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128. Washington D.C. - June 2009
4 months ago
This video is the largest project yet in my quest to use video to show both a majestic scene and the parts of it that suck you in, catching your eyes and tugging on your mind. I'm trying to mix the two in compelling ways.
If you've been to Washington DC you know how difficult that is, coming home with all too traditional standard tourist 'snapshots'.
As a tutorial, the main steps I used were:
1 - Made 11 extremely large (up to 110 megapixels) composite images, stitching them together with Windows Live Photo Gallery. I planned to make them as I shot the pictures in a tic-tac-toe or checkerboard sequence using my 7 megapixel Canon SD750 set at its widest angle.
2 - Used Pixelan's PanZoom PRO effects wizard to make custom effects that move around the large images, from the overviews to items of interest, and back to the overview.
3 - Used Movie Maker (MM2.1 and MM6, whichever was handy at the moment - the custom Pixelan effects work in either) to apply the custom effects to the large images. I made a one minute wmv video clip from each of the composite images.
4 - Made the full project in Movie Maker 2.1 in XP, mixing the 11 clips with other items such as my mini-DV camcorder clips. By making the one minute clips before the final project, I was able to split the large clips as needed to mix with other items.
If you've been to Washington DC you know how difficult that is, coming home with all too traditional standard tourist 'snapshots'.
As a tutorial, the main steps I used were:
1 - Made 11 extremely large (up to 110 megapixels) composite images, stitching them together with Windows Live Photo Gallery. I planned to make them as I shot the pictures in a tic-tac-toe or checkerboard sequence using my 7 megapixel Canon SD750 set at its widest angle.
2 - Used Pixelan's PanZoom PRO effects wizard to make custom effects that move around the large images, from the overviews to items of interest, and back to the overview.
3 - Used Movie Maker (MM2.1 and MM6, whichever was handy at the moment - the custom Pixelan effects work in either) to apply the custom effects to the large images. I made a one minute wmv video clip from each of the composite images.
4 - Made the full project in Movie Maker 2.1 in XP, mixing the 11 clips with other items such as my mini-DV camcorder clips. By making the one minute clips before the final project, I was able to split the large clips as needed to mix with other items.
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Jim :-)
I am speachless, bewildered, ...
This is what the French would call a real "chef d'oeuvre"
I have so many technical questions ...
Just one to start with: how do you manage to obtain good to even excelent composite images with all those people moving around ?
To answer your question, here are a few of my rules of thumb: As I snap the pictures I don't pay much attention to how level the camera is and I move fairly quickly from one shot to the next, so movements are minimal. I note those people or other objects that aren't all the way in the picture... waiting a bit or moving the camera a little so I don't get partials. Then, when creating the stitched composite, if it comes out poor on the first try, I'll change file names to force Windows Photo Gallery to do the stitching differently. Then finally, if I can't get a good enough composite, you won't see it as it'll not be in my video... about 90% work fine so I'm confident enough to not shoot 2 or more sets before going home... worst case is having 1/2 a composite because the full one doesn't work well enough.
These are all done with the basic Windows Live Photo Gallery... which works well enough to keep me from using the more advanced stitching tool.
Then there's Bernadette, my in-house Photoshop expert. I give her the composites for final 'finishing' touches as she sees fit. That accounts for the composites from the Canon 7 megapixel pix looking more like they were shot with the 10 megapixel Nikon D40x.