Intervolometer Recording? = STOP MOTION

dillont

dillont

Well-known member
I just had a thought (oh no!)

Since this thing is capable of recording direct to P2, with none of the limitations of tape (engage, disengage) ... then wouldn't it be possible to record one frame at a time? IN CAMERA STOP MOTION!!

Just a thought. Is the SPX800 capable of doing such work?

Dillon
 
Whoa. If that's possible, then... wow. Good thinking. That'd be quite someting.

Jan? Barry? Any merit to this?
 
Well, you can already do in-camera stop-motion on the DVX, recording 15 frames per burst (which you then speed up to 15x speed, which gets you single-frame animation). So extending this to 1 frame at a time to P2 would seem very simple...
 
No Barry,
that is not stop motion with the DVX, at least not what we old perf admirers mean when we talk or think about it.
What Dillon was talking about was real stop motion. One frame at a time. Even my old Super 8 camera was able to do that trick, so why not the HVX, too? That would be a real surprise.

And, well, here is another idea in that context: What if the HVX would feature some kind of "longtime exposure"? Can be done easily by taking several consecutive frames and averaging their content into one frame that is finally written onto the P2 card. Some kind of lowlight exposure without much noise in the picture.

Who said, the HVX would be a "camputer"...??
 
Why would you need to HVX to do that though? You could get much higher res stills from a digital still camera and do stop motion with those.
 
Guys, you own computers, don't you. You're not going to do stop motion films just with the cam in your hand, hugh?! There's always so much setup, a FWconnected Powerbook is not to much to ad.
 
It *is* stop motion. You get one frame at a time. The tape records a burst of 15, but you don't use all 15. You speed it up by a factor of 15, so that you only use one frame per burst, which mean you get one frame per exposure.

You don't have to use the interval recording either (which automates the process, like an intervalometer). You can have it just record a short burst every time you press "record", which would be better done on the remote control so you don't bump the camera.

Trust me, you can do 100% stop-motion effects, one-frame-at-a-time animation with the DVX. You just have to speed up the footage in post to get it to be single frames.
 
O, I totally agree. Technically this is stopmotion too. Speeding it up by a 7.5 Factor would even make the classical stop motion 2 Frame Methode very easy. Still: A high resolution Digicam and a notebook are more fun picturequalitywise.
 
Philipp,

agreed, digicam plus laptop plus software yield much clearer pictures and those can be "joined" so nicely into a movie. I mean what else is a movie but a sequence of still pix!? But you don't always have a laptop at hand and if the recording of the sequence takes several hours you need AC energy. How you do that in the middle of nowhere to record a rare flower blooming? A super 8 camera with a strong powerpack can do it ... and the HVX 200 might also be able to do it (with a strong extra power pack attached). So why not?
 
Barry_Green said:
Trust me, you can do 100% stop-motion effects, one-frame-at-a-time animation with the DVX. You just have to speed up the footage in post to get it to be single frames.
Click to expand...

I trust you, Barry, albeit the fact that the technical process sounds a little bit weird for someone who comes from film. Cause the question remains, why speed up by factor 15 to take out one of 15 frames. Or is there some kind of integrative picture data processing going on? I'll have a look into it.
 
I've done plenty of stop motion on film -- my first big undertaking was in 1978, to recreate 20 minutes of Star Wars using Kenner figures...

The point of the DVX for stop motion is that it shoots in bursts of 15 frames. That's the minimum record time. But you only need one of those frames, because you want to animate at one frame at a time. So if you play the footage back at 15x speed, only one frame will be displayed. So you end up with single-frame animation, exactly like we used to do with Super 8 cameras.

With the HVX hopefully it'll be even easier... recording a frame to card would mean immensely less wear and tear vs. firing up the tape drive for a 15-frame burst.
 
Some folks are using cheap digital cameras to do stop motion. The idea is output through the
composite video output into a NLE and compare images using essentially a low-res monitor,
then fire the camera with the remote to get incredibly high-res stills that you can use later.

This seriously helps in so many ways, obviously because of increased resolution and reduced
compression. Some of the film/video rental powerhouses are advocating using Canon EOS
Digital Rebels for time lapse photography *instead* of using Super16mm or 35mm. It really
makes sense, but so far the only problem is battery life. Film guys are used to being able to
hook up a Walmart marine battery to jumper cables and into their cams for time lapse... and
ya can't really do that with a digital camera. I would think for stop motion/animation, a
digital cam would be a perfect match. hope this helps.

brian wells
 
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