Video: Stop motion on any m-4/3 or SLR?

[Benjamin Marks]

Does anyone know whether any of the current crop of DLSRs (Canon, Nikon) and/or m-4/3 cameras that offer video, also offer the ability to take one image at a time to do stop-motion animation?

Ben Marks

[trineonx]

The corpse bride was shot on EOS-1DIIs with nikon lenses. Any camera can take one image at a time, but I'm not aware of any that automatically animate it for you

[gdi]

Does anyone know whether any of the current crop of DLSRs (Canon, Nikon) and/or m-4/3 cameras that offer video, also offer the ability to take one image at a time to do stop-motion animation?

Ben Marks

You need a intervalometer - I bought one for about $40 for the GH1 on the bay. Canon makes one as well.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Timer-Remote-Switch-F-Panasonic-DMW-RSL1-GF1-GH1-G1-L1_W0QQitemZ260501390620QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_Defa ultDomain_0?hash=item3ca717c51c

[Big Hairy Bee]

A Canon can be teathered to a computer to shoot stills at intervals. Quicktime Pro can import those still into a movie.

[Merkin]

The Nikon D700 doesn't do normal video, but it does have a built in intervalometer.

[EcoLeica]

For stop motion animation, you are most likely going to need a remote shutter release. This will allow you trip the shutter, change your animation and trip the shutter again without touching the camera. A intervalometer is a timed shutter release system which allows you to trip the shutter over a predetermined time for example 5 shots per minute. I cannot see this as being very useful for stop-motion and is more a tool for time-lapse photography. A system that couples to a laptop as mentioned above would be ideal and if i remember that is what they used in corpsebride. this will allow you view the shot in your laptop with out disturbing your animation. Once you have taken your sequence then open it up in Quicktime pro as a image sequence and export to your particular format. Since most formats are now 16:9 native then it might useful to remember to frame for widescreen when your composing your shot.

Hope this helps

[pvdhaar]

The Nikon D60 has a stop motion function that creates an animation of a sequence of still pictures. It doesn't offer continuous video though..

[Benjamin Marks]

Thanks to all for your interesting and informative answers. - Ben Marks

[infrar3d]

Saw this on PDN a few days ago.

http://www.pdnpulse.com/2009/11/fantastic-mr-fox-movie-shot-with-nikon-d3s.html

[semordnilap]

Make sure you have a good, heavy tripod, perhaps even secured to the ground, or it will move and you'll have framing problems!!!