Digital Focus: Easy Digital Animation
Turn still photos into a simple animation.Dave Johnson
Feature: Create a Spinning 3D Animation
After reading my newsletter on making 360-degree panoramas, Mark Winter asked, "Do you know if it would work the other way around? For example, if I took a picture of someone, took a few steps right, took another picture, etc.... would I be able to stitch the photos together to produce a 3D image of this person?"
In other words, Mark wants to make a 3D animation of something--or someone--out of a series of stills. That sounds like a great project, so I decided to give it a shot. Unfortunately, traditional panorama software simply doesn't work for this purpose. Those programs stitch a series of photos together, end-to-end, after finding regions of common ground in each image. When saved as a QuickTime animation, you see just a small portion of the scene, viewing the larger panorama through a virtual window.
But imagine trying to shoot an object like a ketchup bottle from all sides. The panorama software might try to stick the pictures together, but all you'd see in QuickTime would be a series of ketchup bottles as you panned around--the bottle wouldn't appear to spin at all. Instead, there would just be a long line of slightly different bottles.
Animated GIF to the Rescue
The solution is to make an animated GIF. The GIF graphic format is popular on the Web for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it can hold a veritable slide show of images and play them in sequence, making an animation. We can capitalize on this capability to animate a spinning object from a series of digital images. The end result is that we can play a short movie that shows all sides of something--a ketchup bottle, a person, almost anything.
Shoot the Object
The first step is obviously to use your digital camera to capture the pictures you'll need. For these images, set your camera to a low resolution like 640 by 480 pixels. Our finished animated GIF will be that resolution or less, so there's no need to waste pixels we won't use.
For your first experiment, I suggest starting simple. Shoot a ketchup bottle or a mobile phone or a vase or something else that's small, inanimate, and easy to position. If you have a spinning platter (like a lazy susan), great--set the object on it and position your digital camera nearby on a tripod.
From here, it's a snap: Just take a series of photos that captures all the angles of the object. The more pictures you take, the smoother the animation will be, but I'd aim for six to twelve photos. When you're done, transfer the images to your PC.
Animate!
For the last phase of our little experiment, you'll need a program that takes a collection of images and packages them into an animated GIF. If you have Paint Shop Pro, you can use its companion program, Animation Studio. Another excellent option is Irfanview--it's free, and you can download it from PCWorld.com
Whichever animated GIF program you end up using, the process is pretty simple. Just load all of your images in the proper sequence and save the finished product as an animated GIF. You can share this file with other Windows users, and it'll play like a small movie when double-clicked.
For example, I made a very simple animated GIF to test the process. Notice that I didn't control the exposure throughout the entire series of images, so consequently the animation gets bright in some parts and darker in others. The fix? When you take your pictures, manually set your exposure and leave it there for the entire series of shots.
Dave's Favorites: Digital Camera Reviews at Digital Photography Review
Asking about places to find digital camera reviews online is sort of like asking where to find a good steak in Texas; just throw a stick and sit down wherever it lands. Type "digital camera reviews" into Google, and you can surf all day. One of the best places to start, of course, is right here at PCWorld.com.
But if you're looking to do some really in-depth comparisons, be sure to visit the Digital Photography Review. This site has a superb Buying Guide that lets you select criteria in about 30 categories: price, resolution, flash, time-lapse recording capability, weight, and much more. Select the criteria that are important to you, and the site spits out a side-by-side comparison chart of the cameras that match your desires. From there, you can get additional information, read reviews, join discussions, and learn more about how certain features work.
Q&A: What Can I Do About Shutter Lag?
I enjoy your columns, but something that is never covered in articles related to digital photography is the lag time between pressing the button and taking a picture. I recently purchased a Nikon 5700 and have been very disappointed in the process. I have pictures that look rather strained after I say "smile." I have gone to the camera store and they say everything is set properly on my camera, and that "this is the way it is" with digital. Apparently, this is a hidden problem with digital cameras.
--John Menhennet, Winnipeg, Manitoba
You raise an excellent point, John, and it's one that I've written about extensively in the past--though it might be time to dedicate another newsletter to it. All digital cameras exhibit a lag time between when you press the shutter release and when the picture actually gets taken--but some cameras, with a second or more of lag, are worse than others. My own Olympus e20n has a lag so short that it's indistinguishable from using a 35mm SLR.
There are a lot of reasons for this lag. Some of the time is spent auto-focusing and setting the exposure. Some of it goes toward setting the automatic white balance. A big part of the time is spent preparing the sensor to take a picture, and some time may even be consumed writing the previous image to memory before another can be taken.
There's not much you can do about some parts of the lag time, especially the sensor management. But you can minimize shutter lag by prefocusing--pushing your shutter release down halfway before taking the picture--and by manually setting the white balance. I also highly recommend playing with a camera in the store before you buy it to see just how serious the lag is, since lag is perhaps the single biggest concern people have after owning a digital camera for a short time.
Hot Pic of the Week
Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.
Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.
This week's Hot Pic: "LA at Night," by Brad Stoops, Torrance, California
About this week's photo, Brad says: "Last week, my wife and I got away for our first-ever getaway without our baby. Time was short, so we headed to nearby downtown LA for the evening. We stayed at the Hilton Checkers, which has a rooftop deck with a beautiful night-time view of the city, and I couldn't resist snapping a few shots. I didn't have a tripod with me so I steadied my Olympus C-4000 on the balcony and took the shot on auto mode using the self-timer to prevent camera movement. The distinctive and beautifully rebuilt Central Library seems to be the center of attention among the taller Union Bank building, Westin Bonaventure Hotel, and other skyscrapers. I found the lighting on the Central Library to be particularly eye-catching."
We want your feedback! Send your comments, questions, and suggestions about the newsletter itself to comments@bydavejohnson.com. If you have a question that you'd like to see answered in the weekly Q&A, send it to question@bydavejohnson.com.
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