There may be different reasons to use video documentation as research method. The studies presented in this session both started out with a research design that assumed researcher-controlled video cameras and a search for naturally occurring situations. However, due to different circumstances the cameras were taken over by the informants and some very interesting shifts in perspectives took place. In fact, the produced research material and the video camera itself were assigned new meaning both by the researchers and informants, and provided the research project with different qualities due to the participatory approach. A need for innovation also arose in the analysis of the visual material. In this session we will discuss these shifts of perspectives with examples from our research projects, and what assumptions of the qualities of visual research material that needed to be readdressed during this process. The first research project to be discussed is taking an in-practice perspective investigating a computer game design activity for 7-8 years old and their teachers with the aim to bring clarity to how learning with complex digital tools is constituted within an everyday school activity and how patterns of interaction assume and emerge in such a practice. The second research project involved 15-year old science centre visitors and was concerned with research questions regarding their encounter with interactive science centre exhibits. This will also be related to a third project in which a web-camera is used as a non-human agent in the production of research material.