My photographer horror story

[Rick Steele]

Originally Posted by Jon East

No matter what still you give from video, even with HDV you will not even come close to matching that of a DSLR. I give up to 50 stills to my brides for free.

Here is an example, is this good enough to print?
http://www.trulux.com/dvinfo/Bride1.jpg
http://www.trulux.com/dvinfo/Bride2.jpg

This is full res HDV.

Jon

I think these could be softened up a bit in photoshop and they'd print fine.

You're second pic only illustrates what I've been saying about HD all along. Every detail is too enhanced. The bride looks like an old hag. I'm not saying this to discredit the image... pronounced wrinkles, blemhishes and the like are just an undesireable side effect of HD (IMO).

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Rick Steele

You're second pic only illustrates what I've been saying about HD all along. Every detail is too enhanced.

It both puzzles and amuses me to hear people saying this, because just a few posts back we had someone saying HD video will never come close to the quality of a decent still image. Everyone's in a tizzy about having anything approaching realistic detail in video content, yet we wouldn't expect anything less from a photograph. But wait, you say, I can modify the detail in a photograph to make it look more pleasing - yep, and to some extent we can do the same thing with video. The thing about starting with HD resolution is that you can moderate the amount of detail if necessary to make it look softer, but you can't *add* detail to SD video when you wish you had it. Plus for now most HD content is delivered at SD resolution anyway, so no worries compared to what we've been doing all along.