4K Video Stills - Next Level Photography?

At this day and age, extracting video stills as images hasn't reached a level where you'd pick it over a digitally photographed image yet. At 1920 x 1080, HD Video resolution is still below 3 megapixels, which in today's standard, is pretty small.

The new Canon 1DC, which shoots 4K video, close to 8-9 megapixels in resolution, challenges this idea that you can grab a video still from it's recording, and use it as a really good image.

Video still taken from the Canon 1DC 4K Video Camera

Video still taken from the Canon 1DC 4K Video Camera

At video recordings of 24fps, giving you 24 shots per second, faster than the 1DX's 14fps, it may seem controversial to some perhaps? Let's not forget though when digital photography first came out, film photographers were ranting about how that means anyone can now snap away without much thought and grab a great picture. Times change, and perspectives change as well, so what's not to like about having the opportunity to have this great function of grabbing good images off video?

Check out the video below which was an experiment by Untitled Film Works and Canon to see where this new angle may take photography to in the years to come. It's 12 minutes long but I think it's worth watching on your spare time to see what photographers feel about the potential of this technology.