Slide show of 15 images that I chose to use in my Flash movie.

 

The movie can be viewed from the SoLL Computer Graphics website, ZippyVideos, www.swfup.com or go to www.humyo.com. If you do not have an account, right click to download the file at Humyo. Download and Play SWF animations with Flash Movie Player

.swf file size is 3.01MB and the movie plays for 2.09 minutes at 25 frames per second (frame rate 25), YouTube recommends a frame rate of 30 but because of the resolution I compromised at 25. It may have been better to lower it even further as I would have liked it to run a bit smoother.

Sound format is mp3 as it is the most common format for this purpose providing good quality sound at a small file size. File size is 264.3 KB, 12% of the original track, 16 kbps Mono at 44.1 kHz. The movie is streamed to avoid waiting for it to download and set to loop. It was a bad idea to loop it as Flash player is lacking in sound control, you can go to control and untick the loop. The sequence of the animated images has been put together to fit the sound and vice versa. The movie has been tested in Flash at download setting DSL/32.6 KB/s as most people that are into video and music would have broadband. Download simulation passed.

The music I have used is first half of “Vision” from the Album “Gaodhal’s Vision” by Joe O’Donnel’s band Shkayla, and is used with his permission. You can go to Shkayla’s MySpace or their Website if you want to know more and listen to the music.

Cameras I used were Panasonic DMC-FZ20, 72 dpi 24 bit, .jpg and .tif, and Nikon D40, 300 dpi, 24 bit, .jpg and .NEF (raw). The difference in dpi (dots per inch, property of the printer and its software) puzzled me and I found out that, it is the default resolution that the camera thinks the photos will be displayed and printed. I may however, want to print at 360 dpi, the camera is not going to know so these numbers are meaningless and they cannot be changed. Dpi refers to print quality and does not change the size of an image. It is ppi, pixels per inch, which controls the image size. To confuse matters, Pc monitors have a default display of 96 dpi and Macs 72 dpi, both can be changed to anything you want, I.e. 120 dpi if you want things to appear bigger. Monitor resolution is the combination of horizontal and vertical pixels and dpi, pixels/dots per inch.

Film light sensitivity ISO 200 is used for most of the photos; two are 450 and the night time images 1600. High ISO speed can cause noise/ grain and that has occurred in the last three images of the movie. A better result may have been achievable by using a tripod, manually set to slower ISO speed and increase the exposure time.

Metering mode, pattern (multi-zone metering), measures the light intensity in several points in the picture and evens out the exposure based on these readings. I did notice that the two cameras behaved differently as I had some difficulty getting the Nikon to stay focused where I wanted and experimented with AF, AEL lock and manual focus without really understanding how it works. This is something that will need some further looking into.

Shutter speed priority is set for image 15, 14, 12 and I think it would have been better to use that setting for images 13 and 11 as well. For most of the photos, I had the camera set on aperture priority when I was not dealing with movement and low light and wanted to have control over depth of field. It was fun to experiment with aperture values, ranging from f3.5 to f25. I have some examples that I may add at a later stage.

White balance is set to cloudy weather, even when it was only partially cloudy and sunny or just sunny. There is much good advice on the internet. I think it worked well; the colour temperature describes the feel of the day correctly.

Photo editing: I only had to correct image 6 as a raw file because of lack of contrast. I did try to make changes to some other photos as well just to see if I could make any improvements but why try to fix something that works. A few minor adjustments and retouching on some of the .jpg’s were done. I resized to h-1000px w-1330-1540px to allow for zooming in without loss of quality, made my compromise between file size and quality and saved for Web, ready for import to Flash library. File size range between 113 – 274 KB per image.

The photos were resized again, this time to h-500px w-667 or 752px and saved for Web as before, and ready for upload to Slide and Flickr. File size is between 40 – 96 KB per image depending on detail and depth of field. All images saved for Web are 24 bit for colour depth and 96 dpi (default in Photoshop when saving for Web, assuming print at 96 dpi, ref. “Cameras” above).

Image 9 & 10 were taken with my Panasonic camera and I found out in practise how large .tif’s are compared to .raw, which is much smaller size and have better quality. Personally I would not bother with tif’s, at least not as long as the images I produce are aimed for the web. It would however be nice to have a camera that can take .raw files along with .jpg. Even if they are not being used at the time, storing them for later may be good, and would enable quality prints. The tif’s I took were saved for Web as above.

I have used non-destructive editing in Photoshop. The tif’s are the images that I put the most effort into in Photoshop. Only two are in the movie but you can see the rest on Slide and Flickr.

The photos are from Wyken Slough 10, 11, 12 and 16 December, the War Memorial Park 13 December and Coombe Abbey 6 January.

I went out on days when the weather was clear and sunny. To create a variation in the display of images in my movie I have taken close ups, at a distance, some when standing up and others from low on the ground. I have tried to look for interesting subjects, colours and contrast, and achieve good compositions within the frame and decide on focal point. My mission has been to capture the light, feel of the moment and time of day.

671 individual images were taken in total, which was far too many, so in the future I will plan my shots more carefully. It was difficult and time consuming to choose 15 for the movie. To begin with, I narrowed it down to 117, which I printed out as thumbnails so that it would be easier to create a storyboard and visualise the sequence of the movie deciding upon which to use. Keeping in mind how I would fade in and out between images had an impact on which I chose. In addition, I have used images that I thought might work best for the theme, sometimes on the expense of what I would consider better photos and I think it has paid off. I wanted to take the viewers on a travel through from dawn to night. “Dawn & Day – Dusk & Night” describes the sequence of the movie, the music I chose reflects and emphasises the mood I was looking to create and I am happy with the result.