I usually stay away from photography technology and equipment discussions, but sometimes…

Chase Jarvis: Nikon D90 + Canon 5D + RED: Converging Technologies:

I typically resist predictions, but in this case I’m gonna overstate the simple fact that one day not far from here the two camera types will be indistinguishable, save perhaps their “primary” functions at the highest end of the spectrum (video or stills, respectively). They’ll all be just something like “cameras” or “capture devices”–or as the RED camera peeps are calling it, a DSMC (digital still & motion camera)–and we’ll all know that they can record whatever is going on in front of their lens. And I think that’s pretty cool.

Really worth reading the rest of the post for Chase’s thoughts on why we’re seeing convergence and what it could mean for “image making professional”. My comment:

Perhaps the most important point: “Honestly I think these new iterations of cameras are game changers – perhaps not in their current incarnations, but certainly they are conceptually”

Right now the video in DSLRs is a feature that the manufacturers have had to include to compete and to give customers what they (think) they want.

The real fun comes when we start seeing more convergence and start seeing new ways to use the video / still combination. Build the capabilities and we’ll find new ways to use them.

I’m scared what this means to photographers, but I like what Vincent [Laforet] is doing with the video / multimedia workshops to educate photographers about how to adapt, build skills and position themselves to take full advantage of the new technologies.

What happens when everybody is a videographer? What will photographers do with video?

Are the barriers to creating good video higher than making good images? Are the tools for editing videos harder to learn and use than editing photographs? Is it harder to create, share and consume video than photographs? Right now the answers are yes, yes and yes, but what happens when companies solve those problems and deliver new tools?

What happens when we have more good video and much more bad video out there? Will our standards change?

How will the cameras change how we shoot?

We’ve started to see the evolution of digital video with the low-quality video in point-and-shoot digital cameras, simple dedicated video cameras like the Flip and continued evolution in small digital videocameras. But there is a big difference between the video those devices create compared to the video capabilities of the new DSLRs.

What lessons can we learn from the past? How did the evolution from black & white to color change how we shoot? It’s not just about the color. How did the digital revolution change how we shoot? It’s not simply about the ease in processing digital, the unlimited frames of digital or the romance of film.

The tools we use change us. I’m curious how photographers will change once we all have high-quality video in our hands at the flip of a switch.