Years ago, while flipping through 25fps video trying to find just the frame in a piece of video where somebody had smiled just right. (It was for a VHS tape-box slick). I discovered, to my amazement, that

People's true smile can last less than 1/25th of a second.

However, we do perceive that smile, register it and imprint it on our memory as that person's true smile.

I used movie cameras and video cameras for portraits for years before I bought my first still camera in 2009. French news crews used analogue video cameras as their main tool for stills, sound and video, rushing on motorcycles to beat deadlines.

There are lots and lots of advantages, all of them somehow tied to a better selection of still image; (i.e. one you couldn't have got using a still camera) to make up for the higher quality you'd get from a still shot - or even a series of stills. That holds true today, unless we have 60fps DSLR [burst mode, for minutes, or hours at a stretch]!

A few weeks ago, I spotted my favourite waitress nearby on her day off. Armed only with my GH2/Sigma 30mm/Driftwood Sedna 5/ HBR25fps, I had to set it to ETC mode to get in close enough and shoot about a minute or so while sliding the camera around on my café table.

Only today did I get around to asking her if I could use the shots and she agreed. So here's one random still and an animated series of just a few key shots of VLC frame-grabs.