We (and our clients) have spent the last few months oooo-ing and ahhhh-ing about the stunning video images that have been coming out of our new Sony XDCAM EX1 cameras. The quality of the moving pictures, presented on Blu-Ray discs to several clients now — has been truly breathtaking. 

Thumbnail of image made from Sony XDCAM EX video frame (click to see original 1920 x 1080 image)But another revelation has come as we’ve started to pull still images out of our videos. Take a look at the image here to the right, taken directly from video shot during a recent Boston College-Clemson football game (click on it to get the full-resolution image), and you’ll see what I mean. 

Stills from video have traditionally been, to put it politely, pretty miserable. Think about it: the traditional standard-definition video image has 326,400 pixels in it (640 x 480). What’s more, since most standard-definition video is shot in an interlaced format, any moving picture can have as few as 170,000 usable pixels in it. Would you use a 0.2 to 0.4 megapixel still camera for anything useful? I didn’t think so. Enter the XDCAM format, with its ability to shoot full-resolution 1920 x 1080 images in progressive format, which means that there’s no interleaving of moving images. Now you’ve got a full 2 megapixels of image — 7 to 15 times as many pixels as the typical frame-grab from a standard-definition camera.

Do these images stand up to 8 to 12 megapixel still cameras? Yes, and no. Most images from today’s high-resolution still cameras represent overkill in all but poster-sized prints.  All those extra pixels are useful when it comes to severely cropping images, but most of the time they aren’t used.  A well-composed, 1920 x 1080 image is terrific for many applications.

It’s in shot selection that video cameras shine.  After all, a video camera is normally taking 30 still images per second, which is extraordinarily useful in selecting stills from action shots…and even to find just the right expression on a subject’s face.

That said, it’s important to realize that most video cameras are set, by default, to an effective “shutter speed” of 1/60, which is far too slow to capture action shots.  If you expect to capture stills from video action scenes, it takes some planning ahead: we’ve found that action scenes of outdoor sports can be shot at a shutter speed of 1/500 of a second to achieve great results.  And when you’ve got a choice, make sure you use a “progressive” (rather than “interleaved”) video format, which ensures that every bit of the frame is sampled at the same time, yielding a crisper image.

So we’re just getting to the point where more-than-acceptable still images can be made from new, modern high-definition video formats.  Still cameras will continue to rule for many applications because of their superior portability, use of flash supplemental lighting, and higher-resolution images.  But today’s cameras — particularly the brand new Red camera — are quickly closing the gap.