Video stills and wedding day photography.

Video stills are simply still images that are taken from video footage. In this short article I’m going to have a little look at how best to utilise this feature of video, how it could save you money and compliment your wedding day coverage.

 

Just to be clear from the start I am a huge fan of photography, and an avid photographer myself and I’m not saying that I believe video stills can replace a skilled photographer (yet). Where I believe the video stills come in to their own is instead of having 2 photographers at a wedding. If your videographer and photographer co-ordinate well together you should end up with 2 contrasting perspectives on the day, photos from one angle and the video taken from another.

Filmmakers of London offer video stills as either an optional extra or as part of our 2 Camera Deluxe package, and there are 2 methods we employ when choosing which frames from the film to turn into stills. We can select what are in our opinion a selection of the best scenes which will make the best looking photographs, either from across the day or focusing on specific moments or people. Or our bride and groom can wait until they receive their video, and after watching the film request specific frames from the film to be turned into stills. This way if there’s something that we’ve captured on film that the photographer missed, or there was a particularly nice smile or embrace these can still be produced into beautiful photographs.

There are a few draw backs to video stills, first and foremost is the quality. Most video shot on DSLR these days will film in full HD 1080p, therefore the quality of the picture should be excellent, but if this was taken of a moving object the image quality can be a little fuzzy when blown up. Also due to the moving objects, not all footage can be caught perfectly still on screen, there may be some blur that is not noticed when viewing as video. Saying this however, it is possible to get some fantastic shots from video footage. Just take a look around our website, nearly every image on here was taken from our wedding videos.

If you are getting married on a really tight budget, and can only afford either a photographer or a videographer and not both, then video stills may provide a solution. By selecting a videographer it is possible to select all the best scenes from the film and turn them into photographs. So it is possible to have your cake and eat it. Plus with the advent of the next generation of 4k video cameras, the quality and sharpness of video stills will catch up with that of photographs and who knows maybe even replace them. Are the days of photographs numbered? I personally don’t believe so, purely for the fact that I still love photographs and believe the difference between a good and a great photograph is not down to the equipment used but the person behind the lens.

Article by Filmmakers of London – Wedding Videographers