Shooting Stop Motion Canon 7D

[Steve Crow]

If you are on a Mac, I hope you are familiar with the program iStopMotion which seems to be the one I hear of most often – particularly for people just starting out although their applications are quite powerful

https://boinx.com/istopmotion/overview/

I found some basic tips on how to do stop animations on this site: https://www.ehow.com/videos-on_5657_use-istopmotion-animation-software.html

but I wouldn’t think that filming with a Canon 7D would have any particular issues or differences as compared to any other camera. Just from a common sense perspective I think one big issue is always going to be maintaining consistent lighting levels from shot to shot otherwise your animation will flicker – so I’d think you would want to start with a dark room and then set up specific lights that you can control and set up the same exactly the same each time you work on your animation.

Hopefully someone who has actually done this hands-on will chime in and give you more solid advice as I can only generalize.

Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com

[Steve Crow]

Oh I just found this page on the iStopMotion Web site

https://boinx.com/istopmotion/support/inputdevices/

they seem to have lots of great training and support materials there which might be worth checking out even if you are a PC user

Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com

[Tom Nelson]

If I were to do it, I’d shoot with a remote trigger in RAW, and compile all of my footage in After Effects, which can sequence the layers.

Tom Nelson
Videographer/Editor
Essex Television Group

[Steve Crow]

Totally agree on RAW. After Effects would indeed be a great choice for the editing I agree there too but during the production phase, I think running the camera through a laptop application made specifically for stop motion animation is the way to go. For instance, I’m thinking of the capability to compare the still image just taken with a live view of what the camera is seeing now so that you can align everything exactly and make the necessary very minute position changes – I think they call this “onion skinning” from the old paper and pencil days of animation

Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com

[Mary Lee]

I’m using a mac so i’ll definitely look into iStopMotion and the After Effects route. I’ll do some test shots first I think to iron out any issues and have a go with each software.

Many Thanks.

[Dyami Caliri]

If you want to use the live view to assist you in your animation, check out Dragonframe:

https://www.dragonframe.com/

There is a “How It Works” video on the Features page that shows how it can control your camera settings and use the live view, while also recording full RAW for each frame.