Stop-frame animations from digicams

Hey Mark!

"Mark²" mjmorgan(lowest even number wrote in message
news:lHcyd.77552$ka2.37758@fed1read04...

"ed" wrote in message
...
wrote in message
ups.com...
I have a series of photos that were taken from roughly same place each
day using a digital camera. I am looking for a way to stitch them
together into a time-lapse movie. Can anyone recommend any software
for
doing this? Ideally the software would...

(i) help me to get the photos aligned.
(ii) convert them into an avi file
Any clues would be appreciated.

Itchy

Haha, here's another thing that Pro Show Gold rocks at!

Drag all your photos into the pro show time-line. Set them all to 0.1
seconds (or whatever frame rate you like) and click the Video button.
POW!
So easy.

Wow!! I am so glad you mentioned that!!!!!!

I've been doing stop-motion animation for years now, but have never found
a
very satysfactory method for creating a file I can easily share with
people.

If this works as well as you suggest...I'm going to be absolutely
thrilled.

I have small projects with up to 1200 images...so I hope this doesn't
place
too much strain on Pro Show Gold. I have always dumbed down (resized to
small) my images when doing this in other programs or using other methods.
I'll play with it some and report back here to those who may be
interested.

Thanks for pointing this out.
-Mark

Hey! I do stop frame animation as well - I love it! I resize them all
first. The frames are numbered so it goes in sequence. This was just my
lateral thinking way to solve the problem of rendering stop frame animation
(I don't own any serious video software)

I'd also like to see a clip of your work if that's possible?

The good thing is you have a nice choice of output formats from PSG.
Straight to DVD is handy as well. And as for dropping in custom music as
mp3 (using licensed music of course) for the backing track how cool is that?

Okay, my only problem with this is I can't make a RealVideo from any of the
video formats. Does anybody know of a good utility for that? (mpeg to avi
freeware? I can't find any)

If anybody has anything else to add to this thread I would really appreciate
that because I haven't talked to any people about it before - I just do it
myself to entertain myself and show off my work to friends!

Oh and the other trick is to use a remote shutter with the camera set to
800x600 quality. So easy to shoot off frames at a quality that you don't
really need to render down. (although it's good if you can if you have the
time - adding a little sharpening can make the output really fine quality)

that all!

Ed

Kibo informs me that "ed" stated that:

Okay, my only problem with this is I can't make a RealVideo from any of the
video formats. Does anybody know of a good utility for that? (mpeg to avi
freeware? I can't find any)

There's a bunch of shareware converters out there that'll output to .rm,
& I think that you can also download an 'official' converter from the
Real website. OTOH, if it were me, I'd convert to MPEG-2 or DivX 5.

Oh and the other trick is to use a remote shutter with the camera set to
800x600 quality. So easy to shoot off frames at a quality that you don't
really need to render down. (although it's good if you can if you have the
time - adding a little sharpening can make the output really fine quality)

It's also wise to set the camera to full manual mode, or you'll find
that the exposure (ie; overall brightness) will vary from frame to
frame, making the animation flicker in an unpleasant manner.

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

Kibo informs me that "ed" stated that:

Okay, my only problem with this is I can't make a RealVideo from any of the
video formats. Does anybody know of a good utility for that? (mpeg to avi
freeware? I can't find any)

There's a bunch of shareware converters out there that'll output to .rm,
& I think that you can also download an 'official' converter from the
Real website. OTOH, if it were me, I'd convert to MPEG-2 or DivX 5.

Oh and the other trick is to use a remote shutter with the camera set to
800x600 quality. So easy to shoot off frames at a quality that you don't
really need to render down. (although it's good if you can if you have the
time - adding a little sharpening can make the output really fine quality)

It's also wise to set the camera to full manual mode, or you'll find
that the exposure (ie; overall brightness) will vary from frame to
frame, making the animation flicker in an unpleasant manner.

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

"ed" wrote in message
...
Hey Mark!

I have small projects with up to 1200 images...so I hope this doesn't
place
too much strain on Pro Show Gold. I have always dumbed down (resized to
small) my images when doing this in other programs or using other
methods.
I'll play with it some and report back here to those who may be
interested.

Thanks for pointing this out.
-Mark

Hey! I do stop frame animation as well - I love it! I resize them all
first. The frames are numbered so it goes in sequence. This was just my
lateral thinking way to solve the problem of rendering stop frame
animation
(I don't own any serious video software)

I'd also like to see a clip of your work if that's possible?

I really have only done this with children--using ideas they come up with,
and items of motion that THEY manipulate. These are only 6, 7, and 8 years
olds mind you... It's fun watching their little minds when they catch
on to how it actually works, and how they can effect the motion speed
through changing distance frame-to-frame, etc.

I started doing this in 2000 with my Canon D30...thinking it up really from
scratch (not realizing that others had experimented with this). At that
time I used (for lack of anything else) ACDSee image viewing program in
slide show mode for playback because at that time, it would let you set
image times in hte 1000th of seconds. As long as you reduced
resolution/file size down enough, it could play them back quite fast.

Most of the things we've done have been just goofy little sequences of
experimentation. Kids stuff...literally. I would love to do something a
bit more ambitious, but simply have not.

I always make sure to use manual focus and manual exposure, and later began
using manual white balance as well, due to the background's look changing if
I didn't. I'll have to put some of these goofy "shows" into Pro Show Gold,
and then post them to Photodex's web site (you know they'll host shows for
free there, right?).

What sort of sequences have you created? Mine have often included the kids
themselves, where they move their bodies a bit for each frame, and then
appear to do something they couldn't do in reality (like drive around like
cars on their rears, etc.). It's fun, though time-consuming...which means
for little kids, their attention spans often limit the duration of
sequences.
-Mark

The good thing is you have a nice choice of output formats from PSG.
Straight to DVD is handy as well. And as for dropping in custom music as
mp3 (using licensed music of course) for the backing track how cool is
that?

Yes! This realization is what has me excited because output has always been
the problem for me... Either too limited in terms of output format, or too
limited with regard to frame rate. This use of Pro Show Gold (which I have
and use for other things...but this didn't even occur to me!). This will be
GREAT because the kids can now have various forms of their
creations--whatever form is most easily used by them and their families.

Okay, my only problem with this is I can't make a RealVideo from any of
the
video formats. Does anybody know of a good utility for that? (mpeg to
avi
freeware? I can't find any)

If anybody has anything else to add to this thread I would really
appreciate
that because I haven't talked to any people about it before - I just do it
myself to entertain myself and show off my work to friends!

Oh and the other trick is to use a remote shutter with the camera set to
800x600 quality. So easy to shoot off frames at a quality that you don't
really need to render down. (although it's good if you can if you have the
time - adding a little sharpening can make the output really fine quality)

That's fairly similar to what I do, except that I have always saved the
higher-res originals for the following reason: I realized early on that
technology was going to catch up in terms of the ability to quickly play
back higher and higher resolution images at a fast frame rate. Because I
saved originals (in addition to the low-res version used for the sequence),
I have since been able to actually *immprove* my early attempts (from the
year 2000) by using faster computers to play back based on larger image
files. This means my silly little projects will only continue to "improve
with age."

-Something you may wish to consider when you shoot.

Thanks for the post!
-Mark