Digital BW, The Print

> steveabrink wrote:
> > I know this is not related to B&W printing but there seems to be a lot
> > of interest in the new Canon 5dMKii with an affordadable 21MP full
> > frame imager.  I'm certainly interested, but does anyone see real uses
> > for the HD video imaging capability for us fine art types? And should
> > that bother us ...
> 
Its a great, high rez, wide dynamic range camera, with excellent low light 
capabilities. So if you don't have need of video, don't let the video features 
scare you off. But I can point out any number of ways this changes photography: 
wedding/event photography and wedding/event videography no longer require 
seperate people with seperate equipment. Wildlife photographers will no longer 
have to wistfully point out that yes, this is their best ever super-telephoto 
shot of the elusive whatever, but that they will always regret not having 
dragged along a hundred pounds worth of video equipment so that they could have 
gotten TV-quality motion footage of it as well, as that actually pays better. They 
can just change modes, and record through the same lens, on the same tripod, 
with the same camera and (big!) memory card.

For fine art photogs its a bit less obvious. Carlo Roberti, founder of 
Tuscany Photographic Workshops,   explained his latest passion to me this summer at 
TPW: he carries a small audio recorder with him, and captures sounds that 
relate to his images. Then, instead of just running an iTunes soundtrack to his 
slideshows, he has related sounds which are more contextual and more 
interesting.

Lets take that a step further: while I was shooting the convent that TPW is 
housed in, framed under the branches of a large oak tree in the center of a 
wheat field below, there were a pair of doves cooing in the summer heat. Then the 
belltowers at the convent and at the village church across the valley both 
started chiming at noon; an amazing and inspirational stereo sound experience. 
Then, as I approached the tree for a closer shot, the two doves burst out of 
the branches, and flew away with that classic whistling sound of dove wings. 
Just capturing audio of some of that would have given me some interesting sounds 
to work with, but some of them would not have been clearly relevant to the 
still shots (yes, there is a belltower in the distance, but is that really the 
source of those amazing bells? Yes, there is a tree in the hot sun, but I can't 
actually see any doves in it... sound added to stills is artificial, thus 
suspect, that with motion footage is automatic, so basically assumed to be 
authentic, even when it is not) If I had shot the long shots as a still in a few 
configurations, changed   modes and shot video with stereo audio of the doves 
cooing, while zooming to the tree, and again with the bells pealing, while 
panning/zooming to the belltower, and across the valley to the hill town beyond with 
its church tower, and take a shot while moving in towards the tree while still 
rolling, I could have flushed the doves, and shot them rocketing out of the 
tree and across the field (it was clear enough that was going to happen if I 
got too close), then once they were gone, I could have changed modes again, and 
shot my close-framed stills. 


This adds a number of things the mix which a still photographer is not used 
to juggling, but if I had juggled it effectively, I would then have generated a 
fantastic range of high rez stills for art prints (B&W or color or both, 
whatever worked for those images), plus motion shots with sound capture (which I 
could use with either the video or the stills, or ideally both), and instead of 
a couple of slides with an iTunes soundtrack, or with a site-audio 
soundtrack, I could put together a pretty compelling still & motion & audio montage, 
which would capture the time, the place, the experience in a way that I could not 
capture it with the 5D Mark 1 I was carrying at the time...

Yes, processing and editing such work is more timeconsuming than Lightrooming 
a couple of stills, but its a much richer result. What to do with such a 
result? If the art gallery is your only venue, than a few movies running on 
digital frames amoungst your art prints will give potential customers a much richer 
experience, and can powerfully influence their emotions and degree of 
attachment; which is exactly whats required to change a browser into a buyer (and be 
prepared for the customer who wants to purchase the video-and-frame, instead of 
the wall art, or would like to purchase a combination of the two). 

Or, this can add to the avenues through which you sell/exhibit work, offering 
lots of new opportunities to reach the people who don't go to galleries, or 
who can't afford fine art prints. Sell to advertisers looking for unique 
footage, sell to musicians looking for backdrop footage or music video inserts, sell 
to quality stock photo houses that like to have video as well as still images 
available, sell to markets previously only available to video producers, not 
art photographers...

There, does that explain a bit of what this camera, and its descendents, may 
have to offer to the fine art photographer? Its a whole new world at your 
fingertips...

C. David Tobie
WW Product Technology Manager
Digital Imaging & Home Theater
Datacolor
CDTobie@...
www.datacolor.com/Spyder3


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