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Digital photo animations

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 9:45 pm
by Gordon
One of the big advantages of digital cameras over film is the ability to make animations (relatively) easily. In November I was watching a storm that looked like a good subject for an animation, so took 193 photos over 55 minutes. Initially I had my old Nikkor 85mm f/2 on the D70, but swapped it for the 18-70 after a while, and gradually zoomed out and panned a bit to follow the action over the duration of the animation. Exposures started at 15 sec, but I cut that back to 13 then 10 sec as the clouds were in danger of being overexposed due to the almost continuous lightning, more than 1 flash per sec some of the time, but at least 3 or 4 flashes on every exposure.
You will need a reasonably fast connection for this 17MB 600 pixel wide animation:
http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~gordon/GJG20 ... mation.gif

and an even faster connection, or else a long wait ( it took me just over an hour to upload on my ~240kbit/sec link) for this 54MB 1000 pixel wide version:
http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~gordon/GJG20 ... mation.gif

Gordon

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 9:51 pm
by big pix
great storm and cloud movement......... a great effort.........

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 10:11 pm
by sirhc55
Gordon - absolutely amazing and well worth the effort :)

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 10:24 pm
by blinkblink
Thanks for that.

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 10:43 pm
by mudder
Wow, some fascinating cloud formations, great to watch them roll along, well done, admire the effort and the results...

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 11:02 pm
by Catcha
that looks really cool 8)

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 11:50 pm
by Killakoala
Wow, that's extraordinary. You certainly see some interesting sights at the top of the Warrumbungles.

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 11:59 pm
by DionM
Wow! What a storm.

Great idea to put it all together like that!

PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2005 2:19 am
by Steffen
While I don't agree that animated sequences are a blessing of the digital age (rumour has it that some oddballs are still shooting at 24fps on silver...) I really like these shots. In particular the strange layering of the cloud bands, which gives the whole scene another dramatic dimension, IMHO,

Cheers
Steffen.

PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2005 9:58 am
by greencardigan
Gordon,
What software did you use to create these?

PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2005 10:33 am
by Alpha_7
Gordon, that is one impressive storm the clouds and the layers and then you got some great lightning shots aswell! Well worth the download if you have some spare bandwidth... :)

PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2005 8:52 pm
by Gordon
>>What software did you use to create these?

I ended up using Easy GIF Animator, which cost me only $AU24. I had several attempts using various other programs, but all failed, either because of too many large images, or because they degraded the quality so much the images looked like crap.

Easy GIF animator is quite easy to use and you can download a 20 use trial version from: http://www.blumentals.net/egifan/download.php

Gordon

PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2005 11:04 pm
by mic
Bloody Brilliant Gordon !

Mic :wink:

PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2005 11:20 pm
by Slider
Great stuff Gordon. Some terrific sequences there. :D

PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2005 11:33 pm
by blacknstormy
fantastic stuff - cool if you look closer, you can see a car coming across from the left of the screen at the 'beginning' of the sequence, and later on, a car zooming across from the right :) (near the end)

Gordon - well done !!!!

PostPosted: Tue Dec 20, 2005 7:09 am
by Sheetshooter
Gordon,

Excellent project well executed.

May I ask, did you use an intervalometer to make the exposures or did you patiently stand, release in hand, for the duration?

Cheers,

PostPosted: Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:29 am
by marcotrov
Great project Gordon. Worth the effort IMO. :wink:
cheers
marco