No more still cameras for news?

[tvphotog]

One of my friends was at a press conference the other day, and noticed a still photographer from a major New York daily who was using a high end video camera instead. When he asked why, the guy said the paper was taking individual frames from the video to print and use in the paper, and was posting the video at the paper's site online. The frames were of high enough quality apparently to print at about 8 x 6 in monochrome.

Has anyone else heard of this happening?

[saturnin]

well u do kill two birds with one stone and i've seen video still sin papers before..they do look VIDEOISH and u can tell the difference. I can guarantee that that is a very rare thing so see.. most newsprints wil use proper photos...

[Edward Moss]

The stills will be fine for web use but what happens if a glossy wants to use one of the shots, doubt many agencies will want to miss out on a sale.
But...the technology will catch up and it won't be long.

[Dooms_day]

if theyre using the 5Dmk2, no one would notice they'd be taking video instead of pics!

[LowriderS10]

It's true. I'm a reporter for a major daily and, as much as I love still cameras - even though I'm not a photog I have a dedicated 10D/Tamron 17-50 combo for work -, the photo editors are telling me to take stills with my video camera (Sony HDR-SR11).

It'll take nearly 8 MP shots while the film is rolling and sometimes they just take my screenshots (I do videography for our website) out of my movies and run it in the paper.

It's kind of sad, 'cuz I love still cameras, but it's definitely the way things are going.

[primoz]

There is trend in this way, but there's a whole bunch of other problems connected with this.... money issues for beginning. Until now, stills were for "free". This means we don't pay to be on some sport match. Producers of moving images (not just TV, but also web sites etc.) are paying rights to organizers. With cameras which include video capabilities, this things are going to change, and from this what I heard, there were first clashes already.
So yes, big agencies (Reuters, AFP, AP...) are pushing more and more toward video, but we will see what will be outcome on the end. And outcome won't have anything to do with technical capabilities of cameras. ;)

[cdifoto]

Screen grabs from video have motion blur so if you care about eliminating that, you have to use a still camera and a fast shutter speed.

Otherwise, it makes sense to use video and pull the best screen shot for low res work. Unless you don't have time to watch the entire video and get the best moment.