Sequence Photos

[ptwob267 0]

Does anyone know what it is called or how to take sequence shots where the background stays the same and the person or thing moves through the picture such as a swooper moving through the whole frame or the base photo attached

Thanks
Mike

[Icon134 0]

Well there isn't anything attached at the moment... but in daylight you can probably accomplish that effect by using a tripod and a series of rapid photos.

then stitch the photos together digitally in post processing.

in lower lighting you can get the effect with a flash set on a strobe setting where the shutter is kept open and the flash bursts several times resulting in a strobe effect exposing the foreground of the frame.


Though I've never experimented with either of these effects...

Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

[Calvin19 0]

you would need a REALLY strong flash that could be moved with the subject, and you would still get some hazing and ghosting. and it would be a boring subject for the most part.

you dont need a tripod, just a good photo-editing program and the motivation to do it. it takes a while to make it look good, trust me.

but yeah, use the same camera settings for every shot, if you camera can do 5 frames/second, use it. you can always take shots out later. (IE every other shot is in the final frame)

photoshop workes the best, while i have never used the full version, it can be done in elements on a pc, (elements sucks for mac)

with a tripod the final frame is limited to the size of the shot, without the tripod, after the sequence is shot, shoot the ENTIRE seen so you can build a HUGE shot, if your camera is only 10mp, you could build a shot to 300mp after it is all stitched together. without these 'filler shots" the sequence is limited to the arc or whatever the subject is flying in, savvy?

this can also be done in a simpler but more difficult way, instead of cutting out the subject and layering it on a different frame, one only has to stitch the frames together, meaning each frame has to fit into the next.

both are a bitch.

goodspeed.

[Miami 0]

What camera do you plan on using to get the effect? Canon's film SLRs have a function to do this in the camera...but the more frames you have on the negative the lighter the moving subject will be. If you are using digital it's pretty easy...don't even need a tripod really, just photoshop.

Miami

[Calvin19 0]

Quote

Canon's film SLRs have a function to do this in the camera...but the more frames you have on the negative the lighter the moving subject will be. If you are using digital it's pretty easy...don't even need a tripod really, just photoshop.

I have done this on 35mm, I dont particularly like the results. but it does work. it looks best in black and white.

[Miami 0]

I've never tried it in color...but I agree about the results, not crazy about them but it does get the effect.

If you shoot it in digital and keep the camera relatively still you can keep one background and quickmask the rest out of the other frames to make a sequence. No fading of the moving subject, either.

Miami

[Calvin19 0]

also, if the subject has a clear blue sky for the entire or most of the sequence, it really makes it easy when digitaly splicing the frames. much easier for certian photoshop tools to work as well.

[Laszloimage 0]

At nigth you can do it with the flash (it nornally says multiple in the settings) combining with a slow shutter speed. At day light as others said already you have to stich them together in a soft ware.
Film cameras have a multiple exposure feature, where you can expose a same frame multiple times.
...I havnt seen it on DSLR yet.
-Laszlo- www.laszloimage.com

[pilotdave 0]

I made these in Canon's photostich software (comes with the rebel xt/xti): http://www.skydivingstills.com/keyword/photostitch.

I attached the one that I think came out the best.

Dave

[TommyB 0]

"Photoshopped"

[ptwob267 0]

Yeah sorry I guess the attachment didnt show but I think everyone new exactly what I was talking about...Im using a rebel xti so the photo stich thing should work really well. Thanks for all the posts

[pilotdave 0]

The only thing to realize about photostitch is that it was never "meant" for taking action shots where part of the image is "moving." It is really meant for panoramic landscape shots and things like that, where nothing changes from one frame to the next. The problem comes when you have too small a gap between frames. It doesn't detect that part of the picture has changed... So in other words if the swooper is too close to the edge of a frame, he'll just get cut off. So it's just really hard to get the pictures spaced correctly. I usually have to remove some of them, or find that the entire series just won't work.

Oh and photostitch can't deal with any rotation in the pictures... you may have to fix them in photoshop or whatever to get them all level before you can start.

Dave

[LouDiamond 1]

Quote

The only thing to realize about photostitch is that it was never "meant" for taking action shots where part of the image is "moving."

There is a way to do this manualy in PS so you aren't restrcited by the limitations of photostich or photomerge. There were several articles in the magazines several months back on how to do it. I'd imagine a Google search would bring up one of those articles.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[pilotdave 0]

Yeah, you can get much better results in photoshop if you want to spend the time... photostitch is soooo easy and quick though, if your pictures will work for it.

Dave

[majestik666 0]

well if you really want to do it well ,
you have to perform something called
"difference key" on your sequence and a clean plate
(clean background image without any fg action).
Once you got that you do a difference between the clean bg and the action frame, thus giving you only the
action you want ...
you do that for all your action frames, and put those
over the clean plate ...

Francois

[jtval 0]

I did this with Paint first.
then I got photoshop and redid it.
I posted a thread about it somewhere in this forum.

My photos

My Videos

[newshooter12 0]

who ever it was that said, "you don't need a tripod" is either REALLY quick with photoshop or likes punishment. Having a locked down shot where you just use your remote to trigger the camera as the subject comes through the frame will save you tons of time compositing the images in any editing program. Or recreating the effect in a real darkroom with film negatives and paper too

Matt

[pilotdave 0]

That'd make it way easier in photoshop, but impossible to do automatically in something like photostitch. For that, you need the pics to overlap by a little, but not too much or it won't work. Hmmm, maybe I should just do it in photoshop...photostitch sucks.
Dave

[Calvin19 0]

Your right, it is a bitch to do it with multiple angles from the same point.

And punishment? meh, just hard, boring, annoying work with a sweet payoff.

[newshooter12 0]

My err... my former g/f's camera... has a nice feature that allows you to see the overlap needed in panorama mode with an on-screen portion of the previous photo superimposed to guide you.

on an SLR and with a stitching program all you do is level the tripod. lock down the tilt. plan your pan so you have landmarks as reference points. lock out your metering/exposure/etc.... fire away and move progressively left to right. you end up with the same thing. just make sure the lens doesn't have too much barrel distortion or is to wide.

Matt

[newshooter12 0]

sounds like it isn't going to please this crowd to make the workflow. well... work. efficiency and consistency in shooting helps keep more of the boring/hard/annoying parts out.

remember. Crap in = crap out... or maybe with a plunger in the middle if you want to force it to work

Matt

[Fast 0]

Quote

sounds like it isn't going to please this crowd to make the workflow. well... work. efficiency and consistency in shooting helps keep more of the boring/hard/annoying parts out.

remember. Crap in = crap out... or maybe with a plunger in the middle if you want to force it to work

Matt

I agree with you. A tripod makes doing this not suck.

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[Miami 0]

I'll give making one a shot tonight or tomorrow, but with the quickmask tool you should be able to make a sequence from a series of handheld, rotating pov stills fairly easily. But hell, I could be wrong...I'll report back after I get a chance to make one (I *think* I have a few sets of pics that will work in my library...).

BTW, last semester one of my projects for photography was to use multiple negatives on one exposure...now that was painful!

Miami

[LouDiamond 1]

If the photog sets up in a position that he can capture all the action in, he doesn't have to pan at all. This is where a camera with a fast fps earns it's keep. The example I saw that demonstrated this nicely used a wakeboarder from the time right before he launched, did his flip and landed. The pictures were taken from a boat running parallel and in handheld mode.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[linestretch 0]

Here's my attempt with 35mm several years ago. The digital way seems like a lot of work, but a very nice photo if done right.

my pics & stuff!