Chronophotography of seagulls at a beach in Sardinia.

[Adam]

Can't say I've seen something like this before- how'd you preserve the background?

[Pete_XL]

Can't say I've seen something like this before- how'd you preserve the background?

I guess you are right - in this special form I also did not find anything comparable out there. There are others publishing images of dark moving objects (mostly birds) in front of a brighter but static background(i. e. sky - search for "Iskiographie" = painting with shadows) and also (mostly ancient) studies on bright moving subjects (etc, dancers) in front of a static darker background. The challenge is to combine lighter and darker objects in front of a non static, real background scene with brighter AND darker content (relative to the moving objects).

My underlying technique is a by-product of my actual astroprocessing workflow and it is still in a kind of testing status. So please understand that I would prefer not to disclose details on the how-to-do in an open photo sharing post.

Nevertheless the chronophoto method offers a wide scope of applications and promises interesting results like these for example:





Kites! (#1) by pete_xl, auf Flickr

Some more examples can be found here: Wings & Things moving in time....! | Flickr Some of the images were made from Iphone and Lumia smartphone video sequences, others with my K3ii. I'd preferred to have used only Pentax but sadly there is still ist no 4K video format availlable with Pentax gear .

But the method allows to image movements that are very slow in combination with full resolution interval shots. This is a K3ii chronophoto tiny snails slipping around on a surfboard:




Hope you like it!
Pete

[Adam]

I guess you are right - in this special form I also did not find anything comparable out there. There are others publishing images of dark moving objects (mostly birds) in front of a brighter but static background(i. e. sky - search for "Iskiographie" = painting with shadows) and also (mostly ancient) studies on bright moving subjects (etc, dancers) in front of a static darker background. The challenge is to combine lighter and darker objects in front of a non static, real background scene with brighter AND darker content (relative to the moving objects).

My underlying technique is a by-product of my actual astroprocessing workflow and it is still in a kind of testing status. So please understand that I would prefer not to disclose details on the how-to-do in an open photo sharing post.

Nevertheless the chronophoto method offers a wide scope of applications and promises interesting results like these for example:





Kites! (#1) by pete_xl, auf Flickr

Some more examples can be found here: Wings & Things moving in time....! | Flickr Some of the images were made from Iphone and Lumia smartphone video sequences, others with my K3ii. I'd preferred to have used only Pentax but sadly there is still ist no 4K video format availlable with Pentax gear .

But the method allows to image movements that are very slow in combination with full resolution interval shots. This is a K3ii chronophoto tiny snails slipping around on a surfboard:




Hope you like it!
Pete

Super cool stuff! If you decide to share your technique, I think this would make for an interesting homepage piece.

Adam
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[Pete_XL]

Super cool stuff! If you decide to share your technique, I think this would make for an interesting homepage piece.

I am very busy at the moment (job) and I need some more time to improve and optimize the method. If you agree I will contact you in a PM when time has come....

[Adam]

I am very busy at the moment (job) and I need some more time to improve and optimize the method. If you agree I will contact you in a PM when time has come....

Absolutely!

[rkappleby]

Wonderful - those are really unique images

[Kerrowdown]

seagulls at a beach in Sardinia

Quite amazing, I don't care how you achieved this, it's just amazing as is, well done indeed.

P.S. Just mulling this over and thinking about this as a possible explanation... shot in some form of burst mode and every other shot removed and then remerged back into one image.

Not expecting a reply either way, I'm just thinking aloud.

You may well have something here, that is fairly unique and could have some commercial earning potential for you, good luck with that.

[Pete_XL]

Quite amazing, I don't care how you achieved this, it's just amazing as is, well done indeed.

P.S. Just mulling this over and thinking about this as a possible explanation... shot in some form of burst mode and every other shot removed and then remerged back into one image.

Not expecting a reply either way, I'm just thinking aloud.

You may well have something here, that is fairly unique and could have some commercial earning potential for you, good luck with that.

Thank you for the flowers ! I feel honored by the interest the chonophotos arouse here in this forum. And I really feel also quite uncomfortable to stay vague because all the time I have shared my techniques and ideas and have profited a lot from all the others doing the same. But though I generally have no commercial interest some key aspects in this technique seem to be too rare to just spread them uncontrolled. I would rather optimize my workflow and test the method on other targets and perhaps publish the result in some appropriate media or expositions if they are worth it then and before I reveal the details.

Your explanatory approach is right in the aspect that a series of images of moving objects or subjects can work as a data basis. This can be video frames, interval image sequences (timelapses) or shots in burst mode. But especially when it comes to video frames with sometimes thousands of single images per sequence the limits of i. e. Photoshop layer techniques are exceeded as well as the possibility for reasonable manual interventions. The following scene is a sequence with about 1,500 images as an example for a K3ii video sequence. The black wingtips are missing here because it was an early approach and one key clue was still missing in my workflow, The blurred fore- and background is a result of strong wind. The processing time I needed was about 10 minutes (disregarding the frame-export-time from the video program).



For a managable number of frames it is trivial to work with PS layers and pierce through the darker or brighter pixels of the moving subjects with the correspondent layer blend mode. But one must decide to take the darker OR the brighter pixels when using layer modes! As far as I know the removing, merging and remerging thing you mention can not be done with standard layer blending or masking techniques when we are talking of i. e. hundreds of white seagulls flying in front of a blue sky (brighter) above and in front of a populated beach (darker). But the layer blending works for black birds in front of a blue sky or for a white horse in front of a dark background as you see it when you google for "chronophotography". By the way you also find shorter sequences with mixed tones but these seem to be the result of masking and retouching techniques .

I will visit the zoo and aquarium as soon as there is time to find interesting moving targets for further improvement and learning and will share the results here.

P.S. If anybody out there is on the same track it would be nice to contact me via PM and we perhaps join our techniques