Still skate photography is dead. We’re all robots to the ghost of Bresson.

I’m not a fan of the photo sequence in skateboarding. I prefer Henri Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment approach, which means I miss a lot of shots. I was following Gizmodo with some interest for news of a new camera from Casio called the EXILIM Pro EX-F1. It’s a high resolution (six megapixel) camera that has a burst rate of 60 frames per second at full resolution. In case you don’t know your megapixels, 6mp is good enough for any skate magazines cover without a crop. Basically, it’s got a buffer for 60 frames, you can cram them all into a one second burst of 60fps or spread them out as far as 12 seconds, or 5 frames per second. You’ve probably seen the strobe light flashes of a still photographer in real life or at the very least in skate video. I believe those huys are usually shooting around 8fps, or maybe a few more. Here’s another interesting thing about this camera, it’s got a feature called pre-record that buffers a few frames before you even hit the shutter button, just in case you are still a little slow predicting the action. Ever seen a video grab printed in a magazine? Sounds absurd, but it’s been done before. The It’s also got a high speed movie recording option at 300 fps, 600 fps or 1,200 fps, although at lower resolutions. Surely this camera has a sky high price to match it’s impressive technological capabilities, right? Wrong. It should be available later this year for a MSRP of $999. The fact that there are hordes of skate photographers out there has not been lost on Casio. They’ve got video and still skateboarding on the product web site.

Casio called the EXILIM Pro EX-F1

Photography is not like painting. There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative. Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.

Henri Cartier-Bresson – Source: Wikipedia

Bresson’s theory was used to justify photography as art, especially as compared to painting. Nowadays photography is accepted as an art form suitable for galleries and by extension collectors and high prices. a nickel’s worth of art history will tell you that it was not the case for a very long time. It was thought of as a simple technical craft, no matter what the subject matter. Eventually the notion of the decisive moment and the photographer’s eye overcame that prejudice. But what if you could essentially capture every moment and choose the ones want?

OK, this camera is not exactly going to be the death of the creative professional skateboard photographer just yet. The image quality may not be up to snuff, and you still need to know how to frame the subject for maximum impact. The lens is not interchangeable, and the buffer would still need to be multiplied over and over again to achieve a point where you could just carry the thing around like a video camera and choose the still frames you want for print or edit the sequences into a video.

It’s expected to sell for $999.00, the same price as the decent digital SLR’s that have opened the door to loads of would be enthusiastic amateurs (ahem) that no longer have to pay massive film developing costs to hone their skills. If it’s still on the market in a few years it will be even cheaper and more capable. Even if this particular model is not being sold, you can make no mistake about where the technology is headed. In five or ten years it’s not inconceivable for something like this to be the mainstay of commercial action photographers. It should definitely change the landscape of the DIY and amateur enthusiasts on the web and in print, and maybe even video.

You can get the specs and see more samples on Casio’s EXILIM Pro EX-F1 product site, which is where the 300fps skate video below came from. It may look like it’s not loading, but it’s simply a lot of still frames before the subject enters the frame. There’s a direct link here.