Video Frame Grab Come Of Age!

I am sure every photographer "worth their lenses" would have "grab" stills from their videos, for one reason or another.  They might not have any still shots of the event they were covering and they need to provide a print of that to their client!

For years, publishers has published exclusives news photos grabbed from videos.

In 2010 I grabbed some frames from a short video I did of a rare chance to watch and listen to Ms Zhang Lei, from China; performing on her Guzheng.

Stills grabbed from a short Canon G9 video.

Even though they look pretty good on screen, they were only good for 6X4" prints!  A ten times more expensive DSLR will give you better result, but not by much...

Until now!

I just finished reading and watching the amazing video on

Motion Image Photography: Pulling Stills from Super-High-Res Video

in Peta Pixel!!

To cut to the chase, the embedded video showed the  Canon EOS-1D C DSLR is able to produce grabs "as good as" stills and they even printed them, shown to flabbergasted pro photographers!

 According to Wikipedia...

The Canon EOS-1D C is a 18.1-megapixel CMOS digital single-lens reflex camera (digital SLR) made by Canon in the Cinema EOS range. The camera is capable of acquiring video at 4K resolution (4096 x 2160 pixels) at 24p without downscaling.

It can output a Y'CbCr 4:2:2 signal. It shares many features with the Canon EOS 1D X. It was publicly announced on April 12, 2012. It is set to be released in October 2012 with suggested retail price of US$15,000 (body only).

The 1D C has a full frame sensor, but uses an APS-H-sized portion to record 4K video. It will record in 8-bit 4:2:2 4K and 8-bit 4:2:0 Full HD.

The Canon EOS-1D C is stated to be the world's first 4K resolution DSLR camera.

I am impressed!!

Famous Last Words...

Imagine if I HAD (in my dream) the EOS 1D C when I filmed Ms Zhang Lei, my video grab will look like this!

This is a 100% crop from above. The grab will be this sharp!!

 And not like this 100% crop of the video grab!!

Professional quality VIDEO GRAB has finally ARRIVED :)