Too many pictures?

[mbarq]

Hi, I was wondering...can one take too many pictures with a digital camera?

I don't know how to animate at all, but...I started doing a traditional animation anyway. I read up some, and from what I gathered, I just take pictures of each frame, no?

I did a test run on a putty type thing, and it came out alright, like a flip book (only 15 frames) lasted about 3seconds. I want to make now a more a complex one with inbetweens and what not, but...I calculated it would take about 7,000 frames to make.

I'm all for it, should build my drafting skills a bit. But...I'm worried about my camera. It's a cannon sd1100is and I don't know how much it can take.

[egerie]

Check your memory card? Transfer them on a computer as you go??????

[mbarq]

oh, heh. It's not the memory card I'm worried about, it's the camera itself. Since I'm ignorant when it comes to cameras, I have no idea how my camera will respond to taking 7,000 pictures. Will the "lens" burn out? will something get loose? Maybe the lcd getting messed up.

I think I'm worrying over nothing, but...I've never taken 7,000 pictures with a camera before, so was just wondering if it's possible to mess up a camera that way. but, yeah, memory is not a problem, I can just save them on photobucket, megaupload, picassa, or gmail if I run out of space, or maybe even burn em' on a cd/dvd. thanks!

[Eric Young]

I think your camera will be fine, I'm just a little confused on how a 15 frame animation lasted 3 seconds. Standard frames per second i believe is 30 frames a second.

[ScaryPotato]

If you're doing something along the lines of traditional animation, you can get away with 12 frames per second and no one will notice any jerky motions in the movements. That should save a little wear and tear on your camera if you were calculating for 7000 pics@ 30 pics per second

[mbarq]

haha, yeah, that 3 second, 15 frame animation is veery jumpy (flip book like).

mm...thanks for tips, I guess taking 3500 pictures instead of 7000 isn't so bad, but...24-30 fps would be soo cool

[Noa K]

seems like you're planning a 5 min. film right?...
my only suggestion to you is to time it well, and get your exposer sheet right. sometimes you got "holds" and stuff like that that won't require you to redraw the same frame agin and again...

good luck!

[Katezila]

Is this drawn? Do everything you can to make sure your frames will line up, and that your camera Will. Not. Move. Can you take the images by remote, possibly?
I think your camera will be fine. They don't make 1g memory cards and not expect people to fill that! I've heard an SRL's shutter can go after a long time, but I'm sure its more than 7,000 images.
If you don't want to do 12fps, but are worried about 30fps, do 24. 24 and 30 are both standars, as far as I know. The only traditional studio I know uses 30fps is Studio Ghibli.

[ScaryPotato]

I should correct myself in the earlier post! I originally said 12 fps is fine and that no one would notice the jerky motion.

What I actually meant was that 12 images per second is fine, so long as you film each image for 2 frames which is 24fps. That is the standard for classical animation, and 30fps is usually reserved for computer animation. I didn't know Miyazaki used 30fps Katezila, learn something new every day!

[Katezila]

Ridiculous, isn't it ScaryPotato? They animate almost entirely on 1's as well!

[Braise]

I don't know much, so here's a video on tips on stop animation, including camera types, shutter-speed, and free programs. So.. here you go:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=J89sqxmF5a4

P.S.
Wow, so Miyazaki uses 30 fps? Katezila, was Akira also done in 30fps?

[Katezila]

Haha I don't know about that. I'm not a big anime buff, but I have heard from a couple people about the Studio Ghibli animating at 30fps thing. I trust what they say though.

Btw, sorry Metalclay, didn't mean to start a side convo here. I hope you found the info you needed!

[Katezila]

Well crap. I was wrong about the 30fps. Sorry about that.
They do animate on ones though

[Diphallia]

Well, the camera will eventually break.
That's how it goes around.
But I'm sure it'll be fine!

[mbarq]

haha, no the side convo is fine, but...really? 30 fps? I knew there was something about those Miyazaki Films.

Yes, this will be drawn, I'm still cutting sheets of paper (by hand)...I should invest in a paper cutter. I guess I'll go ahead and take those 7,000 shots i was going to scan it, but...it looks rather ugly, the nice glow from my krypton lamp shining through my bits of legal pad paper on vivid light looks great and gives me the sketchy feel I kinda like.

@katezila, what do you mean by remote?

I'm going to try and get it as stable as I can, it's gonna be hard though, I might end up with a rather trembling animation kinda like don hertzfeldt's but... less awesome xD

also! I'm not using an slr, just a regular point-and-shoot. I soo wanted one of those old animation rigs, you know 16mm, but lol...they're in the thousands, SLRs, aren't too cheap either.

thanks for the vid too, I was thinking about putting the cam on a tripod, but...thought it would look too weird (the angle). I made this contraption for a straight down set shot, but...it's made out of cardboard, so it bends alot and thus not ideal for consistent shots.

think I might just ball park it and do necessary transformations on photoshop :/ -thanks.

[Katezila]

Well I'd suggest seeing of you can get some sort of image capture program, which you can hook a camera up to. That way you can mount the camera in one place, and use the image capture program to take the picture, and it will already be on your computer.
Also, if you can do it this way you won't have to touch the camera, so that really minimizes the chance of it moving.