Frame Grab Photography

No, I am not sponsored by Olympus, but I love the new TG6 which I got a few months ago:

It’s an ace camera, very compact, great especially for macro, and very good for filming; but I am also getting good results in still photography, sometimes in unusual ways….

Frame Grab Photography

Look at this image of anemone fish eggs: a super-macro close up, shot with the camera, in the Olympus housing, with a Light & Motion 1200 lumen video light; no diopter or any other gimmick like that:

Interestingly, this is a frame grab, from a video taken at 4K resolution, with 30fpf. The result looks as if taken in still photo mode, aimed and composed like a photograph. I’m amazed how well mere frame grabs can look.

Such frame grab shots only work in very specific situations: subjects which don’t move (= no motion blur), macro subjects which are well lit; and the footage should be shot in 4K, not at lower resolution. Shallow depth of field, as is usually found in video, should either be nor problem or, even better, a part of the composition of the shot. Since these shots – per definition – come from video, with 30 images per second, there will be lots of candidates to chose from. Definitely a surprise to me that this works so well.

Best Fishes,

Klaus