Is video the future of still photography?

Is video the future of still photography?

The Canon 1DC is the best part of a year old now (since the first review samples went out) but, despite the fact that all modern DSLRs have a sensor that's way in advance of 4K's 8 megapixels, there are still no other "traditional" 4K DSLRs out there

At least part of that is probably because storing thirty eight-megapixel pictures per second is asking a lot of a camera and its storage system - not to mention the storage media.

The Canon 1DC doesn't make this any easier by foregoing the usual H.265/MPEG-4 Long GOP compression and using instead MJPEG, which isn't as heavily compressed, but which is compatible with a very wide range of software.

And it's this decision to use the older, more familiar MJPEG that makes one of the things that the 1DC can do very much easier: extracting single frames from 4K video footage.

You might think that 8 megapixels isn't much in comparison to the stratospherically high pixel matricies you can find on most modern cameras: 24 megapixels isn't unusual and 36 megapixels is out there.

But it's enough for some very sharp photographs. Here's the proof: it's a video sponsored by Canon that shows how this amazing camera can shoot video, and output high quality stills from the video clips.

Who wouldn't want to choose their master shot from a selection 1/30th second apart?

Video after the break

Video

We have a 1DC at RedShark at the moment and you'll see our report as soon as it's done.