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Video Is Absolutely Boring

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OzRay

OzRay

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While there are some absolutely fantastic videographers that make stunning timelapse and whatever videos of the natural world, I find all of them utterly boring. I kind of realised this just now when I started to watch the video presented here: http://www.redsharknews.com/production/item/3860-shooting-at-night-with-the-sony-a7s .

After 200 hours and a month of shooting, and who knows how many hours in post-production, I could only stand it for about a minute and then went elsewhere. Now I'll watch hours of Tim Allen in Last Man Standing (there's a hint there), as an example, but all these Vimeo and other videos, to me, become excruciatingly painful within minutes.

So now the E-M1 MkII will be capable of 4K video so that even more fantastic timelapse videos and similar, of the natural world, can be inflicted on an unsuspecting audience. That said, there's a little voice at the back of my head that tells me some may disagree. :)
 
OzRay said:
While there are some absolutely fantastic videographers that make stunning timelapse and whatever videos of the natural world, I find all of them utterly boring. I kind of realised this just now when I started to watch the video presented here: http://www.redsharknews.com/production/item/3860-shooting-at-night-with-the-sony-a7s .

After 200 hours and a month of shooting, and who knows how many hours in post-production, I could only stand it for about a minute and then went elsewhere. Now I'll watch hours of Tim Allen in Last Man Standing (there's a hint there), as an example, but all these Vimeo and other videos, to me, become excruciatingly painful within minutes.

So now the E-M1 MkII will be capable of 4K video so that even more fantastic timelapse videos and similar, of the natural world, can be inflicted on an unsuspecting audience. That said, there's a little voice at the back of my head that tells me some may disagree. :)
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Well I agree and disagree. Videos of the natural world are pretty boring. But a movie certainpy isnt. Then again I think landscapes and bird photos are wastes of digital memory. At best they make good screen savers. I just dont find nature interesting generally.

Videos of action or comedy or with a point are much more interesting.
--
Auto focus is a work of the devil.
I post from a tablet, spelling errors are common, berry common.
https://streetsmartphotos.blogspot.com
https://www.flickr.com/photos/streetsmartphotos/
https://twitter.com/x/status/684368424626073604
 
I just wish they had the quality 50 years ago that they have today! To look back at family movies and see parents long dead, and see myself as a kid is precious! :)
 
dulynoted said:
Well I agree and disagree. Videos of the natural world are pretty boring. But a movie certainpy isnt. Then again I think landscapes and bird photos are wastes of digital memory. At best they make good screen savers. I just dont find nature interesting generally.

Videos of action or comedy or with a point are much more interesting.
--
Auto focus is a work of the devil.
I post from a tablet, spelling errors are common, berry common.
https://streetsmartphotos.blogspot.com
https://www.flickr.com/photos/streetsmartphotos/
https://twitter.com/x/status/684368424626073604
Click to expand...
I'm the opposite. Mostly I would rather watch a documentary or nature program than most other features/programs. I won't say I never watch or enjoy the latter, just mostly watch/enjoy the former more often.
 
glowingshutter said:
For that purpose, I believe video is actually a more powerful medium. If you're documenting your kids sporting event, while stills are useful, video actually shows you what happened and is a more powerful way of preserving it.
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Going slightly OT, but I actually disagree with that view. Video is almost ephemeral, as they become lost in your hard drive or wherever they are kept. They have to be purposefully dragged out and then presented like those boring slide nights of old.

Taking photos that capture the moment, though it can be difficult, and having enduring prints, be they framed on a wall, or in an album that requires no effort to open, is a far more powerful way of preserving memories.

Wouldn't it be far more memorable if you captured you son or daughter at a decisive moment, with the expression and event frozen in time. Do people not have printed photographs of family anymore?
 
kiwigirl said:
I just wish they had the quality 50 years ago that they have today! To look back at family movies and see parents long dead, and see myself as a kid is precious! :)
Click to expand...
In 50 years time, videos taken with today's gear will most likely suffer the same fate.

--
Thoughts, Musings, Ideas and Images from South Gippsland
http://australianimage.com.au/wordpress/
 
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Videos can be made from anything that moves or makes a noise. The best ones are either very short or are produced to tell a story, like an YouTube or television presentation. I often take videos while primarily still shooting. Mostly very short to capture movement and sound, and which mostly reside in albums consisting overwhelmingly of stills. They complement the still files. The majority go unedited and are well under two minutes long.

longee videos of mine are mostly interviews with people of interest speaking on specific subjects, not rambling on pointlessly.
 
OzRay said:
Wouldn't it be far more memorable if you captured you son or daughter at a decisive moment, with the expression and event frozen in time. Do people not have printed photographs of family anymore?
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It's not just prints. On the computer, I can flick through years of photos in a minute or two and find ones of interest, and show those to family or friends. If I know the approximate date, even quicker.

Reviewing multiple videos just isn't possible in the same way, and I just wouldn't do it. It's bad enough boring friends with "look, this is me and the kids on a beach" photograph, it would be a hundred times worse with "waiti, in a minute we get to the good bit"!
 
OzRay said:
glowingshutter said:
For that purpose, I believe video is actually a more powerful medium. If you're documenting your kids sporting event, while stills are useful, video actually shows you what happened and is a more powerful way of preserving it.
Click to expand...
Going slightly OT, but I actually disagree with that view. Video is almost ephemeral, as they become lost in your hard drive or wherever they are kept. They have to be purposefully dragged out and then presented like those boring slide nights of old.

Taking photos that capture the moment, though it can be difficult, and having enduring prints, be they framed on a wall, or in an album that requires no effort to open, is a far more powerful way of preserving memories.

Wouldn't it be far more memorable if you captured you son or daughter at a decisive moment, with the expression and event frozen in time. Do people not have printed photographs of family anymore?
Click to expand...
 
Timlapse is about taking stills and then using those as animation to create video. Video functionality ain't needed.

Olympus has the timelapse and video creation in camera very nicely, requiring just to set photo ratio to 16:9 first.

But I do agree. I find almost every timelapse from night skies or such very boring. Actually all from landscape, and this comes from person who does timelapses often.

It is just overused and misused technique for most. Just like a slow motion videos with 60-120 fps or videos/timelapse done with rail.

It is so because such are done most often for purpose to use them, not that the subject/topic would require or need it.
 
Aberaeron said:
OzRay said:
kiwigirl said:
I just wish they had the quality 50 years ago that they have today! To look back at family movies and see parents long dead, and see myself as a kid is precious! :)
Click to expand...
In 50 years time, videos taken with today's gear will most likely suffer the same fate.

--
Thoughts, Musings, Ideas and Images from South Gippsland
http://australianimage.com.au/wordpress/
Click to expand...
No they won't. Because as with stills, they are good enough for the human eye to perceive as being an accurate visual and aural record. You could never have said that old home movies couldn't have been of substantially higher quality even in their day.

Today only small increments of improvement is possible in practice. No home movie maker is ever likely to pixel peep on a full size cinema screen, so full HD is and will continue to. be satisfactory for ever, if not the current technology of a future time.
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What I meant is that few will likely bother to drag them out, if they can, to watch them.

I have this box of very old family photos, some no larger than a business card, which I came upon by pure chance. Does anyone think that they will have the same potential for recovery with something stored on a hard drive?

When I kick the bucket, all of my stories and associated photos will be stored in the National Library of Australia electronic archives. I have no idea who might be interested in them in 100 years time or more, but they will be there.

Videos are another matter, as they require vastly more storage space and can't be converted to static format such as a PDF or whatever replaces PDF one day. And as video goes from 1080p to 4K to 8K and beyond, no one will want to store so much data. If anything is stored, it'll likely end up being compressed and end up looking like yesteryear's 8mm film.

--
Thoughts, Musings, Ideas and Images from South Gippsland
http://australianimage.com.au/wordpress/
 
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glowingshutter said:
For that purpose, I believe video is actually a more powerful medium. If you're documenting your kids sporting event, while stills are useful, video actually shows you what happened and is a more powerful way of preserving it.
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12:40

first minute.

That is the point even He tells it.

A memory is about a moment, and about moments that lead to it. And when you are recalling the memory it is far more powerful than watching the moment in video.

You can't out video on wall, keep it in your wallet or even have it quickly shown on street to old friend. But photos you can.

With photos you can tell the story or the situation to others, and it is far more powerful social situation than put others look a video.

It is true that video works in some events as documentary, like last Tuesday a 93 years old bridge was to be blown by demolition team in USA. And after triggering explosives, bridge was still holding like nothing happened. You couldn't photograph that as photo would show either a bridge, an explosions on bridge or fallen down bridge. Video instead showed the whole thing but video was worth 5-7 seconds at max. And then the moment was not worth to store. Video was able to show failure, while photo would have been able show success and document it better than video.

And same thing is in most of the things. A single moment captures and shows more because viewer needs to extend the moment to before and after the moment shown in photo.

A own children running to home base and sliding to it, you get far better result having a photo from it instead video. Even if the game would have been lost because your kid failed, in years that photo would be remembered as positive way like "it was good game, even when we lost but I gave everything". While video would repeat the moment when game was lost, time after time.

This is reason why photography didn't die when video became available for consumers. Why we still run to save photo albums from home at for and not video collection after our loved ones are safe.

It is the sort moments in future that will trigger is to remember past moments.
 
When we want to learn something, video is better than photos. But when we want to feel, photos are better.

Like I take a manual or tutorial as video, otherwise I can browse a IKEA manual with drawings how to assemble a shelf. While video can teach a more complex task faster like how to turn wood.
 
As a father of a 18 year old son and 7 year old daughter I have literally hundreds of pictures of my children.

They have created some wonderful memories and I look back at them with great fondness.

However both my children much prefer looking back at random videos I have taken of them. Just normal family situations. One example being a video of my son and daughter paddling in rock pools on the beach. My daughter was approx 2 years old at the time and my son 13. My daughter loves watching that short video. It captures a short time in their lives that a couple of photographs just wouldn't recreate.

I much prefer photography over video but there are some moments when hitting the record button as apposed to the shutter button give much more pleasing results and tells the story so much better.

--
Kind regards,
Wayne.
 
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Tommi K1 said:
glowingshutter said:
For that purpose, I believe video is actually a more powerful medium. If you're documenting your kids sporting event, while stills are useful, video actually shows you what happened and is a more powerful way of preserving it.
Click to expand...
12:40

first minute.

That is the point even He tells it.

A memory is about a moment, and about moments that lead to it. And when you are recalling the memory it is far more powerful than watching the moment in video.

You can't out video on wall, keep it in your wallet or even have it quickly shown on street to old friend.
Click to expand...
Sure you can. I used to do that all the time.
Member said:
But photos you can.

With photos you can tell the story or the situation to others, and it is far more powerful social situation than put others look a video.

It is true that video works in some events as documentary, like last Tuesday a 93 years old bridge was to be blown by demolition team in USA. And after triggering explosives, bridge was still holding like nothing happened. You couldn't photograph that as photo would show either a bridge, an explosions on bridge or fallen down bridge. Video instead showed the whole thing but video was worth 5-7 seconds at max. And then the moment was not worth to store. Video was able to show failure, while photo would have been able show success and document it better than video.

And same thing is in most of the things. A single moment captures and shows more because viewer needs to extend the moment to before and after the moment shown in photo.

A own children running to home base and sliding to it, you get far better result having a photo from it instead video. Even if the game would have been lost because your kid failed, in years that photo would be remembered as positive way like "it was good game, even when we lost but I gave everything". While video would repeat the moment when game was lost, time after time.

This is reason why photography didn't die when video became available for consumers. Why we still run to save photo albums from home at for and not video collection after our loved ones are safe.

It is the sort moments in future that will trigger is to remember past moments.
Click to expand...
I don't view video and photos as an either/or proposition. I think both are useful. It's just a matter of knowing when to use which form of media.
 
Martin.au said:
I don't view video and photos as an either/or proposition. I think both are useful. It's just a matter of knowing when to use which form of media.
Click to expand...
Then you should say that you are using them simultaneously, as if you need to know when to use other and not, it is "either/or" situation.
 
Lets say that we manage to make a quantum computing possible for users like smartphones are now, in next 10 years. And that makes possible as well quantum storage. So we can store to one SD card whole internet known as today.

Even then it will create situation that it doesn't matter most what there is.
 
Photo captures a moment while video drags a moment 🤔
 
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