Portable bowens lighting 500w

This is the lighting kit used for the portrait photos. It's portable which means we can fold up and carry to a new destination. It requires a battery pack.

Cambo camera stand

These are the camera stands and tripods i have been using for animation and photography.

Canon 5D/ Canon SD II

For the tasks i do these are the two cameras i've been using.

Green screen lighting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7uWuLntyo8

This link is a video of the green screen lighting kit we used for our halloween portraits. Known as (chromakey)

Green screen is used a lot in photo's, television and films. For example the weather man seems to be standing infron a large map but instead it's a greenscreen or blue background.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwBH0412IDo

This link is how to combine green screen with photography, which is what i've done with Steve.

Basically what is important is lighting the green screen to make sure it's even so hot spots don't show up. Hot spots are from too much light.

ISO/Exposure/Shutter speed

ISO

ISO is how sensitive the image sensor is to the amount of light present. Basically the higher the ISO the more sensitive the image sensor is and therefore you can take pictures in low light situations.

ISO speed affects the shutter speed.
Suppose your digital camera's light meter warns you there is not enough light to correctly expose a scene. You could use the on-board flash, but let's suppose again it's not allowed (like in a concert or indoors recital).

You would then need to use a higher ISO. Set on "ISO Auto" mode, your digital camera will automatically select a higher ISO. Otherwise, you can manually select the next higher ISO and see if the increased sensitivity allows you to obtain a correctly exposed picture. If it does, you can now take a correctly exposed picture.
Exposure

Is the total amount of light allowed to fall on the photographic medium during the process of taking a photo. Exposure is measured in lux seconds. An appropriate exposure for a photograph is determined by the sensitivity of the medium used. Also when a photo is taken and it's under expoxed it will turn out to be a very dark image.
These pictures are example of exposure.

 Under exposed image

 This is long exposure



Shutter speed.

Shutter speed is a setting on you camera which controls the length of time the shutter is open, allowing light through the lens to the sensor inside your camera. Shutter speed can go from very small fractions of a second, to several seconds long on most cameras.

Stop motion example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8JexiISPNk

Above is a video of stop motion. Firstl i think this video is great and it must of taken hours to do. Thumbs up to the person that had the motivation and desire to stick with there plans to make this.

What is stop motion?

To put it in simple form, stop motion is animation technique. It's where you put things to life like this video above. The video above is stop motion and it was created by pictures put together and played back. To create stop motion you make little movement and move at slow pace and capture those images. Once done you can create a movie.

Stop motion is used in television and childrens cartoons such as 'Robot chicken' which contains action figures.

Stop motion is very popular on You tube with numerous videos of stop motion containing clay models, action figures, items and real life people.

What is Kinect?

Reference.

Kinect - What is Xbox Kinect? (HD Video) - Kinect for Xbox 360

This is one of the links i included to reference my work. I watched this video and included facts about kinect in my motion capture day post.

Motion capture day

Tuesday 6th December

First of all i had an enjoyable day. The task was entertaining and one of the best i've done so far. I've never played X box 360 kinect before and i didn't play and i won't be on the recording until fifa is being played. Watching members of the class play Kinect and zumba fitness gave me great amusement. I'm a regular player of Fifa, but on the Ps3 console. 

If you don't know what kinect is then i'll give you a brief description. Kinect is a motion sensing input device for the X box 360. Kinect is like the eye toy for Playstation 2 but better and more advanced. Kinect(s) dual camera system allows you to use gestures to control the gameplay instead of using a control or control pad. You can also control kinect by speaking to it and it will listen. (Giving it an order to go on a game)


Kinect is useful in many ways as it can educate you and also be used to keep you fit. The purpose of kinect is to experience a new, enjoyable way of keeping fit-instead of sitting down. Kinect allows you to choose your own workout, use a personal trainer, do martial arts or do yoga.  (Exercise)


If you use kinect it allows you to communicate with friends and families, you can even watch things together such as films, television, sport and listen to music. If you move around kinect also can track your movement. 


Kinect also allows you to navigate the universe at your finger tips. So not only kinect can do the things i stated above, the software has even managed to work it's way in hospital operating rooms. Surgeons use it to control scans. 


So i've briefly given a description on Kinect. My opinion is that it's better than the Nintendo Wii and if i were to own an Xbox 360 then i would definitely go out and purchase a Kinect. 

Motion capture example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgjslc0FElM&feature=related

This link above is an example of motion capture. I play fifa 12 using a ps3 console. There is always a debate between the x box 360 and ps3 about which console is better and provides the better graphics.


Console graphics have improved in the past couple of years and makers of the consoles and video games make games look more realistic. (graphic motion)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

feature=player_embedded&v=ku3xbh22GBI

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWEBg_gdKxk

This link above is a perfect example of motion capture and facial motion capture. Facial motion capture is taking the movement of someones face and converting this into a database with a camera or laser scanners. This database is then used to produce computer graphics, computer animations, movies and games in this case, real time avatars. Motion capture is related to the performance capture but is challenging and will require more attention because of it's requirement for higher resolution. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wK1Ixr-UmM&feature=player_embedded

Please watch the links. They relate to my research.

Motion capture video games

Motion capture is often used in video games such as sports games and many more. Motion capturing techniques are very effective, but the computer processing needs much human intervention, and if there is any error in the data, you can find it more effective to re-shoot the whole scene rather than correct the data. However, motion capture technology is so much more effective and realistic than traditional techniques, and ultimately less time consuming, that its future looks assured in movies and in video games.

In motion capture sessions, movements of one or more actors are sampled many times per second, early techniques used images from multiple cameras and calculate 3D positions, motion capture often records only the movements of the actor, not his or her visual appearance.

Camera movements can also be motion captured so that a virtual camera in the scene will pan, tilt, or dolly around the stage driven by a camera operator while the actor is performing, and the motion capture system can capture the camera and props as well as the actor's performance.

 This allows the computer-generated characters, images and sets to have the same perspective as the video images from the camera. A computer processes the data and displays the movements of the actor, providing the desired camera positions in terms of objects in the set. Retroactively obtaining camera movement data from the captured footage is known as match moving or camera tracking. The first picture below, the suit is called a spandex suit.

This is an example of motion capture.

Here is a video of the making of fifa 12. It's filmed in the biggest motion capture studio in the world which is in canada.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHWe8pLlX6k

Light drawing task

First of all i enjoyed this task to a certain extent. To do this we had to leave the camera lens open and keep our finger on the capture button and draw with torches. The class were provided torches with filters of green, blue, yellow, red and purple so the light could give effect. What i mean by draw is that basically we just had to move the torches around.

These torches are similar to the torches i used.

Final cut pro

Final cut pro is video editing software. I will be using this with Andy and Steve when we edit our animation clips. I have got used to it, but i still find it complicated. As the weeks go by i am sure i can master it.

Action figure animation 3D

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In todays lesson i created an action figure 3d animation. I had to bring my own action figures in to create this. We used a Canon 5d camera. We moved the two action figures slowly to change their position and took pictures of them. Basically, when this is all finalised and out together then he two action figures will look like they're fighting.

Horror portraits

We were set a task with Lance which also related to Steve as we'll be using photography equipment.

For Lance we had to research scary posters and identify what makes a horror poster scary?

What makes the font scary? and then design our own.

 A professional make up artist called Kate came into college to show us how we could turn each other into Zombies.

I opted out of having make up on my face. Kate brought different colored face paint. Kate showed us a method how to make blood.

We used thick chocolate sauce and red food coloring.

Later on, while we were all ready and set to go, we went down to the photography lab to take some shots of our 'Zombie' classmates posing for our Horror posters for Lance.

These are some of the photo's I took with my partner, Pete.

I think this went well, it was certainly a fun and entertaining lesson.

A canon 5d camera was used and along with the bowens lighting, we used green color gel and placed to light at a low angle to add a special effect. Below are some of my photo's that i had taken and my final poster.

Stop frame photography

Stop frame photography is where you take pictures of an object such as a bag step by step moving it slowly into different positions to make it into a film. I will post an example on my blog and explain in detail. Today I created my own stop frame photography animation with a partner. I used a canon 5d camera to capture my photo's shot by shot. I used my bag and phone charger wire, with the wire coming out of the bag.  Before i made attempts to climb the children's climbing frame, but my feet were too big and i couldn't get my balance. In comparison to my other idea's i feel this idea was the best and worked out well. It wasn't what i initially wanted to do, but i got round to doing something in the end.

Portrait photos

For a task we had to take pictures of others so we could get used to taking pictures of others and ourselves. We also used different light techniques.

I don't like photos taken so that makes me camera shy. I managed to take a few pictures in the end. We used a Canon 5d camera to take these pictures. The settings were on manual so we had to adjust them ourselves without any assistance. We also used bowens portable lighting 500w because we weren't in a photography studio. Also when we had taken a photo the portable light flashed. A grid deffuser was used along with timers so the light flashed at the correct time.  In the studio we were taught how to position the lights.


When I used the bowens lighting 500w, i had to adjust the flash setting so it wasn't too bright or too dim.

3 D animation manikin

Today we went down to the photography lab to create more animation but this time 3D. The whole class took in in turns to take pictures of the fashion manikin by using the canon 5d camera. A green light was attacthed to the canon 5d camera. That' where we got the green screen effect from, light from the room was blocked out by the bowens gemini lighting equipment. Using green screen allows us to change the background. It is often used in movies.  For homework we have to bring in either a doll or action figure so we can create our own. This lesson today was pretty straight forward.

2D animation idea

My idea. First all all what i want my animation to be about is football. Why? Because i love the game and i see it as being different to other idea that have been mentioned in the class. What i will need? Football goal posts, they need to be on a football pitch, a football player kicking a ball (Didier Drogba, Chelsea striker). I will need a football but it's important that i use the same football that my player is kicking-otherwise it won't gel.  A goalkeeper. I will need a goal keeper in a standing position, position ready to dive, and a dive position through the air.  Finally i will need my player celebrating for when he scores the goal.  The equipment i'll be using to take my pictures will be a Cannon 600D camera. I will post my animation once i have created it.

2D animation tester

29th September 2011 Today i went down to the photography lab to create my own 2d animation. Before Steve showed us a basic example of what he expected from us. The pictures i cut out were of a car and a woman. I placed them on the board and took a few pictures as i was moving them around. After taking my pictures I pressed play on the camera and played it back.  I had created my own 2d animation. I used the modern animation technique. I didn't think 2d animation would be so simple like it was. I look forward to doing more in the near future.  The equipment we used to take the pictures was a Cannon 600D, a cambo camera stand which was used to keep the camera in the same position and we used a bowens gemini lighting to light up the images.

Blogger - Photography and Animation

Throughout the year this is where i'll be posting my work and task i have done for Steve. :)