When I’m not wearing my [vzaar](http://vzaar.com) hat, it’s photography, where I concentrate my enthusiasm and attention. So how come I’m writing about video then?
Photography had undergone a huge shift in the last 6-8 years: the emergence of digital technology transformed photography from an expensive and elitist craft to the toy of the masses. Taking pictures became suddenly much easier and cheaper which soon resulted in an abundance of photos – just take a look at [Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/search/?s=int&w=all&q=vzaar&m=text), where millions of photos are uploaded every day.
The new paradigm changed the face of the business and the emergence of new platforms, like the internet, created new opportunities, though many photographers weren’t delighted by the new horizons digital opened up.
Last August, almost simultaneously, Canon and Nikon introduced two new DSLR cameras that were capable of recording HD video. To showcase the capabilities of the camera bodies, both companies hired a renowned photographer, Vincent Laforet and Chase Jarvis, respectively, and they created amazing videos with the new technology.
You could ask, why DSLRs with HD are such an enticing things for photographers. The reason is that it allows you to use your existing lenses and thus create effects, find angles, use techniques, that would normally require a professional video camera.
The effects of this shift is still unclear and there are implications on many levels that we even might not be aware of at the moment. For example, as Vincent Laforet pointed out in a blogpost, what happens at a major sports event, if a photographer records and broadcasts HD video, even though he doesn’t own the TV rights. Beforehand, this wasn’t an issue, as the two fields were separated technologically.
Right now, photographers can still ignore video and stick to still pictures only – like analogue remained dominant for a long time when digital came into existence. But it is here and it’s getting more and more important and we all need to figure out how it will the current paradigm.
In the meantime, I started to think about selling one my Canon bodies to buy a video-capable one and start to experiment with it. Because this new world will be here sooner than we would think.
