I used to produce television commercials, so I have some lingering interest in video. The thing that always strikes me as odd when I do video is how
little it has in common with still photography!
Even the most basic elements change when you're dealing with a moving image vs. a fixed one -- for example, creating a harmonious, well-balanced composition is very important for a still image that viewers are going to contemplate over a period of time, but in a moving image the composition is going to change continuously anyway, so things such as screen direction and continuity become more important. Also, you need to plan a still image to lead the viewer's eye in the desired path around the frame, whereas with a moving image you can explicitly move the camera's field of view.
So yes, it's an interesting challenge, but it's almost a completely different challenge. And as ywenz pointed out, it takes a huge equipment and time investment to produce anything approaching a professional level of quality, whereas it's possible to create still photographs of the highest quality with very modest resources.
Side note: An interesting way of combining both challenges is trying to animate your still photos, the way Ken Burns does in his documentaries. If your experience is like mine, you'll find that it's fairly easy to produce mildly interesting results, but quite difficult to get something that really flows well. Here's a YouTube link to one of my own experiments with this, and there's an RFF group on YouTube that contains some others as well:
Click here
