From LJWorld.com | Photo by Mike Yoder

In a few hours I’m off to speak to members of the National Press Photographers Association on behalf of Adobe. I’ll be doing this at their Annual Meeting, Convergence 08, Friday and Saturday, May 30 - 31, 2008, at the Downtown Marriott in beautiful Louisville, Kentucky. Now you may be wondering, “Why is Adobe sending Rod, a video guy (with a lot of photography buddies), to speak to the who’s who of Press photographers? Well, it turns out that more and more press photographers are now being asked to shoot video (mainly for their company media websites) while they are out on assignment. In fact, I even found this post on the Journal-World website written by Mike Yoder about this specific issue. Here’s an excerpt:

From my background in still photography to my initial forays into video, I’ve learned a few things that have helped me make the transition. Here are three beginner’s tips that have helped me in my introduction to video and might help other still camera enthusiasts make the transition.

1. The 10-second rule. This was one of the first things I was taught and have stuck with when shooting anything with a video camera. Once you have framed up a shot and hit record, let the camera run for at least 10 full seconds before thinking about hitting the stop button. Shorter pieces of video are difficult to edit into useful sequences.

2. Use a tripod. Unless you are doing a remake of “The Blair Witch Project” or you just enjoy making your family and friends dizzy, you should use a tripod to avoid unnecessary camera shake. If you don’t have a tripod look for flat surfaces or other ways to support and steady your camera.

3. Think in sequences. To best tell stories in video, different points of view need to be linked together to provide the viewer with movement and varied perspective. Coming from a still photographer’s experience, this is not hard to understand, but it has been harder to apply to video than I imagined. Still photographers move around a subject and shoot photographs from different perspectives with the goal of capturing just one moment — that single shot that best documents the subject.

You can read the complete article by going here.

The only thing I would add to his 3 points above would be about the 10 second rule in his first point. What you really want to make sure you have is at least 3 seconds of video before and 3 seconds of video after your main point/imagery that your recording with your camera. You never know if you’re going to need that extra “handle” on your clips to roll under an opening graphics/animation intro or for a longer worded lower third that takes longer to read or even for a slower transition from a previous clip. It’s just always better to be safe than sorry.

Tags: Adobe, National Press Photographers Association, Convergence 08, photography, video