A new way to shoot a photomag spread - use video
 

To all:

I think this will interest many:


Gizmodo - Megan Fox Esquire Cover Shot In Video, Not Stills - Megan fox esquire cover



What are your thoughts?

Interesting, but it does require some lighting gymnastics!

If you shoot video for still use you don't have the benefit of the flash fire which freezes all movement if the aperature is closed enough.

This takes care of the need to shoot at higher shutter speeds.

With video, you would need to shoot at at least 1/250th or better yet 1/400+ to stop motion with a moving model and a highly visible front cover. Motion blur does not fly at that level.

If you need any depth of field, that will be a lot of light to put on the subject.

It looks like they made it work, but it does not seem practical for controlled studio shoots. Some things evolve for a reason.

I think we will see more of this in the near future. Having a continuous series of images is just so practical. Muybridge wanted this. With the bigger, more sensitive chips soon-in-the-works, why not?

Actually we have occasionally used 1080i50 HDV frames for our magazine, also on cover but then as a composition of several frames, so even HDV grabs work if no photos exist of the subject - see the following 1080i50 "semi-action" frames, for example (a little motion blur is not always a bad thing)

Picasa Web Albums - Jyrki Hokkanen - Madagascar 2008
Picasa Web Albums - Jyrki Hokkanen - Madagascar 2008
Picasa Web Albums - Jyrki Hokkanen - Madagascar 2008

got the magazine - quality of the stills does not look too good. Especially the hair is quite pixelated. Interesting experiment. Photog said he did it so he wouldn't distract Fox with a still camera shutter. I don't know - I think why not shoot photos when you need photos - more color space, less compressed - larger frame sizes, etc etc

LOL, because she's never heard a still camera shutter near her before... and might explode. :)

I'd say he did it for the publicity and street cred, that's it.

This is kind of cheating in a way. The key of a good photographer is that he/she knows how to capture the right moments. You take away this precise skill then you just killed the art. Welcome to humans getting even more lazy.

Absolutely. We really need to get back to hand-drawn artwork for things like magazine covers.

I expect this will end up being something that many celebrities will say no to so that the videos can't be leaked. If everything is captured like that a few goofy frames of a sneeze, yawn, whatever is going to spread like wildfire on the internet. A professional photographer with controlled and ready poses, then the clicks start will still be common practice.