BJP's deputy editor Diane Smyth writes this week:

'It is a fashionable fallacy that the video era has rendered the still news photograph obsolete,' wrote Harold Evans in 1997, in a new introduction to his 1978 classic Pictures on a Page. More than a decade later, with the advent of the Red camera and a new generation of HD video-enabled DSLRs, that fallacy endures.

Certainly, it's easier than ever before to capture and edit moving images, and the internet allows it to be distributed more widely, and cheaply, than ever before. For some photographers - The Guardian's Sean Smith, for example - this has created new means and opportunities to get their stories across, and they are to be commended for their open-mindedness. Afterall, there's no point in sticking blindly to one format if another approach could be more effective.

But I believe stills will endure, just as they did with the arrival of video because, as Evans also pointed out, they have a singular and lasting effect on viewers. 'Anyone who can replay moving images in his mind has a very rare faculty,' he wrote. 'The moving image may make an emotional impact, but its impact and shape cannot easily be recalled.'

An effective photograph distils a moment, decisive or not, allowing viewers to step back from the melee and process a scene. And that will become more important as our news culture speeds up into the audiovisual equivalent of fast food. We need to hold onto anything that can help us think and contemplate more deeply - instead of just more quickly.

Read Julian Jackson's report on how photo agencies are tackling the convergence of still and motion images.

Also this week, BJP gives you all the latest news on lighting. Elinchrom has launched a new lighting pack, so did Broncolor with its Scoro range. Michael Roscoe also puts Profoto's latest generator through its paces to find out whether it's a true studio workhorse, and Julian Lass looks at Canon's latest addition to its Speedlight flashgun range, the 430EX II.