Help figure out this technique

April 23, 2007 9:16 PM

Photography/video filter: On the American Choppers show, I saw "Mikey" shoot his camera, "what looked like a cannon rebel xti" at like something like 20 frames per second and with some tech help turned it into a short movie.

My camera can shoot that quickly, so I would like to try that out. Does anyone know what kind of software was used or what techniques could be used to make very short films that way?

I'm just currently learning about film and video editing and that could be a very useful tool. Any advice in using my camera that way is appreciated! Thanks folks.

posted by snsranch to sports, hobbies, & recreation (7 comments total)

Use QuickTime Pro to stitch together a stack of images into a movie (use 24 frames per second).
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:28 PM on April 23, 2007

Windows MovieMaker comes with your Windows computer. It makes excellent movies - simply place your photos one after the other into the film strip, add a song that you like - et voila, you have a film.

A tip: use a tripod if you want to create a stop-motion effect.
posted by seawallrunner at 9:46 PM on April 23, 2007

This is offhand, but I'm pretty sure that bursting images (20 per second, etc) can only last so long, since writing to CompactFlash is slow and the buffer isn't all that big. So you might want to reduce the res you're shooting at.
posted by tmcw at 11:07 PM on April 23, 2007

No Canon Rebel shoots at 20 frames a second. The original Canon 1D (professional-series) could do 8 frames/sec. The 1D Mark 2 can do 8.5/sec. The not-yet-released 1D Mark 3 is supposed to do 10/sec. DRebels can only do about 3 fps, with a max buffer of 27 shots before it has to wait.

To put this in perspective, film (as in, movie) cameras shoot at 24 fps, while TV (at least in America) is 29 fps.

If you don't mind the "sped-up" look of old-timey newsreel-style footage, or you don't mind the stop-motion look, you could do it, otherwise there just aren't enough frames (yet).
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:36 AM on April 24, 2007

In order to get more out of your buffer, shoot at the lowest available resolution. On my D80, that's still higher than 1024P HDTV, so you're safe. This won't increase the speed at which your camera can shoot, but it will let you get more exposures before the buffer fills and you have to stop.

In terms of assembling the pictures into "real" video, I know Premiere 6.0 and After Effects 5 both had options to do that. In terms of GPL software that'll do it, I don't know.

That said, if you want to shoot video, buy a video camera. The "rapid-exposure with an SLR" thing is cool, but not overly practical.
posted by Alterscape at 6:47 AM on April 24, 2007

You can use a pipe wrench as a hammer, but it's much more effective to just get a hammer.

This is the inverse of the question usually asked, how do I get high quality stills off my video camera.
posted by Ynoxas at 8:00 AM on April 24, 2007

I can't wait. Yea, I have a vid-cam, but this was something I just had to try. Thanks very much folks!
posted by snsranch at 4:59 PM on April 24, 2007