Can’t you just screenshot videos?
A lot of people don’t realize that videos and pictures are actually the same things. A video is a string of pictures that, when played in order at a specific rate, look like live action. But, in reality, a video is just a bunch of individual pictures. Ever notice on your phone when you’re recording a video you can switch between 24fps/30fps/60fps (or if you have a really nice phone, you might see 120fps or even 240fps). That “fps” just means “frames per second.” Wanna take a guess at what a “frame” is? Yep. It’s just a picture. You are telling your phone how many pictures per second to take. The more pictures per second, the more individual moments you capture each second, so the slower you can play the video. That’s why 120 or 240 fps will be “slo-mo.”
So, yeah. Videos are just pictures with audio added in. So, the natural question that follows is this - why hire a photographer? I mean, can’t you just take screen grabs from the videos and use those as pictures? After all, video is a constant flow of pictures, so you’re more guaranteed not to miss a moment! So why not save the money and just hire a videographer and then take screen grabs?
The answer is no. Here are five reasons why:
Lighting. Lighting for videos and photos are different. Video lights are constant while flashes for photography are brief moments. Have you ever looked into a video light? It’s harsh, but if it’s unbearable, the videographer should turn it down. Have you ever looked directly into a flash? Good luck seeing anything past that enormous purple blob burned into your retina for the next 30 seconds. The reason flashes are so much brighter than video lights is for one simple reason - they can be. They can get away with being obnoxiously bright because it’s just for a quick moment and then it’s over. But video needs that light to be constant. A moment of great lighting won’t cut it for video. But this isn’t practical, so the sacrifice for video is worse lighting over a longer period of time. In short, a video can’t produce the same type of artificial lighting that a photo can capture, so if you are wanting screen grabs from low light situations in which artificial lighting is used, you’re gonna need a photographer to capture it well. Just look at the two photos below for comparison. I’m not even going to tell you which is photo and which is video.
Composition. Photography and videography are both about storytelling, but stories are told very differently through different formats. The angle, the approach, and the style for each can be drastically different. Whenever I am taking photos, I position myself differently than when I am taking videos. So the resulting images won’t look the same. For example, if I am capturing a first look video, I will prioritize keeping everything inside the frame to make sure I have a solid shot. If I am photographing the moment, I might get a shot over the bride’s shoulder as she approaches the groom, a shot of the groom’s face with the bride behind him (before he turns), and then a side shot of both of them as they finally face each other. I would never run around that much while videoing.
Clarity. Without getting too much into the details, video settings are not conducive to clear shots. Ok, I lied about the details, the ones I said I wouldn’t get into. I’m about to get into them. Remember earlier how I mentioned frame rates? 30fps, 24fps, 120fps, etc.? Well, those matter for how sharp the images are that your video is capturing. Usually, you want to set your shutter speed to double the frame rate. So, if you are shooting in 30fps, you set your shutter speed to 1/60s. This means that each individual video frame is taken at 1/60s exposure. If you know anything about photography settings, you know that 1/60s is probably not going to come out very sharp. If your hand is shaky or if your subject is moving, you’re going to get motion blur. For photos, this is bad. But for video, that’s the point. Video looks better when the individual frame blend and blur together. If they don’t, then the video looks choppy and gives you a headache to watch. If the images are too sharp, then they don’t blur together and you can actually see the pictures rather than a seamless and coherent video. It’s not fun to watch. So, if you are taking video, blurry = good. But for screen grabs, blurry = bad. This is a can’t have your cake and eat it too kinda situation. Except, in this case, you can’t have your sharp images and have a good looking video too.
Resolution. Some years ago, 4k became all the rage. First, it was professional. Then, the iPhone 6s came out and offered 4k shooting, and people lost their minds. It was and still is impressive. But how does a 4k video stack up to a professional photo? Is that about the same resolution or do we still have a ways to go? Well, 4k is a video term, so let’s translate 4k into photography language. When you want to know the resolution of a photo, it’s all about the MP (Mega Pixels). My camera shoots in 27MP and that’s about normal. The lowest I would go professionally is about 21MP. The more MP, the more you can crop/zoom in, the greater flexibility you have adjusting color and exposure settings, and the better the picture is going to look in prints and when it is blown up. So how many MP is 4k? 8. It is about 8MP. That is nowhere near what a professional photo can offer you. If you take a 4k screen grab, do not expect the same quality as a professional photo. And not every videographer shoots in 4k! Many still shoot in 1080, which is far smaller than 4k. Check out the pictures below to see a comparison of a 1080 screen grab with a professional picture. Which would you want to frame? (Note: 8k is becoming increasingly popular. 8k is equivalent to about 35MP, so that is excellent resolution for a photo. In the future, resolution might no longer be an issue for screen grabs).
Color. Raw footage and a RAW photo are not the same thing. “Raw footage” just means unedited footage. “RAW photo” is referring to a specific file format. Any photographer who is worth hiring is going to be shooting in RAW. Not jpg, not png, not mpg… RAW (with the exception of DNG, which is basically the same thing). This is a photo format that is super flexible to edit, because it includes all of the original data from the image as it was taken. No in camera adjustments. Just the data to play with in post. This is how photographers change the colors and lighting and everything still looks natural and professional. Buuuutttt…more data means more storage space. And more storage space means it takes more processing power to take. Very few cameras can support this type of processing at the speed a video shoots. One RAW image can be as large as almost 30mb. Do the math. If you are shooting in 60fps, that is 60 images every second. 60 x 30mb images per second. That’s 1800mb per second. 1.8 GB. PER SECOND. A 256GB card (what I use) would be absolutely full after just 2 minutes and 22 seconds of filming. Not only would your camera be on fire, but you would be burning through memory cards. Shooting at that quality is totally impractical (and, for most cameras, impossible). But, if you want to maximize your screen grabs so that they are comparable to RAW images, then you must shoot in 8k RAW uncompressed video. And I don’t know anybody who does or even can do that.
Photographers are irreplaceable. At least given the current state of the video world. Right now, it’s not possible or practical for a videographer to capture the day in such a manner to produce competitive screen grabs. A photographer is going to capture the day differently, and the resulting product should be much higher quality than anything even the best videographer could offer.
