HELP DVX as a STILL CAMERA?!?

[Logan LeBlanc]

Ok, so my girlfriends sister wants me to take some graduation pics of her after seeing some shots from the DVX. Thing is, I'm not sure how to do this and get printable pictures. Can someone tell how (file convertng, exporting, etc...) to do this. She'll kill me if I can't do them because a friend offered and I (ingorantly) said I could do it better. DVX USERS, HELP ME REMOVE MY FOOT FROM MY MOUTH!!!! THANKS!!!

 

[HansK]

How's the toe jam taste?

Well, the dvx (ntsc) shoots 720x480 but at a 0.9 pixel aspect ratio. Therefore, the images you capture are going to be small if you want to print them out and need to be scaled for a 1:1 aspect ratio. Using the dvx for images that you plan to print out is a bad choice. Unless, of course, you want very small good looking photos.

Now let's say you do decide to try. Then what you will need to do is capture the footage then export single frames from your editor (FCP, Premiere, etc). Once you have the frames (images) then you will need to edit them with a program such as Photoshop. In PS you can scale the image to the correct aspect ratio. Do so by resizing the width by 90%. That would leave you with an image that 648 pixels wide by 480 high.

Now most quality prints begin around 300 pixels/inch. Your image is 648x480 so that means it would print 2.16" x 1.6". Perfect for a wallet size photo. You might try resizing the image larger but then you might introduce scaling artifacts.

So in the the end you are back to extracting your foot. Or borrowing a friends digital camera.


Good luck!

 

[Scottdvx100]

If you want still photos you should shoot with a still camera. Video won't hold up to a real still camera in terms of quality.
You could still do better lighting and compostion than her friend.