the same time.
Shooting Stills & Video @ the Same Time: 9Shooter Bracket for Mounting and Connecting any Two Cameras / Camcorders / DSLRS / HD Hero GOPROs for Shooting Simultaneous Stills & Video
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