An E-100 EFX Sports Shot

Mike Werner said:

Haven't seen many E-100 posts lately. Jim Modesto's NHL shot
inspired me to post the results of some recent work where I used
Photoshop to composite parts of images from a 25 image burst
sequence. PS was used to do the usual things like cropping,
levels, and sharpening. It was also used to remove the panning
motion of the camera by shifting all the images to make the
backgrounds lie directly on top of each other. That the way each
racket is shown in its correct physical position relative to the
other rackets. PS was also used to make the string area of several
of the rackets transparent so that the player's leg would show
through the strings (there was no leg behind those rackets when the
images were taken). The sequence was shot at 15 fps. Three of the
rackets where left out because they passed behind the player's body
or out of the frame.



--
Using Olympus E100rs

Click to expand...

• Using Olympus E100rs

Mike Werner said:

Haven't seen many E-100 posts lately. Jim Modesto's NHL shot
inspired me to post the results of some recent work where I used
Photoshop to composite parts of images from a 25 image burst
sequence. PS was used to do the usual things like cropping,
levels, and sharpening. It was also used to remove the panning
motion of the camera by shifting all the images to make the
backgrounds lie directly on top of each other. That the way each
racket is shown in its correct physical position relative to the
other rackets. PS was also used to make the string area of several
of the rackets transparent so that the player's leg would show
through the strings (there was no leg behind those rackets when the
images were taken). The sequence was shot at 15 fps. Three of the
rackets where left out because they passed behind the player's body
or out of the frame.



--
Using Olympus E100rs

Click to expand...

Mike Werner said:

Haven't seen many E-100 posts lately. Jim Modesto's NHL shot
inspired me to post the results of some recent work where I used
Photoshop to composite parts of images from a 25 image burst
sequence. PS was used to do the usual things like cropping,
levels, and sharpening. It was also used to remove the panning
motion of the camera by shifting all the images to make the
backgrounds lie directly on top of each other. That the way each
racket is shown in its correct physical position relative to the
other rackets. PS was also used to make the string area of several
of the rackets transparent so that the player's leg would show
through the strings (there was no leg behind those rackets when the
images were taken). The sequence was shot at 15 fps. Three of the
rackets where left out because they passed behind the player's body
or out of the frame.



--
Using Olympus E100rs

Click to expand...

Inigo Montoya said:

Mike Werner said:

Haven't seen many E-100 posts lately. Jim Modesto's NHL shot
inspired me to post the results of some recent work where I used
Photoshop to composite parts of images from a 25 image burst
sequence. PS was used to do the usual things like cropping,
levels, and sharpening. It was also used to remove the panning
motion of the camera by shifting all the images to make the
backgrounds lie directly on top of each other. That the way each
racket is shown in its correct physical position relative to the
other rackets. PS was also used to make the string area of several
of the rackets transparent so that the player's leg would show
through the strings (there was no leg behind those rackets when the
images were taken). The sequence was shot at 15 fps. Three of the
rackets where left out because they passed behind the player's body
or out of the frame.



--
Using Olympus E100rs

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

BAKlink said:

Slap Shot in hockey
Baseball swing or pitcher's motion
golf swing?

Kindly invest another 40 hours or so in these for our amusement!

BAK

================================

Inigo Montoya said:

Mike Werner said:

Haven't seen many E-100 posts lately. Jim Modesto's NHL shot
inspired me to post the results of some recent work where I used
Photoshop to composite parts of images from a 25 image burst
sequence. PS was used to do the usual things like cropping,
levels, and sharpening. It was also used to remove the panning
motion of the camera by shifting all the images to make the
backgrounds lie directly on top of each other. That the way each
racket is shown in its correct physical position relative to the
other rackets. PS was also used to make the string area of several
of the rackets transparent so that the player's leg would show
through the strings (there was no leg behind those rackets when the
images were taken). The sequence was shot at 15 fps. Three of the
rackets where left out because they passed behind the player's body
or out of the frame.



--
Using Olympus E100rs

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
C-2100 since 4/1/02, B-300, B-macro, Vivitar 285HV flash, eMac/OS
10.2,
P-shop 7, Epson 785EPX printer
Nashua, NH, USA
http://www.pbase.com/baklink

Click to expand...

Debbie L said:

Thanks for sharing the animated. I like both the still and
animated. What a neat thing to do with a persons golf swing. Have
you ever done one of those? If so, can you share it....
--



Debbie
2 UZI's/EZI/2020

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Mike Werner said:

To BAKlnk - on using the same technique on other subjects.
Any action that happens at a predictable time, in a confined space,
is a good candidate for this technique. A golf swing or a pitcher's
delivery would be good. A hockey slap shot would be harder
(unpredicta-
ble in time and location). I've seen it done nicely for a skateboarder
doing some tricks in the air off a ramp. Another idea might be a horse
going over a jump, though you might want to slow the capture speed
down to 5 fps for that.

To Maxven - I agree. The E-100 is still in a class of its own. I will
not consider purchasing another camera until one comes out that can
shoot at least 15 fps, at 5 megapixels, for under $1500. (Did you hear
that Olympus Certainly, I will shoot throughout 2003 with my
E-100.

To 'UZ'pShoot'ERS' - The shot may have been more interesting if I
could
have shown the contact point with the ball. To do that I would have
had to crop less tightly. I made a decision from the start that I
wanted
to concentrate on the beautiful swing arc. It's also nice the way the
racket is accelerated so smoothly. The player is Henrietta Nagyova of
Slovakia, #46 in the world at the time.

I first started doing these racket freeze sequences to make animations
look more interesting. It was only after doing dozens of animations
that
I realized these sequences might be interesting as stills too. The
link to
this sequence as a Quicktime animation:

http://www.mfwweb.com/tennis/LA02/Nagyova_03.mov

Notes on file sizes: the Photoshop file that contains all of the
original
images is 60 mb! The ImageReady file that holds the cropped, resized,
animation file with separate layers for rackets, strings, etc., is
10.6
mb. The Quicktime version of the animation is 0.5 mb.

Click to expand...

Mike Werner said:

Hello Debbie-

I've only tried this technique on tennis and paddle tennis because
they are sports that I play. But golf would be ideally suited to
it. You could set up a studio in your backyard or garage. A
player doesn't have to be on a course, or even a driving range to
have his/her golf swing photographed. (Though I'd suggest using
plastic balls Also, because you know EXACTLY where the golfer
will be standing you can put your camera on a tripod. My shots are
done either hand held or with a monopod. Either way there's going
to be some camera motion which has to be taken out with Photoshop.
And as you probably noticed when looking at my animation, you can't
take all the camera motion out (at least I can't yet). If you look
at the background in the animation, you'll see it moving around a
little which I find distracting. Even if you adjust all the frames
to within one pixel accuracy (i.e. the best you can do), it's not
enough to eliminate noticeable movement of the background in an
animation. You would not have this problem if you could put the
camera on a tripod. Try it and post the results to this forum.
I'd be interested to see it.

Click to expand...

Debbie L said:

I was thinking of taking the sequential at the next PGA golf
tournament I attend which will be the TPC at Sawgrass in March 03.
So the golf swing will be of one of the pros. I doubt if I would
do as good a job as you but I'll give it a try. Thanks for the
help.

Click to expand...

Mike Werner said:

Nevertheless, the point of contact is sort of the penultimate
moment in tennis. I used to select my images for posting to web
sites based on that criteria as a first priority. Now I consider
other factors to be just as important, such as facial expression
and pose of the body. Here's one for you taken on the same day at
the same tournament. This stroke, Martina Navratilova's backhand
volley, is often called the greatest backhand volley of all time.



--
Using Olympus E100rs

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Debbie L said:

Last year at the TPC I only had the UZI and I took lots of shots
during the 3 days of practice rounds (they don't mind cameras then).

It takes only about 2 seconds to swing a golf club. Using the EZI
at 15 fps I'll be able to get the complete golfers swing. With
the UZI's 1.5 fps I was only getting - for example - the backswing
and follow-thru.

I just went to the Golf Channel and practiced taking some shots...I
set the camera up to take 5 pre-captures and 15 fps. SWEET!!!!

--



Debbie
2 UZI's/EZI/2020

Click to expand...

Debbie L said:

Mike Werner said:

Hello Debbie-

I've only tried this technique on tennis and paddle tennis because
they are sports that I play. But golf would be ideally suited to
it. You could set up a studio in your backyard or garage. A
player doesn't have to be on a course, or even a driving range to
have his/her golf swing photographed. (Though I'd suggest using
plastic balls Also, because you know EXACTLY where the golfer
will be standing you can put your camera on a tripod. My shots are
done either hand held or with a monopod. Either way there's going
to be some camera motion which has to be taken out with Photoshop.
And as you probably noticed when looking at my animation, you can't
take all the camera motion out (at least I can't yet). If you look
at the background in the animation, you'll see it moving around a
little which I find distracting. Even if you adjust all the frames
to within one pixel accuracy (i.e. the best you can do), it's not
enough to eliminate noticeable movement of the background in an
animation. You would not have this problem if you could put the
camera on a tripod. Try it and post the results to this forum.
I'd be interested to see it.

Click to expand...

--



Debbie
2 UZI's/EZI/2020

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