What I love about photography and what I hate about video. At least where client projects are concerned.

From "Tortoise and the Hare" at Zach Theatre.

Photography: You go out and do the very best image you can and after you've shot it the photo is more or less carved in stone. Sure, you can fix some stuff but it's pretty much done the second you deliver it. You get to move on to the next job. If you really, really screwed up you have to do a re-shoot. But if the client is just being indecisive you'll probably never have to do that re-shoot because they'll have to go through the whole process again. If it's a portrait of the CEO and the marketing people decide he should have worn a blue shirt on instead of a pink shirt anything they want to do to change the photograph after the fact will require them to have skin in the game. Wanna try making that pink shirt blue in PhotoShop? There will be a charge associated with that.  Wanna reshoot in order to change out a shirt or tie? Well, you'll have to get the CEO on board, schedule him, schedule me and, since we didn't dress the guy, we'll be charging for the re-shoot.

So. Usually a benefit of taking photographs is that once delivered the project is more or less locked. You get to move on.

Video Production: You start with a concept and a script and you get approvals at every step of the way while filming. You deliver the first edit and sometimes the path from there is right into the middle of a committee. "Can we take out the shot (incredibly shot and beautifully lit) of the CEO sitting in a meeting and replace it with a blurry snapshot we found of the same CEO standing at an shopping mall in some god forsaken city shaking hands with the mayor?" "We know it's kinda blurry and the color is really bad....can you fix that too?" Left to most committees the good content in a video will eventually all be sucked out of the project and replaced with crap that is just included to check boxes on a list. In some cases moving from a nicely paced motion project to a slideshow of snapshots.

Unlike photography clients seem to think that a video project comes complete with an infinite set of revisions and tweaks. It's our job, when providing an estimate, to let them know how many major and minor revisions are included in the your bid and, how much more revisions after a "final approval" will cost them. After our client sends us directions to "just make these XX changes" we consider (after making the changes) that they video they paid for is complete and any additional revisions or tweaks are to be billed in addition to our original bid. If they know the clock is ticking it helps most clients become more decisive and rational.

My (least) favorite is a request we once had was to change out a product shot for a newer, much less beautiful product shot. Why? Well, the product had "changed" and the product manager wanted to make sure we were using the absolute latest product in our video. Made sense until we asked, "What was it about the product that changed?" (we couldn't see a difference in the product at all...) And the product manager responded, "Oh, it's absolutely identical except for the type...on the back." That would be the back of the product, which didn't show to the camera. As in.....IT MADE ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE except that we replaced a really nice shot with a lesser shot.

I very much dislike the whole idea of "teamwork" when it comes to project approvals and think it may be the single most costly distraction in all areas of advertising commerce; even worse than focus groups. Can't imagine Picasso calling in his "team" and asking if the dove in his painting should have a more leafy branch in his beak. A singular vision is a benefit. Teamwork approval is a tragic flaw.

With some video projects you never know when you are truly finished.

Which camera maker will be the first one to incorporate graphene super capacitors instead of traditional batteries? And other random, industry-centric thoughts.

With all the bubbling, frenetic attention we've been paying to camera introductions I think we missed, almost entirely, the latest news about graphene super capacitors. Researchers have found new ways to work with graphene distribution and to incorporate it into super capacitor manufacturing. What would this mean for cameras? Much faster charging cycles (by a factor of 10X?), much higher current handling and thousands more charge and discharge cycles than we currently get from lithium batteries. The downside? The graphene super capacitors are still mostly lab proof of concept examples right now. But in five years......? They might just be the next portable power source...

I predict that in five and one half years every high end, mirrorless camera will feature this new technology and then battery life will largely cease to be an issue.....

My 2010 prediction that we would abandon optical viewfinders in favor of EVFs is coming true in front of our eyes. Gosh! Was that series of predictions really eight years ago?

We are at an inflection point with expensive cameras. Hasselblad and Fuji medium format cameras made the leap to the EVF future and now Canon and Nikon are following along after Sony. If Nikon's foray into the Z universe is successful (and pre-sales indicate that it will be...) I can't imagine that higher spec pro units aren't just ahead, from everyone.

This will be, on a smaller scale, reminiscent of the switch from film cameras to digital cameras. Pundits predicted the film-to-digital switch would take twenty years for the transition but the majority of adopters had new digital cameras in their hands in the space of two years. The transition to mass market mirrorless will be equally quick and decisive. In the short run Nikon, Canon and other new arrivals will benefit from sales resulting from full system replacements and pent up demands from Canon and Nikon users for mirrorless tech.

CF cards are almost completely dead and I can't think of a single camera maker who is introducing a new product with a CF card as part of the design/feature set. If you plan to keep your D700's and other CF hungry cameras around for decades to come you may want to start salting away lots of current, state of the art CF cards to fill the void that WILL be created by the mass exodus from the market by card makers.

But don't get too comfy with SD cards, even the UHS-II cards might be nearing a tragic end-of-life, being displaced by QXD cards that offer a more robust package and better performance. Oh gosh! All this change is so.....disquieting.

Electronic flash that plugs into the wall is on the way out. Oh, people will still want powerful flashes that can slam light through soft boxes, and go toe-to-toe with the sun, but they're quickly becoming comfortable with battery-powered units and the convenience of not having to carry extension cords or find electrical outlets will carry the day and all the money we've sunk into A/C powered Profoto units, Elinchrom units and other pricy brands will haunt us as we source supremely cost effective new units with lightweight battery packs that go on forever and ever. Until those, in turn, are replaced by graphene  super capacitor energy source packing lights.

It's all so quick and zany. Sometimes the rush of progress makes me want to rush to the camera store, buy bricks and bricks of medium format Tri-X film for the old Hasselblad and re-purchase another enlarger. I hear they are going cheap these days...at least on the used market.

Just a few thoughts for a cloudy, humid and scowling Sunday afternoon.

And, yes, my visit to San Antonio was fun and happy. Dad is doing very well.

Sometimes the old stuff lasts and lasts....

From the set of "Tortoise and the Hare" at Zach Theatre. Post rehearsal.