Using Video Frame Grabs for Portraits

goanna

Most people are familiar with using video grabs to get good stills from sport. But how many use a grab from video to take photos of people?

Years ago, while flipping through 25fps video trying to find just the frame in a piece of video where somebody had smiled just right. (It was for a VHS tape-box slick). I discovered, to my amazement, that

People's true smile can last less than 1/25th of a second.

However, we do perceive that smile, register it and imprint it on our memory as that person's true smile.

I used movie cameras and video cameras for portraits for years before I bought my first still camera in 2009. French news crews used analogue video cameras as their main tool for stills, sound and video, rushing on motorcycles to beat deadlines.

There are lots and lots of advantages, all of them somehow tied to a better selection of still image; (i.e. one you couldn't have got using a still camera) to make up for the higher quality you'd get from a still shot - or even a series of stills. That holds true today, unless we have 60fps DSLR [burst mode, for minutes, or hours at a stretch]!

A few weeks ago, I spotted my favourite waitress nearby on her day off. Armed only with my GH2/Sigma 30mm/Driftwood Sedna 5/ HBR25fps, I had to set it to ETC mode to get in close enough and shoot about a minute or so while sliding the camera around on my café table.

Only today did I get around to asking her if I could use the shots and she agreed. So here's one random still and an animated series of just a few key shots of VLC frame-grabs.

wgto

That is why i am using videos for portraits its way easier to get a perfect picture if you have 25-50 frame pictures to choose from.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Generally, this is why general public so likes high fps burst modes :-)

Look at the latest compacts, they all try to bust fps.

DrDave

I like to shoot RAW, so after a video session, when the lights have been set up, and the video is in the can, I ask people to hang around for a few photos. I leave the lights on, I shoot only five minutes, just leaving the GH2 on the tripos where it was for the vid. Because there is no setup, the shoot has a very different feel, very casual. The musicians are hopefully in a good mood because the vid is over. Or a bad mood..... http://www.flickr.com/photos/voicesofmusic/8037599912/sizes/h/

And as Vitaliy notes, its best to use some some quick bursts. I imix these in with single shots--all bursts can be unnerving for some people.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/voicesofmusic/8037599912/sizes/h/

goanna

its best to use some some quick bursts

As I said, video is better than bursts, for a lot of reasons - and I'll I'll give you just a few:

many photographers don't realise that 10 fps isn't enough to capture facial expression. 40 fps is getting there, but 60 is better.
Burst mode just cannot be sustained for the 5 minutes or more you really need.
Children and animals are difficult subjects. When my brother saw what I was doing with video grabs, he instituted video grabs for the RSPCA to use with injured animals (e.g. bucking horses) and finally able to get court evidence as handlers were trying to calm the animal down.
Police use a high-speed technique to review interviewees to check for the flicker of expression that betrays lying. This can be incredibly fleeting!
Psychiatrists are using this technique to try to spot expressions such as "facial avoidance" which might help diagnose such things as personallity disorder.
When it comes to crowds and photo journalism, the sustained high-framerate/fast-shutter combo is king.

(I said I'd mention just a few!!)

Now, back to basics, I think specific hacks can be useful here. It would seem more P-frames used with the fast shutter and high frame rate - but I'd like @LPowell and @Driftwood and others to take a look.

Rambo

I agree with @goanna, I'm quite often asked to supply stills from an event shoot where there were no photographers present or their shots did not capture the action. As I shoot high shutter and high frame rate, the frame grabs from the GH2 and 14-140 are usually good quality even at 720p. Good enough for online and magazines.

goanna

..And on to creative photography and human expressiveness (which I prefer), take a look at the emotion contagion film project:

"The aim was to capture micro expressions and emotional contagion".

goanna

@rambo

their shots did not capture the action

Exactly. Even my old Sony D-8 grabs were better than the official photographers' at the race-track and soccer.

goanna

I am doing a series of high-impact interviews using my own design of Eye-to-Eye technology. I used a full-size Teleprompter silvered glass. The stills can be very engaging.

http://www.amazon.com/See-Eye-teleprompter-chatting-computers/dp/B000N28MB4

DrDave

I've never taken a photo that good with video stills. I use video stills all the time, but I will never get the dynamic range, color and and of course the ability to use tools like DXO or Lightroom in post with proper lens modules, exposure latitude and so on. I would have a tough time making a publicity poster from GH2 stills, or even a medium sized brochure.

It' s absolutely true that it is great for capturing the moment, and it could be you could get something really decent from BM Cam for sure. But you can capture the moment with a camera as well. Pro photographers use cameras for a reason, and for sure the day will come when there is virtually no difference in the IQ ofthe photo and the video.

@Rambo totally agree for events, stills from video at a concert is in many respects a great step forward. Plus no annoying clicking. Don't know about magazine quality....but maybe times are changing. I've had stuff returned from magazines for a redo that was pretty good stuff, they can be picky.

Rambo

@Dr Dave, should have said online Magazines, PDF etc. Yes print is a little more demanding.

goanna

I've never taken a photo that good with video stills

Try patiently flicking through an interview CU a frame at a time, even if it takes you an hour.

The image you capture that way should be so good, as I say, that it's well worth the quality drop. I'm giving away my best technique for free) here :-)

I've made money this way for years, even doing radio science programs a using video camera like I would a mike, close-up, editing all audio in a NLE and sending audio file and a few video stills which get published on the ABC website. My concern is getting compelling content, fast and getting it to broadcast, fast.

You can also win a lot of bets with friends and their burst-mode SLRs ;-)

goanna

Even when taking studio burst-mode shots of a fashion model who knows how to work fast through her poses and facial pouts, a video grab delivers her surprise personality facial expressions better - and as we all know it's quite often when she's caught off-guard.

A good videographer already knows how to get the best out of those 2.1 megapixels.

Rambo

Goanna,You can also win a lot of bets with friends and their burst-mode SLRs ;-)

and $'s on jobs.... one event I do every year, the client discontinued the Pro Photographer as my frame grabs were sufficient for website and event reporting needs. Even preferring my GH1 stills with flash at podium presentations indoors over his PRO photogs Canon, but that was more my framing and post crop work than camera choices ( he just supplied originals). So now, I get a portion of the Photographers $'s as well as my fee and the client saves money. Win-win, except for the poor Photog :-)

goanna

@Rambo

That sounds like a good cost-saving decision on the client's part.

Personally, I wouldn't usually want to use a video grab if a stills camera could do the job. Usually a stills camera can't cut it. My radio/website pics are an exception.

goanna

I'd like to know how others are shooting video for stills. It requires a different technique from shooting for motion pictures and I tend to do one or the other.

When shooting for stills I'm quite prepared to do fast FOV zooms or pans to get the framing right, then wait for the right shot - which my mind has registered. I know when I've got a good frame in the can; even how good it was and whether to keep the shot rolling in case I get something better.

If I take a grab from a take which was for motion picture it often looks just like it is - a still from a movie. Of course, I have used different settings as well. Occasionally a motion-blur looks affective.

Whether to set up my GH2 for still-grab video or motion video is the daily decision I have to make. There's rarely time for me to change from one to the other.

@rambo I suppose that as videographers start to take on more photographers' work as well, there might emerge a genre of "video for stills too" with a certain look which we'll come to recognise. Actors and brides will strike poses differently. Handshakes will take 5 seconds. Yuk.

Rambo

@goanna, the only issue i have is video requires a different camera placement than stills in my game. I shoot video from a boat or jetski shooting platform as close as i can get to the subject for stability reasons on the ocean. Stills are better shot further away and with large zooms, so that is my limitations. I don't shoot video continuously, so i can reposition the boat/jetski, switch top dial to A priority and pull full zoom on the 14-140. I could also carry another camera but it gets hairy out there in big seas.

I suppose that as videographers start to take on more photographers' work as well, there might emerge a genre of "video for stills too" with a certain look which we'll come to recognise. Actors and brides will strike poses differently. Handshakes will take 5 seconds. Yuk.

Funnily enough, when you shoot with the Pany GH cameras, the subjects think you are taking a photo anyway as it looks like a stills camera. I usually have to tell people it's a video camera and ask to "make some action" rather than just stare and smile...lol. You then get the hands waving, Toyota Jumps, funny faces and all that other stuff people do when in the spotlight.

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