stop motion

[arjen92]

He,

Could someone help me with some sites about stop motion. I teacher I'm helping is searching ways to do stop motion with a regular videocamera. Is that possible? Do you need special software (which) or is it possible that some camera's do it themself.

Is it possible to play back immediately after you took another picture (on the camera it self or software, please some hints which camera's and software do this).

P.s. he has a canon 350D.

Personally I would make all the pictures, scroll through them on the camera with the wheel, see if I like it. Put the the photo's on the mac, number them. Import them into FCP (still frames set to 1/30 or 2/30 seconds) and render the movie.

But the teacher would like to film it and play it back immediately. He is searching for videocamera's. But I'm wondering if that's even possible. In the extra's of Wallace and Gromit I saw they used normal camera's and used some kind of hardware to immediately play back and see how it looks.

Sorry for the long and detailed story. Hope someone can help me.

p.s. Doesn't really matter if the software is windows or mac.

 

[Richardthe4th]

Hi Arjen,

I am doing stop motion myself. I use 'I Can Animate' and am quite satisfied about it ( http://www.kudlian.net/products/icananimate/ ). Price for home users is somewere else on the site, less then 30 pound. Product is good and very simple to operate. More then plenty of features.

About the camera to use (see also websites). I don't recomend to use a photo camera. Because with stop motion you take a lot of pictures, so you might walk into end-off-life of the shutter way to soon. Take a video camera, or webcam. You are outputting to a movie anyway, so a videocam is good. And the program's add multiple frames to get a sharper picture. The pictures are really better then a single frame from the video cam (sharper, less noise).

Also taking pictures and then sending to FCP is not a sensible thing to do. For instance if something in the picture has moved, you cannot correct it. But in a stop motion program, you can use onion skinning. And the program (almost all of them) can output to a quicktime movie you can import in FCP.

Also in all the programs you can immediately play the movie. And lots more

Check it out (made with magix on a pc): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiehGXGwGso

Here are some links you (he) might find usefull:
http://www.stopmotionworks.com/stopmosoftwr.htm
http://www.animateclay.com


Have fun!!!!

 

[xStep]

This iStopMotion page may give you some hints. They also have a link on that page for reviewing what cameras work with their software. I notice the 350D doesn't support PTP so is not supported for capturing straight from the camera, as opposed to downloading.

 

[fiercetiger224]

Best way to do it with a video camera is to stop the exposure down to maybe half the frame rate, and also, when editing and rendering it, I would drop the frame rate down to 8 frames per second, to simulate what you'd be able to get with a camera. Ultimately, shooting stop motion in this sense is a lot easier than using a camera.

 

[spice weasel]

Best way to do it with a video camera is to stop the exposure down to maybe half the frame rate...

What does that mean? Stopping down refers to using a smaller aperture.

To the OP: the benefit of using a videocamera with software like iStopMotion is that you can get a live preview of your next frame, making it easier to make small adjustments in whatever you are shooting. However, using a still camera will work as well, even if you don't use iStopMotion. Take a bunch of stills, import them, and then use QuickTime 7 Pro and choose File--> "Open Image Sequence." Select the first image (make sure they are numbered sequentially) and then select the frame rate. Presto.