Will stills and video converge?

No.

Okay, you want to know my reasons why? Well, they are numerous.

With cameras such as the Red 1 producing 12mp images, as well as some DSLR's now being able to shoot at over 30fps, some have suggested that eventually stills cameras and video cameras will be one and the same. They say that all we'll have to do is shoot video and then pull stills from the resulting footage.

Well, to that all I'll say is that it is a very simplistic assumption at best. Stills and video are two totally seperate disciplines, and they have different requirements. Lets take for example footage that you would shoot every day, such as a family gathering, or just general filmmaking where you have the shutter set to 1/50th (or the equivilent of 180 degress on a film camera for whatever framerate you are shooting at). News gathering which uses a lot of hand held camerawork is another example. In that scenario, or indeed ANY scenario, the shutter speed that looks best for video is absolutely, definitely not, in any way or form, the shutter speed that you'd want to use to take a still photo. That right there is a reason why stills and video will never merge. Unless you are shooting funky video with a Saving Private Ryan Omaha Beach Landing look, or the automatic handycam look, you won't be using faster shutters on a video camera to 'freeze' the action.

Some will say that because the technologies will merge you may just have to purchase one camera and have it double for either stills or video. Two seperate modes for example. Well, yeh, to a degree this has already happened on most low end cameras. This, in my humble opinion is where such a camera will remain, firmly in the comsumer category. Why would a pro want all the bloat of stills specific functions on a camera that they only want to make video with? I know that some stills photographers have expressed a wish for a merger.

However it is the stills people that have everything to gain from such a camera if it keeps the body form of an SLR. If they shoot video with the absolute sole intention of pulling stills from it, then they can shoot at whatever shutter they wish. Such footage would be useless as general purpose video or stock footage due to shutter settings etc, but if your desire is to hunt through thousands upon thousands of frames for one decent shot, then maybe that will be the camera for you!

This isn't the case for video guys though. While many video guys also do stills, perhaps as a hobby, or in some cases as a duel service, many would not want all the extra stills specific functions on their camera. What would be the point if they would never get used, or another camera is far more suited to the job?

Lastly, and importantly there is the issue of ergonomics. A professional shoulder mounted camera is designed as it is because it balances well and allows for steady video. Handycam style cameras, or DSLR style bodies are next to useless for handheld video acquisition. Can you imagine a stills guy taking a full size video camera on a shoot?!

Now, I may well be wrong in all of this (I think the manufacturers would be making a mistake if they ever did force this merger upon us, but hey). However I feel that stills cameras will stay as stills cameras, perhaps with much higher framerates, or perhaps as two seperate models. Maybe a Pentax K50D Stills, and a K50D Video with specific video functions and controls for example. But I can never see them truly merging into one. 

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