Why do professional camera-people take single or rapid burst shots of the event they’re photographing, instead of using a high quality video camera and selecting the best frame later in edit?
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Professional still cameras still beat the quality of video cameras. You could buy a pro video camera with 4K or better quality but it would be stupidly large and expensive, even compared to pro still cameras, and still lag behind in many features. Even 4K is only 8 megapixels.
The best autofocus techniques, essential for sports photography, have involved the DSLR mirror being down though mirrorless cameras are catching up. In contrast cine cameras come from a history of requiring manual focus for everything, with a dedicated focus puller (human) and tape measures involved.
On paper the gap is closing between still and video but there remain many practical differences that make it very annoying to use one type instead of the other: file formats, storage media and software workflow to produce the shots you want.
Shutter speeds provide a concrete example. With cine cameras these are commonly specified in terms of shutter angle. Shooting at 24fps with a 180° shutter angle implies a shutter speed of 1/48s. This is relatively low and results in motion blur that’s desireable for cinema footage. But a sports photographer will often want 1/1000s shutter speeds to freeze the action and cine cameras aren’t set up to make this easy. And Cine cameras will expose every frame the same for obvious reasons but still cameras will individually adjust the exposure of every frame.
Even lenses are different. Still lenses have F-numbers which give the ratio between diameter and focal length. Cine lenses have T-numbers which are the same, except that they adjust for light loss due to glass. F-numbers mean you can accurately predict the depth of field whereas T-numbers relax that so that you can use the same T-number on any lens and the exposure will stay exactly the same. Also, still lenses have F-stops, where the dial actually clicks into place in something like 1/3rd of a stop intervals but cine lenses have no clicks, allowing you to gradually and smoothly change the exposure during a shot.
Anyway, pro still cameras are becoming mirrorless, without a mechanical shutter. It will probably soon be common for them to be able to take short bursts at 24fps or more, just like cine cameras.
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