Photo sequence presentation.

[nathanchristopher]

Hello shooters. I am relatively new to the sports shooting

scene...so my question may have a super simple answear. I am

shooting with a D2x in HC mode (8fps) and a 70-200vr. The subject is

soccer players doing specific motions/actions (kicks, passes, traps)

all shot @ 8fps to be used for a specific medium. The question

is....what program should I use so that I can properly present the

photos in sequence to my client so that they can really get a good

idea of what it would be like to see the motion in real life. IE:

one photo after the other in quick succession. I have already done

the shoot, I just need to present it properly. An answers to this

post would be greatly appreciated, I need a solution to my dilemma

very shortly.

[lex_jenkins]

Since you've used your D2X for a while you already know it can capture action in near-movielike sequences. It's very impressive but you'll have to be careful not to overwhelm (i.e., "bore") your viewers with too many sequences of subtle frame-to-frame variations.

 

I'll limit my entire sequences of 7-9 shots at 7-9 fps to those demonstrating a particular maneuver (executed really well or failed miserably but with humor and no serious injuries).

 

Otherwise I'll pick out two or three peak action shots from the sequence.<div></div>

[lex_jenkins]

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[nathanchristopher]

Thanks for the answear and example lex! BUT...what I really need to know is how you made that sequence..you gave me an example of the type of shoot that I'm doing..I just don't know how to make the sequence presentable. Could you let me know how you just did that? What program did you use to make that line of images to show that kick-flip? I have PS CS just so you know.

[lex_jenkins]

Oh, okay, Nathan, I see what you mean.

 

I just used Irfanview, a freebie program, to prep the vertical sequence. I converted the NEFs to TIFFs to maintain quality (Irfanview will read many RAW formats). Irfanview offers a utility for stitching panoramics vertically or horizontally. I stitched together the full size TIFFs, shrank the TIFFs to a smaller size suitable for online viewing and converted the entire vertical sequence to a JPEG in one shot.

 

Irfanview is amazingly capable and fast in some aspects but limited in others. It's extremely small and fast making it very useful for batch converting RAW files to TIFFs or JPEGs, stitching simple panoramics (not fancy 360 degree panoramics, tho') and simple slideshows.

 

On the downside the available tweaks are limited to adjusting sliders for color, saturation, brightness, contrast and gamma. Sharpening is a simple overall process that sharpens grain and noise as well as edges. It will work with a few Photoshop compatible plug-ins but not many really useful ones as far as I can tell. It comes with samples of "Harry's Filters" or something like that, mostly a bunch of pop-art stuff that might have been hip when Peter Max was all the rage but it's kinda tired now.

 

Anyway, since it isn't necessary to actually follow the sequence you actually shot, you can shuffle the best shots from various sequences to get the look you want. I'm not interested in getting into the morality aspects of that - I'm simply pointing out that it's possible to stitch together what appear to be sequences from hand picked photos. You're trying to make the best impression on a prospective client, weigh the risk of someone getting irate over "doctored" sequences against the benefits of providing a clear sequence that's better suited for training and demonstration purposes.

 

Anyway, give Irfanview a try and see whether it's worth adding to your image editing tools for the handful of things that it does very well.

[neal_thatcher]

Nathan, Photoshop is all you need. If you want to do it like Lex, then you just need to make your canvas equal to the size of all the shots together in whichever perspective you are using. If you want it like a slideshow...you can either do it w/ the PDF slideshow maker in Photoshop or jump over to Image Ready and make it a GIF or Flash file. I did this one as a GIF for my website: http://www.networksphotoandvideo.com/webdesign.html

[lex_jenkins]

Here's a GIF animation sequence made from a series of photos taken with my D2H (cousins' kids doing backflips in the lake).

 

I've done more elaborate stuff using Animation Shop from Jasc.

[rds801]

This is cool. My first animation done with PS Elements 2. Hope this shows correctly.

[lex_jenkins]

Not bad, Roland, but try using more copies of the same frame to smooth out the transitions. I forget the details of the animated GIF I posted here but I probably used 3-6 copies each of the same frame, adjusting the overall play speed as well to give it a more cinematic feel.

 

Without special effects and extra effort it's not easy to produce a true cinematic feel using a still camera at up to 8 fps - which is only about half the framerate of a movie camera - but we can get close.

 

I have a copy of Jasc Animation Shop that's very cool for producing lo-rez animations (GIFs and others) for onscreen display. I used it to prepare a web animation from a theatrical dance performance for a friend who wanted it to promote a NYC production of the play.

 

Some of the features/filters were pretty cool a few years ago but are a bit cliched today: fake scratches, bubbles, jumping and jittering, etc. These effects saw heavy use in the intro credits for "The House on Haunted Hill" with Geoffry Rush and the delectable Famke Jannsen. Since then, tho', the effects have been overused, especially by horror movies.

 

(Supposedly Brazilian women find come-on lines such as "You're delicious!" to be flattering. So while Ms. Jannsen is not Brazilian, I can only hope that she'll find my feeble effort, if not appealing or even amusing enough to e-mail me, at least not offensive enough to sic her lawyers on me.)