Pardon Me While I Disagree…
Slow Motion is a film-making effect of viewing an event slower than is perceived in the natural world. Or simply slo-mo, as we all know it. Over the last three years since the boom of DSLR video slow motion has become ever-growing in popularity and ease of use. For around a $1,000 you can come close to producing striking slow motion imagery that in the past decades cost well over tens of thousands of dollars.
It was with the aid of photography in the late 19th century, that what started between a few men as a meaningless bet, eventually turned into a life lone scientific and artistic obsession to understand and document human and animal locomotion. It all started at a horse racing track in Palo Alto, California 1887 as a gentlemans bet between Senator and race enthusiast Leland Stanford (right) and some racegoers. A popular debate of the time was whether all four of a horses hoofs were ever off the ground at the same time at any point during the horses stride. Leland Stanford strongly disagreed and set out to prove his argument. Society as a whole aggreed that at no time was the horse ever completely off the ground, and most all depictions of horses in paintings throughout history showed either their back or front feet on the ground.
Passion, Genius, and Murder…
Stanford befriended some hired help, an eccentric english photographer by the name of Eadweard Muybridge (left). His task was to catch a horse in motion, hopefully airborne, thus proving Stanford’s suspicions. The success of this project would require the development of new photographic techniques and equipment. Firstly Muybridge would have to figure out a way to increase shutter speed to levels never before achieved in order to get a sharp image of an object in fast motion. Secondly, Muybridge would need to figure out a way to quickly take multiple pictures in succession to follow the horse as it moves. In 1873 he successfully used one camera to take a photo of a horse in full gallop at the exact moment in question. He found that for a moment, all four legs of the horse were off the ground at one time. Though the press accused Muybridge of tampering with the photograph and refused to acknowledge his findings as legitimate. Muybridge continued to refine his process.
In 1872 an 43 year old Muybridge married Flora Shalcross Stone, 21. Early into the marriage she gained an Admirer (common at the time for women to have admirers) Major Harry Larkyns. Muybrdige thought Flora and Harry’s relationship was exceedingly inappropriate, and eventually sent Flora to live with her mother in Oregon in an attempt to stop the affair. One day in 1874 Muybridge went to visit his wife only to find that she wasn’t home. He found on her table a picture of their son Floredo which he had never seen before. He picked up the photo and happened to turn it over. On the back was written “Little Harry”[8]. Muybridge, enraged realizing his son was actually that of his wife’s lover, decided to halt the affair indefinitely. Muybridge boarded a train for an 80 mile journey Calistoga, California to confront the Major.
After dark on October 17th 1874 [1], Muybridge made his way to a hotel at the Yellow Jacket Mine where Major Harry Larkyns was staying. He called for Larkyns and when he came to the door Muybridge remarked “Good evening Major. I have brought a message from my wife, take it.[1]” and just as the last word came out of his mouth, he pulled out a Smith and Wesson No. 2 Six Shooter[6], shooting Larkyns through the heart [6]. Muybridge was arrested and put to trial.
Throughout the case his legal fees were paid for by his boss/parter Leland Stanford. He plead “not guilty” due to insanity, blaming a head injury from a stagecoach accident. After 13 hours of deliberation, the jury rejected his insanity plea but found him “not guilty” due to justifiable homicide. But the victory would be short lived, neither of them knew it at the time but it would be just five short years before they were back in court again, only this time facing off with one another…
A Horse Named Sallie Gardner…
After the trial Muybridge spend one to two years taking photos and traveling in Central America. This has been noted as a self imposed exile, I presume Muybridge was looking to leave the troubles he had in California and take some time to clear his mind and find himself. In 1877 he returned to Northern California. After 5 years of on and off experiments photographing animal locomotion, Muybridge was ready to debut his findings to the world and prove his experiments validity after being accused of photographic fraud in the past. Muybridge would take two sequences of photos and develop them on the spot for the press.It was a bright and clear Saturday morning June 15th, 1878, journalists and reporters alike from interest in arts to sports gathered for the exhibition.
He with the help of Stanford and engineer John D. Isaacs, set up Twelve Stereoscopic cameras along the sill of a shed aiming outward at a tall backdrop covered in a white sheet. Wires were placed so that the horses would break them as they ran perpendicular to the row of the cameras, triggering the shutter devises. The successive motion of two horses owned by Stanford would be captured for the press that day, Abe Edgington & Sallie Gardner. Edgington was to perform first; a trot with a rider in a Sulky ( similar to a chariot). Next was the main event, the answer to the question that started it all. Sallie Gardner ran unsaddled at a 1:40 Gait (~ 30mph). In just about three tenths of a second the dramatic metal and wood click of twelve shutters could be heard as Sallie went blazing past.
Sallie Gardner’s running gait as photographed by Eadward Muybridge in Palo Alto, California June 15th 1878.
Once the film was fully developed, Muybridge’s pictures revealed a horse with all four legs off the ground at once. The press was astounded. For the first time in history the intricate and graceful motion of a horse ( part of every day life back then) was revealed. Already a respected photographer of the time, Muybridge’s success on that morning threw him into an even brighter spotlight. By this time in his life, Muybridge had put all he was into this project, and he wasn’t about to stop yet.
…to be continued.
Research Sources:
1. Lyman L. Palmer. “History of Napa and Lake Counties, California” San Francisco: Slocum, Bowen & Co., 1881, pages 152-153.
2. Muybridge, E.J. ”Method and Apparatus for Photographing Objects in Motion” U.S. Patent No. 212,864. March 4th, 1879.
3. Eugène Trutat “La Photographie Animée” Paris: Gauthier -Villars, Imprimeur- Libraire, 1899, page 11
4. Eadweard Muybridge. “Animals in Motion” London: Chapman & Hall, 1899 Walter R. Miles.
5. “The Stanford-Muybridge Motion Pictures of 1878-1879″ The Minnesota Bulletin Volume XIV Number 9, September 1929 Mitchell Leslie.
6. “The Man Who Stopped Time” Stanford Magazine May 2001 Brian Clegg.
7. “The Man Who Stopped Time” Washington DC, John Henry Press 2007
8.”Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Photography- A:1 Index Volume 1″ New York, NY, 2007, Taylor and Francis Group LLC, page 968
Daguerrotype, Ambrotype, Tintype
These are three words most people have never heard, but roughly 150 years ago they rocked the world. At any given moment be it our smart phone, iPod, or point-and-shoot, nearly everyone has a camera within reach. Today, people upload three and a half million pictures to Facebook every minute and photos feel more a novelty than a privilege.
Once upon a time when there was more than one button, and before saying “cheese” was ever invented, photography was a much purer art form. Costly, tedious, and often dangerous, the act of capturing an image required a now long lost skill set. Those lucky enough to live at the dawn of photography are now gone, but the results of their ability and ingenuity still exists today, in the eyes of people of the portraits they took.
© Jordan M. Lockhart/ AmericanDSLR 2012
Lately I have been collecting images from the 1840′s to the 1890′s; and whenever I try to tell people about them they just don’t get it or don’t care. So I thought it would be easier to show others what I feel they should be seeing rather than tell them. The video showcases some of my collection of Ambrotypes.
Daguerrotype- /dəˈɡɛrətaɪp/ (French: daguerréotype) was the first commercially successful photographic process. The image is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate. The raw material for plates was called Sheffield plate, plating by fusion or cold-rolled cladding and was a standard hardware item produced by heating and rolling silver foil in contact with a copper support. [2] The surface of a daguerreotype is like a mirror, with the image made directly on the silvered surface; it is very fragile and can be rubbed off with a finger, and the finished plate has to be angled so as to reflect some dark surface in order to view the image properly. Depending on the angle viewed, and the color of the surface reflected into it, the image can change from a positive to a negative.
Ambrotype- The ambrotype (from Greek: ἀνβροτός — “immortal”, and τύπος — “impression”) oramphitype is a photograph that creates a positive image on a sheet of glass using the wet plate collodion process. In the United States, ambrotypes first came into use in the early 1850s. The wet plate collodion process was invented just a few years before that by Frederick Scott Archer, but ambrotypes used the plate image as a positive, instead of a negative. In 1854, James Ambrose Cutting of Boston took out several patents relating to the process and may be responsible for coining the term “ambrotype”.
Tintype- Tintype, also melainotype and ferrotype, is a photograph made by creating a direct positive on a sheet of ironmetal that is blackened by painting, lacquering or enamelling and is used as a support for a collodionphotographic emulsion.
Photographers usually worked outside at fairs, carnivals etc. and as the support of the tintype (there is no actualtin used) is resilient and does not need drying, photographs can be produced only a few minutes after the picture is taken.
• One, two, threee •
It’s still March 1st here in Los Angeles as I write this but lucky for us The new Canon 5D MkIII has already been unveiled in singapore for Canon’s scheduled big March 2nd announcement.
- Full HD video recording is supported in multiple formats, including 1080/30p, 24p, 25p; 720/60p, 50p; 480/60p, 50p. While recording video, a 4GB automatic file partition is employed in order to gain longer continuous recording times, up to 29 minutes 59 seconds. Both All i-frame and IPB compressions are supported as well as the standard H.264/MPEG -4 AVC codec. Embedding the time code is also possible for greater convenience when recording with multiple cameras.Video performance is further enhanced with the ability to manually adjust your exposure settings and audio levels while recording. By employing Live View, you can view your recording on the LCD and make settings changes with a dedicated menu tab on the fly. The DIGIC 5+ processor also dramatically improves video response times and helps to reduce color artifacts, aberrations, and moiré.
The Dual Axis Electronic Level is also functional in on the LCD and can display a full 360° of roll and +/- 10° of pitch in 1° increments. When used in conjunction with Live View mode, a smaller display is placed over the image. Live View mode permits real-time image review and can also place grid lines over the image for compositional help. You can also zoom into and navigate within the image when in Live View and use the grid lines for minute control and precision over the alignment of your photograph.
A High Dynamic Range (HDR) mode is also incorporated and allows for the creation of HDR images in-camera, reducing the time needed to manually overlay images in post-production. When using this mode, a series of bracketed exposures are made of the same image, then automatically integrated into the same frame, resulting in a photograph without blown highlights or blocked up shadows and a long middle range of tones. This mode is especially useful when photographing scenes with a great deal of contrast.
- Maximum Clip length now 30 Minutes rather than 12
- Screen upgraded from 3 inches to 3.2 inches
- Three times the HDR capability with now up to 9 exposures per shot (bracketing)
- Dual CF/SD card slots
- Timecode embedded into video clips
- 60fps capability in 720p
- iso up to 25600 and 102400 expanded
CLICK… CLICK… CLICK…
For most time lapses it is not uncommon to leave your shutter clicking for hours on end, and is easy to rack up over a thousand photos in just a few time lapses. Obviously this is much more of a strain on a shutter than it would undergo normally in the hands of a non-time lapsing photographer. But is it bad? Well, since a camera shutter does have a life span and will one day need replacing, you are unfortunately drawing that day nearer with every click you take. But the answer is not so black and white to say it’s bad or it isn’t bad, because shutters have a long life to live…
Depending on the model, Canon cameras have a shutter life expectancy of 50,000 to 300,000 actuations.
An average time lapse is made up of a few hundred pictures. Personally I make sure every time lapse I film has a minimum total running time of 15 seconds.That’s 360 pictures[4] per time lapse. A Canon 7D’s shutter life for example is rated at about 150,000 actuations ( clicks). So although each time lapse chips away at the life of your shutter, you have to do some serious time lapsing to wear it out.
For parts and labor it will probably cost you $250 and up to replace your camera shutter. Although it’s not uncommon for you to buy, use, and sell your camera in under the life span of your shutter. To understand this better, here is a list of what you can get out of shutter with a life span of 150,000 actuations.[1]
One shutter life is roughly equal to:
- 150,000 Pictures [1]
- 416 Time Lapses [2]
- 1 Hour 44 Minutes of Time Lapse Video [3]
- 150,000 Video Clips [1]
So in conclusion if an average time lapse is 360 pictures and a $250 shutter lasts for 150,000 pictures, then each time lapse is costs you about 6 cents. So look between your couch cushions if you have to, get out there and lapse some time.
[1] Rough estimate of a Canon 7D’s shutter life span
[2] Assuming each time lapse is a total of 15 seconds on a 24p time line or 360 photos.
[3] 150,000 pictures = 6250 seconds = 104.166 minutes = ~1 hour 44 minutes
[4] 15 second time lapse is 360 pictures @ 24fps
The Canon 300D first released in Summer 2003 had a notoriously low shutter lifespan, many consumers experienced shutter failure at 10,000 to 50,000 actuations.
Early Days of Visual Effects:
From stop motion, to miniatures, and funny costumes, special effects have been intertwined into film since the early days of cinema. First in 1895 with a film produced by Thomas Edison and directed by Alfred Scott with an 18 second film reenacting the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots. Scott guided the actors through the scene up until the executioner raised the axe, where he then had them pause while he replaced the actress playing Mary with a dummy. He then resumed the scene where the executioner finished his shocking swing of the axe, beheading Mary Stuart the dummy. You’ve probably done this type of effect before in some of your early films from grade school, but in 1895 this trick was truly inventive. Visual effects became a more and more desired part of production as it enabled visuals that were difficult or impossible to film in reality. Some of the most groundbreaking films for their time in the field of visual effects include: “The Enchanted Drawing” (1900), “The Great Train Robbery” (1903), “The Ten Commandments” (1923), “Sunrise” (1927), “King Kong” (1933), “The wizard of Oz” (1939), “The Thief of Baghdad” (1940), “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” (1954), “Forbidden Planet” (1956), “Jason and the Argonauts” (1963), “Mary Poppins” (1964), “Star Wars” (1977)
Today:
Almost anything is possible in films today, often each big blockbuster claiming it’s more visually advanced than the previous. There are two types of visual effects: ones you see, and ones you don’t. Movies like “Avatar” ( 2009) and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” ( 2011) thrive on Visual Effects and use them as a selling point. Even being displayed in IMAX and 3D to emphasize 
these visuals further. But sometimes the best special effects, go unnoticed. The ones you don’t see. How about the film “Shutter Island” (2010), did you now that there were over 6 0 0 Visual Effect shots in that movie? Take a look at some of the before and after images below from “Shutter Island”. There were a few obvious effects such as flames and ashes, but for the most part Visual Effects were used to help portray an Island that didn’t exist in reality, but quite possibly could.
Images Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Another great is example of this is a Television show called “Boardwalk Empire” (2010). Take a look at this Visual Effects break-down video for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire Season 2.
What type of Visual Effects do you prefer?
