How to Capture the BEST Individual Frame from your Digital Movie

[seacoastartillery]

     For longer than we'd care to admit, Mike and I wondered, How the heck do these guys get those great action photos??  We were very frustrated with digital cameras in general, and their notoriously slow shutter speed, (Yes we are aware of some exceptions), until we took the time online to get educated about 'Frame Capture'.  These two words and the inexpensive software to actually make this possible changed the way we looked at those spectacular action photos.  They were now possible to create, even by photography challenged newbies like us!

     Just about all new digital cameras these days have movie capability, as do more than 50% of cell phones.  So just how easy or hard is it to Find, and then Extract, that BEST frame from a little video clip?  After trying to figure out several FREE frame capture softwares, we were again thoroughly disgusted and completely frustrated.  There has to be a low cost, simple, easy to understand, and quick way to use Frame Capture software out there in Cyber-Land, somewhere, we thought.

     There is and it's name is "Frame Shots".  So, if you have limited time, or just are frustrated with the free crap out there, you can pay $24.95 for a years use of Frame Shots and have your beautiful Still shot plucked from your movie in five minutes or less to post on GBO or send to a friend via Email. We tried 3 low cost softwares and this was the best and easiest to use we found.  There are others, to be sure.  We encourage you to try a few demo versions and decide which one is best for you.  We have no association with Frame Shots, Inc.

Some examples are below,

Tracy and Mike


This series of individual frames were from a movie Mike and I made of GGaskill's 30mm rifled gun he fired at last years Montana Model Cannon Shoot in Cut Bank, Montana.  You can use can use this software to capture frames from movies shot in any speed.  This movie was shot in  600 FPS, but we have had similar results with capturing frames from movies we shot in std. speed which is 28 to 30 FPS.




Does anybody know what that long black plume is?  We've seen lots of blanks with this phenomenon, but never a projectile shot before this one.




This is the frame most people are looking for, the muzzle blast!




Then, there is the smoke, lots and lots of smoke.  That's exactly what's wrong with smokeless powder, it doesn't have enough Smoke!
Do you see the projectile yet?




Oh, there it is!!




It's gone.

[KABAR2]

T&M,

Thanks for the info and the frames, I have yet to use my digital camera to make a video
but plan to in the future and a good frame shot would be nice.

Allen <><

[Double D]

Thank for posting that Tracy. With that high speed warp drive camera you can get some stunning pictures.  The hidden pictures are disclosed.  Wow!!

The guys with a standard cameras can still get some super picture also.   For a while  all I used was windows movie maker.

You can stop the video in Movie maker and move one frame at a time until you find the frame you want, click on tools and  click on take picture from preview.  That will give you a frame shot. Here's one I just made.



Here is a  link to Window Movie maker so you can download it if you don't have it. http://download.live.com/moviemaker
 
I recently bought a new camera and it has full blown HD video capability as well as a being a still camera.

I find that the software that usually comes with a digital camera is very limited in it's capability.; usable to get started and learn, but limited.  The professionals all shout the virtues of Adobe photshop...but I don't find $500 plus for software a virtue.  My mentor who is guiding me in writing my Martini book, told me about Corel Paint Shop Photo Pro.  All the same features as Photoshop, but for $70.  I use a miniscule portion of its capability, but learn more all the time.  When I bought the new camera, I bought new video edit software, also from Corel.  I didn't buy the full blown Corel VideoStudio.  I have no interest in producing anything more than short video clip for posting here, so I bought VideoStudio Express 2010 for $40.

The commercial software buys you better results.









Look at the seams between boards in the platform and you can see the gun move.

Unlike Tracy's high speed camera, my new camera only shoots at 30 frames per second. In between every picture of mine above, Tracy would have 33 more pictures.

These pictures are part of the fun shooting these guns.

[seacoastartillery]

    You are very welcome, Allen.  Mike and I hope you have an opportunity to try frame capture soon. Double D, thank you and we are glad you posted that series too.  It shows that you can, indeed, capture kool frames from std. speed movies.  I love that ball of incandescent gas that you showed.  We got a similar one during the 4th of July post 3 years ago of the Brooke tube shooting on a test stand with the old movie camera which was std. speed only.  In Montana the camera our company purchased was brand new, so we rarely shot anything in std. speed. 

     In Montana, we shot one movie clip in Std. speed format though, that of Ernie's bowling ball departing tera-firma for the stratosphere after being fired from our Phaixhans Monster Mortar.  We think it's much easier to get a good Muzzle Blast shot with a medium or large bore cannon than with a smaller one.  We believe the flash of 1.5 Lbs. of BP would not only be larger, but of a longer duration, as well.  It might last 2 or 2.5 frames at 30 FPS, rather than 1 frame from a movie of a gun shooting a lesser volume of powder.

Mike and Tracy

A frame capture of 1 of 3 frames showing fire and flames.

[Double D]

You capture something I have only seen in high speed, and that is that dark ejecta just before the incandescent gas....I wonder what that is?

[Terry C.]

Was this the first shot?

My first guess was fouling from a previous shot being blown clear of the muzzle.

[Double D]

might be fouling, but there sure is lot of it...

[GGaskill]

While looking for previous references to Windows Movie Maker, I found this thread and I present this thought for your entertainment.

Regarding the black cloud preceding the shot and fireball, consider the following:  the shot is a flanged one that has to expand before sealing the bore.  The charge is ignited at the rear so the front of the charge is seeing pressure before it is ignited.  The cloud may be finely fragmented black powder blown past the shot prior to its own ignition by the burning charge behind it.

Just a thought.

[seacoastartillery]

     George,   I think you may really be onto something here.  The main reason I think so is that this phenomenon is most frequently associated with the firing of blank charges where the consumption of the powder charge is less complete and more unburned powder is ejected before it is burned, because there is no projectile, the inertia-at-rest, of which, retards quick, low-pressure, egress of the front portion of the powder charge.

     We could determine what is going on if we had a much better high speed camera.  probably if we anted up about 100 grand, we could get one which could resolve the individual grains well enough to determine the material of which they are made and do all this at about 10,000 or 25,000 FPS.

     Lacking that amount of moola, one of us would probably have to come up with a 'Cheap' alternative solution.

Any thoughts?


Tracy

[GGaskill]

I suppose that putting a sabot between the propulsion charge of BP and a propelled charge of BP might work, although the grains wouldn't have the squeezing effect of passing past the shot.  Maybe put an undersized sabot (which wouldn't expand) in front of a charge and see what happens then; that might work in a smoothbore.  Although one would think that windage would already cause that since most people don't use sealing sabots in smoothbore loads, although the additional mass of the shot might cause a quicker burn.

Maybe put a few layers of corrugated paper between sections of BP to limit the burn of the forward part without adding much additional mass.

If you really wanted to complicate the matter, you could put a quickly moving board (side to side) in front of the muzzle maybe 6 feet out and fire the gun and you would get a strip that recorded the impacts of the muzzle products from one end to the other, thus separating them in time.

[Cat Whisperer]

Interesting concept.  Dr Franklin Mann, in his book (early 1920's) used a device in front of the rifle to determing velocity.  It was a 6' diameter spinning disk with two layers a known distance apart spinning at a known speed.  Comparing the angular distance between the holes he calculated the velocity.

A similar device could indicate at least the sequence of 'stuff' going out the muzzle.

[GGaskill]

A disk would be easier to get moving in advance of the shot and would remain in front of the barrel no matter how long it took to get the shot fired.  The only problem would be the combustion products getting spread over the whole surface of the disk but that might be controllable with baffles.

You would have to determine how long a duration you wanted to capture and, from that, what RPM to use.