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I was wondering if anyone could help me.
I am currently writing my dissertation on whether or not the world of professional photography is safe with the ever increasing technology which is now available on camera phones, and simple digital cameras.
Could people please give me some opinions as to what they think please? This would be really interesting and a great help.
Thanks x
Yes, it is safe. The difference is that the potential market is dwindling fast.
You will find a gazillion high-quality images on facebook etc posted by people with little or no experience. The reason clients pay good money for a professional is that the professional is more likely to get the image they want in the timelines they want. For example: would you ask an amateur to shoot your wedding photos on the basis of seeing two good shots on their facebook page? Or would you pay several hundred pounds for a seasoned professional knowing that you are almost ensured a good set of pictures of (what you hope will be!) a once in a lifetime event?
Many branches of photogrpahy are no different other services where personal skills and business acumen are as important as, if not more important than, actual photographic skill.
The biggest threat to the profession will be a high-definition video camera where the stills from a freeze-frame will be the same quality as today's 12MP camera and someone can lazily shoot 15 minutes of footage and choose an image from there - but even then the skill is in selecting the right freeze frame.
I think it will be sometime (if at all) that camera phones will catch up to pro photography and all that goes with it. You would still need proper lighting for a start, not inbuilt flash.
Picture quality is far superior with DSLRs, I cannot see any time when phones or simple cameras will catch up. Also camera manfacturers (Canon, Nikon) and the like will not make low cost cameras that are so good that they will damage their sales of the high end stuff.
Quote:
The biggest threat to the profession will be a high-definition video camera where the stills from a freeze-frame will be the same quality as today's 12MP camera and someone can lazily shoot 15 minutes of footage and choose an image from there - but even then the skill is in selecting the right freeze frame.
Hmm I don't know how realistic that would be in the market since (from my very very limited video understanding) for most situations you'd need the camera to be making two separate exposures for each frame. One for the stills and one for the moving image.
I say that because we can only see around 25 frames per second of motion and in video recording I think the standard is somewhere around 30fps in video (google that as there are some slower and some faster options as well as complicated interlacing and suchlike). If they record faster all those intermittent motions that our eyes don't see are seen and appear odd (eg if you looked at a string on an instrument you won't see the blurr of the vibration, you'd be seeing the wave as the string moves back and forth).
Now all coming back to photography 1/30sec is pretty slow if you want a sharp shot with anything but a 30mm or shorter (and even then you're touch and go for getting sharp once you drop below 1/60sec). So your video might be fine, but your stills will look softer. And if you use a single shutter speed that is for stills you'll risk odd effects in the video recording.
Soo possible - yes, but I think we might be a long way off before its commercially possible for the average Bob on the street.
Quote: Is professional photography safe?
I usually refer members to this article by a well-known inhabitant of EPZ who is a full-time pro of many years standing. Worth a read. 
My own view is that the desire to spend money, in order that other people can take photos for you, will diminish significantly. This is linked to many things. The fact that the great majority of adults (and quite a proportion of children) carry with them an imaging device at all times. Also the reduction in paper-based media, e.g. who needs a multi-megapixel DSLR photo when all that's needed is a tiny pic for a news website?
Quote: The biggest threat to the profession will be a high-definition video camera where the stills from a freeze-frame will be the same quality as today's 12MP camera
Current full HD video is only 2 megapixels. Video will have to achieve much higher resolution, and frame rate, before it becomes a reality. It will happen - and already happening to some extent with highly specialised cameras like the Red Epic which can shoot 13.5 megapixel images at 96fps. It costs megabucks. At the moment a decent stills camera is still the way to get good stills at a reasonable price and that probably won't change for a good few years.
the photo industry has chaned a great deal over the last few years, and I fully expect it to change some more in the years to come.
However I am not totally convinced by the doom merchants. Professional photography will exist for as long as there is a market for photographs. Despite the arrival of the internet, there is still a huge demand for quality images from magazines, newpapers, advertisers, books, calendars etc, etc. Yes, an increasing portion of this demand will be met by part time professionals and advanced amatures - but some photographs require specilised and expensive kit and experince
Quote: I am currently writing my dissertation on whether or not the world of professional photography is safe with the ever increasing technology which is now available on camera phones, and simple digital cameras.
What is your definition of "Professional Photography" ?
So many people equate being a professional photographer (that is, someone who has a permanent career in photography) with cameras. That is a camera operator. They are ten a penny and basically, as my chief photographer told me when started my apprenticeship as a press photographer, "we can train a monkey to work a camera".
It will always be a 'safe' career for a certain number of people. They will be people who understands how a camera 'sees' and can translate an image in someone's mind's eye to an image on a screen or printed on paper in front of them. Such people are comparatively rare, simply because the taste, thought, intuition and artistry involved in doing that are quite rare.
Such a photographer is paid, often very well, because a client knows they can do something he or she cannot. Photographers have to know how to mix at all levels of society and never seem out of place. They need to be assertive without being obvious. They need to grow and cultivate contacts and to recognize and seize business opportunities. A good measure of originality and wit in their visual sense is an asset, too. For such people, professional photography will always be safe because they add tangible value to what they are employed to do.
For the camera operators, they are not safe professionally because the torrent of new photographic technology will (has?) remove(d) the need for skill, all but killing camera operating off as a viable profession.
Quote: At the very top end of professional photography, the late Lord Lichfield being an example, I gather the photographer doesn't even touch the shutter button - that being mere camera operating - but gets a minion to do it!
Yes, that's true. I went to his studio a couple of times. People went to Lichfield for a certain style of photography, a certain result.
In that sense, a good photographer is as much a stylist and visualiser. Let's say you have a great idea for a landscape that has never been done before. You go along to the location with a friend who knows nothing of photography. You have him set up the camera and you look through the viewfinder, framing things how you want them. Then you have him put his finger on the button while you stand concentrating on the scene, waiting for the exact formation the of the clouds you want, a car in the right position. It all comes together. Now! you say and he presses the release. Who is the photographer?
In practice most photographers perform both tasks themselves most of the time but it is the subject, composition, lighting and timing that make a photographer good or not - not his ability to operate a mchine to record them. In reality some of the most stunning pictures I have ever seen were taken by machines - for example the NASA pix of far space.
Quote: where the stills from a freeze-frame will be the same quality as today's 12MP camera
LOL... Enter the new breed of very high (Pixel Count) resolution DSLR video cameras, These high pixel count machines are not designed with clean high ISO performance in mind, Their purpose is to allow the user to extract half reasonable stills from straight video footage, Hence cramming as many mega pixels as they can into a particular sensor size/format.
What your looking at is basically a high mega pixel video camera, That just happens to shoot stills, All nicely boxed up into a body that is less than ideal ergonomically for video work.....
Soon you will not be able to buy a decent stills only DSLR, Just these dreary over rated hybrids.....
I knew a couple who got married last year and they hired a pro who still does 6x6 colour neg. The Pro told me that more and more people are asking him for film. He also does digital on request.
The pro also does studio advertising work for some companies and he is often asked to use film on specific subjects.
I think this is great and it keeps film alive.
Kodachrome
Re-reading this thread, I feel @Lemy two posts above, state the situation very well, and makes a distinctinction between the skills of a Professional, and a Camera Opeartor, as both take photos. As mentioned above, it depends on how you define a "Professional Photographer".
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