World Photography Day: What it takes to capture the right moment – Times of India

— Khalid Wani
Short video platforms are becoming increasingly popular. Content consumers are turning into content creators; there are currently over 50 million content creators across the globe, with over two million professional individual creators, who are making content full-time. Whether established artists, journalists, or passionate emerging voices, these content creators are enriching our world and can inspire us. At the same time, content creators are constantly trying to stand out through the richness and freshness of their content and enhance their reach.
Challenges of UHD content
According to Statista, Indians spend an average of two hours and 36 minutes a day on social media platforms.2 Every day, millions of content pieces are made by thousands of creators, while new platforms and formats are being rapidly introduced. As content creators strive to enhance the quality of their content to gain a large following, they move to professional DSLRs/Mirrorless cameras or high-end smartphones. This means shooting in upmost prime quality – in 4K and even 8K. 4K typically refers to a display device or content that features a horizontal resolution of roughly about 4,000 pixels and a vertical resolution of up to 2,000 pixels, whereas 8K is about 8,000 pixels horizontally and more than 4,000 pixels vertically. Both 4K and 8K are known as ultra-high definition (UHD). 8K is also sixteen times as high definition as standard HD and four times as high definition as 4K.
While the latest cameras and smartphones enable the capturing of high-quality content, managing and storing the increasing file sizes of such UHD content could become a challenge. In other words, a video shot in 8K is going to be much heavier and would require a lot more digital storage than a same-length video shot in standard quality. However, creators still want to shoot in higher resolutions, as it will offer unmatched clarity and sharpness their followers have come to expect.
Data storage solutions are as important as a camera or smartphone
Lack of storage can spell disaster for content creators. When they are capturing moments, they wouldn’t want to be hindered by unreliable or inadequate storage, as it could mean either having to delete some content on their devices to accommodate new pictures and videos or miss capturing something which could be an attention-grabbing moment. Additionally, to capture, preserve, and process UHD content requires high-performance and reliable storage solutions. There are various on-the-go solutions available for content creators, such as portable SSDs, SD cards, and microSDTM cards. For example, SanDisk Extreme PRO SDXC UHS-II cards offer performance that professional photographers and videographers need to streamline creative project from pre- to post-production.
There are a plethora of options when it comes to storage solutions, ranging from SD Cards to cloud storage to SSDs and HDDs. However, it is important to understand the needs or the use cases and accordingly invest in the right storage solution so that you can keep capturing and sharing your best moments with the world.
(Khalid Wani is Senior Director India, SE Asia at Western Digital)